Far too many students end up in high school with poor writing skills, setting them up to struggle in college or careers.
Milena Keller-Margulis, an associate professor at the University of Houston College of Education, is working to change that. She has received a $1.39 million grant from the federal Institute of Education Sciences to develop a quicker and more reliable way to assess younger students’ writing abilities. College of Education Professor Jorge Gonzalez is the co-investigator on the grant, and Sterett Mercer, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia – Vancouver, is a co-principal investigator.
Their project involves studying whether computer-based scoring of short writing samples is effective – which would allow teachers to identify more easily which elementary school students are struggling with basic writing skills and need extra help.