DOC RENT RESUME 'RD 199 757 CS 206 243 AUTHOR Gentry; Larry 4. TITLE Pundtuation Instruction in Elementary School Textbooks. INSTITUTION 'Southwest Regional Laboratory fOr Educational Research and Development, Los.Alamitos, Calif. ;PONS AGENC1 'National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington,D.C. EEPORT NO SWRL-tN-2-81/C2 PUB DATE 10 Mar 81 CONTRACT 400-80-0108 NOTE 36p. EDRS PRICE ME01/PCO2 PlusPostage. DESCRIPTORS *Content Analysis; Elementary Education:English Instruction; *Instructional Design; Instructonal Materials:- *Language.. Arts: * Punctuation; *Textbook -Content; Textbook Evaluation; Textbook Research; , *Writing Skills ABSTRACT A computer-assisted analysis was conduCted of the punctuation skills taught in nine series of languagearts textbooks. Each text was subjected to a detailed, page-by-pageanalysis of instructional content, 'resulting ina content-specific analysis of punctuation instruction at each-grade level. Theresults indicated significant differencei among the texts in thetreatment of punctuation skills. Some texts, especially thosestressing the primacy Of oral language, gavd the subject-minimalattention. Those that gave-greater ewphasis to written composition tendedto include .a correspondingly larger number of exercises. Differencesamong texts also extended to the grade levels at which specific skillswere introduced. .The introduction of quotation marks, forexample, began in five different series at five ,different gradelevels. Seven other punctuation'skills spanned four grades in leveldf,introduction.,Of the 34 different skills noted in the analysis, onlysix were taught in. all nine textbook series. Seven of the 'nine series expanded punctuation instruction dramatically in the th.iFdgrade. Another significant jump occurred in fourth-irade, but itwas difficult'to locate commonalities among the texts beyond the fourthgrade. In summary, it was difficult to det;ect a systematic pattern of instruction .reflecting an expert body of opinion. (EL) **** ****************** * ***** * * ****** *** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are thebe can' be made from the original docume ***************************** SOI W E1-7 REGIONAL LA BOR ATOM TECH N ICA L NOTE U.R. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) TbiN tkietenereKann been le rntlileeff fecovixtffoltirhe eteeOn Or ortPotrillio0 or.goamili It DATE: March 10, 1981 Mlnrr cr.arnjes have brim "mile el iTuprove feerodoeflOn febeep NO: 2-81/02 4 Ponff.Of view or upiniOne %heed in :NS (leer reen1 to fief ntretb-eafily reoresent ulhtwl NIE _ idcy. PUNCTUATION INSTRUCTION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS Larry A. Gentry ABSTRACT An analysis of nine language arts series was undertaken to identify the scope and _sequence of instructionnstruct on in elementary schools, Similarities and differences among texts and implications for instruction are discissed. This repOrt was prepared under Contract No. 400780-0108 with the National Institute of Education, Department of. Education. Its contents do not. necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of 8duCat' on orof-any'other :agency of the United States Government. PUNCTUATION INSTRUCTION IN ELEMENTARYSCHOOL TEXTBOOKS Larry A. Gentry A perfunctory consideration of writinginstructhan might lead one to believe that the reaching of punctuation skillsis'a relatively stable and straightforwardaspect of the curriculum; language arts educators should be in generalagreement regarding how and when such skills should be taught. Unfortunately, this is not thecase. A review of the.pertinent literature revealsthat there are two majorareas of dispute: (1) To what degree shouldinstruction in puhctuation be emphasized at the-elementary and/or secondaryschool 'levels? 2) Should punctuation skills be taught systematically or,on13, indirectly? The two concerns are not unrelated;those who believe that punctuation skills should not,be emphasizedgenerally support indirect instruction, and those who call fora- greater emphasis usually favor dir c:t. and 'systematic instruction. Tiedt andTied(j1967)are illusir tive of-the first point of vie Punctuation; like spelling, .has beenoveremphasized as ah.espect-ofcompositiOn., Agai1,we stress the importance of placing primary-emphasis incomposition on the ideaS' expressed rather than the. mechanicsof recording the ideas. (°p. 140) -Punctuation taught to students in theelementary school should be functional, that is,it should-be punctuation needed -by- -the student=-as he Isle] writes. (p.141) Irmscher (1979) offe =rs a lucidargument on behalf of those AA° hold the apposing view.. He belfeyes thatpunctuetLonInstruction should be organized and presented systematically should begin -early: 2 Almost inevitably4py the advanced high schoolyears and certainly in the college years: teachershave adopted an aloof attitude toward mechanics. The errors are there, but teachers rationalize-that they must concern themselves withthe more important matters of substance andstructure. The irony is that a -"simil4r rationalization hasgone on throughout the school years, so that the students'exposure to systematic instruction in mechanics has beenrare and, at best, sporadic. (p 118) . The questi n of how and when punctuationskills should be taught takes on new importance whenone examines the propensity of punctuation er,6rs in the writing ofboth chdren and adults. The ge -scale assessment conducted by the National Assessment ofEducational progress in 1969-70 revealed that punctuationerrors were made byapproXimately 50% of-the 9--year-o 40' of the 13-year-olds, 70% ofthe 17-year-olds, and 76% of the adults (NAEP, 1971). The fact that older Writers make more such errors than..their younger counterparts isexplained by the fact that young writers write shorterpapers and use relatively simple sentence. structure thus provlding themselves with fewer opportunities make mistakes,' The same trend is evident from the resultscf, the 1978 British Columbia Assessment of Written Expression (Conroyand Rodgers 1978 In that study, comma errorswere made by 39% of the 4th- graders. 65% of i1 the 8th- graders, and-75% of the Mh-graders. Furness (1960) noted equally discouragingresults from several earlier studies and concluded thatmistakes in punctuation'were "the most frequent type of mechanical-errors in writing" (p. 185), She postulated that deficiencies in punctuationmust be the result of one of two factors: either "punctuation is difficultto acqui're,.or it has not been_and is not being well taught inour schools" (0 185). While this statement seems to imply that thecause may lie with either of the,.r:07 two factors, she suggests elsewhere that Punctuationmay be difficult to acquire because it is poorly taught. According to Furness, the studies she reviewed show that children tend to havemany of the same needs for using punctuation items at every grade level andthat their ability to meet these needs shows littleimprovement e they advance through the various grade levels. This apparently means: (1) that few children have discove, the importance of these items; (2) thatthe items have been inadequately introduced; (3)that there has been insufficient review and drillupon the items to establish their use; and (4) that insufficientattention has been .g4ven to their use in genuine writingsituations,. (p. '185) Unfortunately, few researchers have takenas much interest in writing mechanics as Furness. C ronne ll (1980), d-19a review of the literature on punctuation and capitalization found very few studies . relating to the teaching of mechanics,and found none that e e very helpful in determining effective methodsof instruction. Methodology asitle, At would seem thatone-important variable in punctuation instruction. is the relative difficulty . of specific punctua= t'ion skills for students at differentgrade levels. Odom (1964) tested the ability of 1818 students the. 4th, 5th, and 6th grades touse 49 various punctuation skills. He found that "there was a definitedegree of difficulty-relative to each of the punctuation skills" (p.13). For example, 68% of the 4th-graderscorrectly-placed a comma between the day and year in a date, but only 6 used-a Comma in separating thename of a person being addressed (e.g., Bill, can 1 help you?). Odom sfindings point out the need for teachersto be aware of the relative difficulty of the various punctuation skills andto design appropriate instruction for students at different grade `)1 iem here, of course, is that no definitive sequence .11s has yet been. established. (Odom's study, Jvexed only three grades.) How then, do teachers gc punctuation? Given the fact tnat e subject is selL in teachers' journals and the fact that little in the way of zary. teaching materials are available for.this subject, iE gal to presume that most teachers rely'on classroom te-tbOoks. According to a study conducted by the Educational -oducts Information Exchange Ins'titute (EPJE 1976), approximately 90% Of classroominstruction is based on commercially Prepared materials. If such is the case, then an adequate description of punctuation' instruction must be gleaned fromthe texts that children use In an attempt to produce sucha description, researchers at 51,./RL condxted_a computerassisted analysis of the skillstaught in nine series of language a textbooks (see Appendix A). Mechanics was one twelve content. categories included in the study. As a general con- area, mechanics was divided into two subcategories--punctuation and capitaliza on. The results of. the analysis