On the 7th of October 2025, the National Literacy Trust published findings from its newest survey entitled: Children & Young People’s Writing In School in 2025. It gathered views from around 15,000 children and young people aged 8-18 from 90 schools across the UK. The report examines their views on writing and on the writing instruction they receive. By listening to the voices of young writers, the study looks to better understand the disconnect between curriculum requirements, governmental policy and writing as a personal and socially meaningful practice.

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As teachers, we work hard to equip children and young people with the essential skills they need to thrive in the broadest sense. Writing is one of the most fundamental of these skills, crucial not just for academic success but for self-expression, social connection and future career prospects. Yet, the National Literacy Trust’s latest data paints a worrying picture of a deepening crisis in writing attainment and motivation across England.

In 2025, around 30% of 11-year-olds in England left primary school unable to write at the minimum expected standard. This attainment gap is concerning as is the motivational landscape. Only around 30-40% of students actually enjoy writing at school.

In addition: 

• Gender: More girls (44%) than boys (34%) enjoy writing at school.
• Age: Enjoyment drops significantly with age. 50% of children aged 8-11 enjoy writing but this goes down to around 30% among 14-16-year-olds, suggesting a significant dip during mid-adolescence. Interestingly, enjoyment then increases slightly amongst 16-18 year olds to just under 40%. Of course, none of this is anything to celebrate.
• Socioeconomic status: Children and young people receiving Free School Meals (FSMs) report enjoying writing more (41%) than their non-FSM peers (37%).

1. The relationship between confidence and enjoyment 

The link between confidence and enjoyment is critical for classroom practice. Nearly 90% of students who enjoy writing at school consider themselves to be accomplished writers.

It’s very difficult to write with enjoyment if you feel you’re not very good at it. Confidence is one of the biggest predictors of children’s writing achievement¹. So, what practices have a track record for improving children’s writerly confidence²? 

1. Study mentor texts [LINK] With students, study and discuss texts that actually realistically match the type of writing they are being asked to write for themselves. This provides them with examples to emulate and learn from. This builds up their writerly confidence.
2. Establish success criteria together [LINK] While reading mentor texts, collaborate with students to identify the techniques necessary for crafting their own high-quality texts. Make a commitment to teach these techniques, developing a sense of ownership and confidence among your students.
3. Model craft moves [LINK] Demonstrate how to use a craft move before inviting students to do the very same in the context of their own writing. Modelling provides clarity and confidence, helping students grasp concepts more effectively.
4. Set process goals [LINK] Encourage students to focus on a specific goal during writing time. By breaking down the writing process into small manageable chunks, students can see themselves making progress every day and this breeds confidence.
5. Support children to choose their own writing topics [LINK] There are cognitive and motivational benefits to supporting children to choose their own writing ideas within the parameters of a class writing project. Being able to draw on a topic stored in their long-term memory (and one they are highly motivated to write about) fills them with writerly confidence.
6. Teach the writing processes [LINK] Design class writing projects that encompass all stages of the writing process, from generating ideas to publishing. Allocate time for instruction on each stage. This establishes a sense of daily progress, reassurance and success.
7. Provide verbal feedback [LINK] Provide students with personalised feedback on their writing, both from their teacher and their peers. Effective verbal feedback reinforces successes and nudges students to apply constructive feedback quickly and confidently.

2. Redefining purpose: Intrinsic and external expectations

When the NLT asked students why they are moved to write, their answers revealed what they perceive the purpose of writing at school to be. Their reasons for writing were often shaped by external expectations and pressures. Indeed, 40% of children and young people admitted they wrote solely out of compliance or to avoid punishment. Some students did share other motivations. For example:

• To achieve good marks (37%). 
• To secure better job opportunities (27%).
• To express their creativity (35%)
• To explore ideas (34%)
• To reflect on and deal with their emotions (24%)
• To better understand new learning (24%)

It can be useful to consider why children are motivated to write at school. Research consistently shows that students who write for external, teacher-controlled reasons tend to demonstrate poorer writing performance. In contrast, intrinsic motivation is linked with better outcomes³. However, it is important to recognise that extrinsically motivated young writers can also thrive, particularly when external rewards or recognition align with their personal goals and interests anyway⁴.

It’s very difficult to write at your best if you’re not motivated. Pupils who are motivated to write are more likely to: put in more effort, persist for longer, pay more attention, show more enthusiasm and work harder to solve their own writing problems⁵. It’s therefore important that we nurture the ‘will’ to develop the ‘skill’. A drop in motivation is a serious threat to student engagement.

1. Embrace intrinsic value: Writing in school should be framed as a personally and socially profound activity, one that helps students make and share meaning, develop their ideas and understanding, cultivate their artistry and imagination, and articulate their thoughts, funds-of-knowledge, opinions, and feelings. By doing so, they can achieve exceptional academic outcomes.
2. Not either/or: Students who view themselves as good writers are motivated by academic goals, intrinsic factors like self-expression and making social connections with others through writing.

3. Teaching the writing processes: Confidence gaps and strategy use

A common misconception is to assume that students are either confident and competent writers or they’re not. In reality, their confidence can be subject to change depending on what aspect of the writing process they currently find themselves in. For example:

• Pupils are most confident in generating writing ideas (73%)
• Students are not confident to proof-read (50%) 
• Students also lack confidence in sharing, performing and publishing their writing (43%)
• Pupils lack confidence in revising (53%)

It’s very difficult to produce your most meaningful and academically successful writing if you don’t have the strategies to do so. Children who know the writing processes, and have internalised strategies and techniques for negotiating them successfully, produce better writing⁷.

• Teach planning techniques [LINK] Students appreciate being taught how to use a variety of intuitive planning strategies.
• Plan revision sessions into your class writing projects [LINK] Students showed an overwhelming preference for experimenting and revising their writing but only after they’ve drafted.
• Explicitly model how proof-readers edit [LINK] Model an aspect of proof-reading in your own writing before inviting pupils to do the same during that day’s writing time.
• Establishing a publishing goal for class writing projects with your class [LINK] Children appreciate being invited to consider whom they want to share or perform their writing to, and how they wish to publish it, as part of a class writing project.

Utilising self-regulation strategies in the face of difficulty 

When students get stuck, their most common response is to stop and think (43%), or to ask for help (24%). However, only a minority (16%) of students reported independently trying different things out when stuck, demonstrating a lack of self-regulation. The link between enjoyment, confidence, and self-regulation is profound⁷.

• More of those who enjoyed writing persevered and tried new strategies (20%) and fewer gave up (3%) compared with those who didn’t enjoy writing (13% gave up).
• Those who rated themselves as good writers were more inclined to pause and reflect or try out a new strategy.

It’s very difficult to enjoy or succeed at writing if you feel like you always need assistance. Developing children’s self-regulation skills is probably the most effective thing a teacher of writing can do in their classroom⁷. So, what does this mean?

Get your writing instruction right [LINK]. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is by far the most thoroughly researched and consistently effective approach to teaching writing. It explicitly teaches students evidence-based strategies for generating ideas, planning, drafting, revising, and proof-reading, while also developing their ability to monitor and manage their own writing process. SRSD blends cognitive strategy instruction with self-regulation techniques, helping children not just to know what good writing involves, but how to do it for themselves. Studies show that SRSD benefits struggling and proficient writers alike, improving both the quality and quantity of their writing. However, despite its strong evidence base and adaptability across ages, genres, and abilities, SRSD remains virtually absent from most UK classrooms. Few teachers encounter it in their initial training, and fewer still receive professional development in how to implement it. As a result, one of the most effective tools for improving writing outcomes (and for giving children the confidence to see themselves as independent writers) remains unused in the very places where it is needed most.

4. The social and emotional landscape: Anxiety and dependence

The social and emotional environment of the writing classroom profoundly shapes student engagement⁵. At present, writing evokes considerable apprehension and anxiety in pupils.

• Worrying about correctness at the wrong time: One in three students worries about their grammar, punctuation and spelling while they are drafting. 
• Avoidance: Three in ten avoid experimentation for fear it might go wrong. A quarter of pupils felt discouraged from writing altogether due to their teacher potentially identifying mistakes.
• Widespread fear: While anxiety was highest among poor writers, fear was widespread even amongst those who rated themselves as good writers.

Anxiety is the enemy of good writing. Students are often afraid of making errors while drafting, worrying that these mistakes will be seen as unacceptable or as evidence of poor writing. This has serious consequences: children who experience writing anxiety typically produce less, do only the minimum required, and avoid taking creative risks⁵.

It’s difficult to enjoy or produce your best writing in a climate of fear. Research suggests that the culture of writing in some schools places excessive emphasis on accuracy at the wrong stage of the writing process⁸. It may be that colleagues would benefit from CPD in how to plan a writing unit [LINK] and how to deliver sympathetic and useful feedback to pupils [LINK]. 

5. A klaxon call for collaboratively-controlled writing projects   

• A call for structure, guidance and instruction: Nearly half of the students surveyed expressed a preference for clear, structured guidance from their teachers on how to craft a great piece of writing.
• Desire for some authorial control: Simultaneously, autonomy was a massive motivator. Half of students said they would write more, and with greater frequency, if given trust and guidance to choose their own writing topics within the parameters of class writing projects.

This is not a rejection of structure. Students appreciate structure and reassuringly consistent routines¹⁸. Rather, it is a call for scaffolding that empowers them to exercise their own authorial agency.

1. Implement collaboratively-controlled writing projects: Teachers should design class writing projects which are collaboratively-controlled by teachers and pupils together³. 
2. Support students to find value: Most students recognised the value of writing. However, over half of those who rated themselves as poor writers believed that ‘schooled writing’ lacked meaning or an authentic purpose. We must consistently provide purposeful and authentic class writing projects⁹.

6. Igniting the desire to write: The catalysts for engagement

Understanding what moves students to write most is both affective and effective practice⁵. Having authorial control was the strongest motivator:

• Choice over writing topic: Students cited being supported to choose what they wanted to write about as their greatest cognitive and motivational driver¹⁰.
• Choice over style and form: 30% wanted to decide on the form or style of their writing.
• Personal expression: 28% want permission to express their own thoughts, funds-of-knowledge and opinions through their writing.
• Utilising intertextuality: 27% want permission to riff off their favourite authors to produce their own writing¹¹.

Perhaps understandably, only 16% saw value in being given a writing prompt. This is probably because it represents what’s called ‘an empty choice’¹². 

The desire for some authorial control is linked to engagement: those who enjoy writing are much more likely to be motivated by creative freedom and personal expression. When given the support to choose their own topics and forms, students express overwhelming preferences for class projects that are exciting, personally meaningful, and allows for exploration:

• Topics: Preferences are varied, including writing about horror, history¹³, mysteries, sport¹⁴, adventure and murder cases. Students also want to share, through writing, their own funds-of-knowledge and cultural passions¹⁵. They also desire opportunities to write about real-world issues that matter to them personally¹⁶.

• Genres: Fiction and poetry dominate, with genres such as fantasy, detective fiction, lyrics, and script writing repeatedly mentioned. There is also notable enthusiasm for writing intended for performance and for forms inspired by visual media, such as comics and manga  [LINK]. Students would also value learning how to write personal narratives, such as memoirs [LINK]. 

Conclusion

The findings from this report compel us to rethink not just how we teach writing, but why¹⁷. We see a clear tension: students value writing yet many feel increasingly anxious and disengaged when writing at school. Writing is most meaningful when students can relate it to their own lives and interact with others as authors. After all, writing is about making and sharing meaning⁵.

With this in mind, the most powerful catalysts for pupil engagement lie in helping students find intrinsic value in their writing: personal relevance, emotional resonance, authorial control, and social interaction with readers. By embracing teaching practices that combine explicit instruction, modelling, and guidance with opportunities for choice and supportive writing processes, we can move beyond writing as formalism and unlock its full potential as both a critical learning tool and a powerful form of self-expression.

References

1. Self-efficacy [LINK]
2. The enduring principles of effective writing teaching [LINK]
3. ‘It’s healthy. It’s good for you’: Children’s perspectives on utilising their autonomy in the writing classroom [LINK]
4. Reflexive writing dialogues: Elementary students’ perceptions and performances as writers during classroom experiences [LINK]
5. Motivating writing teaching [LINK]
6. See ‘teach the writing processes’ [LINK] and ‘self-regulation’ [LINK] for more.
7. Self-regulation [LINK]
8. Debunking edu-myths: Writing errors form bad habits [LINK]
9. Pursue authentic and purposeful writing projects [LINK] and ‘Establishing publishing goals for class writing projects [LINK]
10. The cognitive and motivational case for inviting children to generate their own writing ideas [LINK]
11. Intertextuality. The glue that binds reading for pleasure and writing for pleasure together? [LINK]
12. When choice motivates and when it does not [LINK]
13. Historical accounts/essays [LINK], biographies [LINK] and people’s history [LINK]
14. Match reports [LINK]
15. Writing realities framework [LINK]
16. Discussion essays [LINK], persuasive letters [LINK], advocacy journalism [LINK], community activism [LINK] and social/political poetry [LINK]. 
17. ‘Teachers’ orientations towards teaching writing and young writers’ [LINK] and ‘Six discourses, four philosophies, one framework: A critical reading of the DfE’s writing guidance’ [LINK]
18. Be reassuringly consistent [LINK]

The act of teaching writing to children has undergone significant evolution over the centuries. While writing itself is an ancient skill, explicit instruction in how to write, particularly through the lens of ‘the writing processes,’ is a relatively recent pedagogical development¹. 

This article explores the history of how teachers have taught children the art and craft of writing before giving advice on how you can do it too.

Early approaches to writing instruction (1800-1960s)

In the 19th century, writing instruction in schools was largely focused on mechanics like penmanship, spelling, grammar, and transcription. Writing was more about accuracy and obedience to conventions than making and sharing meaning, creativity or individual expression.

During this period, teachers rarely emphasised the writing process. Writing was seen primarily as a product (something finished and polished in a single session) rather than as something to be moulded and crafted over time.

In the mid 20th century, educational reformers began to see the value in students expressing their own thoughts through original compositions. However, in this more student-centered model, instruction often lacked a clear structure². Children were simply asked to write but not necessarily taught how to generate ideas, plan, draft, revise, proof-read or publish their manuscripts. This gap set the stage for a more formalised approach to teaching writing.

The Dartmouth Conference and the influence of John Dixon (1960s)

A pivotal moment in the history of writing instruction came with the Dartmouth Conference of 1966 – an international gathering of British and American educators that aimed to redefine the teaching of English. The conference catalysed a shift from formalist, prescriptive models of writing to more dynamic, writer-centred approaches.

British educator and researcher John Dixon published his influential report, Growth Through English, shortly afterward. In it, he argued that writing should not be taught as a fixed body of knowledge or a set of rigid forms, but as a tool for personal growth, meaning-making, and social interaction. Dixon proposed that students develop as writers through:

• Expressing their own experiences, thoughts, knowledge, feelings and ideas
• Engaging in meaningful writing projects
• Writing in a variety of genres and for different audiences
• Reflecting on their language use

Dixon categorised language use into four broad modes – personal, poetic, transactional, and exploratory – each serving different writerly purposes. He emphasised the importance of teacher responsiveness, flexibility, and encouraging student agency.

The Dartmouth movement laid the philosophical and pedagogical foundation for what would become the process writing movement. It framed writing as a developmental act, one rooted in the lived experience of the learner – an idea that would deeply influence writer-teachers like Donald Graves in the decades that followed.

The emergence of the writing processes (1970s–1980s)

The modern concept of ‘the writing processes’ began to take shape in the 1970s and 80s. Influential researchers and educators such as Janet Emig, Linda Flower, John Hayes, Donald Graves and Donald Murray revolutionised writing instruction by promoting a process-oriented approach.

This method emphasised writing as a recursive process with several key stages:

• Generating ideas
• Planning
• Drafting
• Revising (re-seeing, re-envisioning and otherwise reshaping content)
• Proof-reading (checking adherence to conventions, grammar, punctuation, spelling)
• Publishing (sharing with an audience)

Through this framework, students were encouraged to view writing as a tool for thinking, feeling, and communication, rather than merely a writing performance to be judged by the end of a single lesson.

Donald Graves and the birth of process-based writing instruction

One of the most pivotal figures in the development of process-based writing instruction was Donald Graves, whose research in the 1970s-1980s fundamentally changed how teachers approached teaching writing to children.

Graves’ landmark study took place in a New Hampshire elementary school, where he conducted intensive observations of six- and seven-year-olds as they wrote. Using audio recordings, writing samples, classroom observations, and student interviews, Graves sought to understand what young writers actually did when they wrote. His findings were both surprising and transformative.

Graves discovered that even the youngest of children were capable of deep thinking, self-direction, and revision when given time, instruction, agency, and support. He found that children wrote best when they:

• Were supported to choose their own writing topics
• Given time to write their best pieces
• Received consistent instruction and feedback from teachers and peers
• Viewed themselves as real authors with something valuable to say and share

His research culminated in the seminal book Writing: Teachers & Children At Work, which laid out not just his findings but a practical vision for writing instruction. Graves argued that writing should be a daily activity, grounded in real purposes and audiences, and that teachers should serve as fellow writers and instructors – not just evaluators.

The post-process movement: A necessary rethinking

By the 1990s, scholars in composition studies began questioning the dominance of the process model in writing instruction. The so-called post-process movement did not reject the value of the writing process altogether, but it emphasised that writing is far too complex and idiosyncratic to be fully captured in a single, generalised sequence of steps. Post-process theorists argued that there is no single ‘correct’ writing process – different writers use different processes, in different combinations, and at different times, depending on the writerly situation.

For classroom teachers, this post-process movement serves as a reminder that writing is more than a set of steps to follow. It calls for instruction that values diverse writing practices, and emphasises critical thinking about language and purpose.

Modern day

In recent years, studies have built on the foundations laid by Graves and others to offer a more contemporary, evidence-rich model of the writing process approach.

Research evidence continues to deepen our understanding of how children can be taught not only to write, but to think as writers. 

While early process models gave some structure to writing instruction, more recent research provides precise, flexible, and effective ways of helping children navigate the complexities of writing³.

Four of the most useful frameworks currently shaping writing pedagogy are:

1. The rhetorical situation approach 
2. Children’s production strategies for writing
3. The writing process in the early years
4. Ellen Counter’s ‘Writing House’

1. The rhetorical situation approach

A writing classroom, if it is to be authentic, must regularly pursue what’s called rhetorical purpose. This is the idea that writers write because:

1. They have something to say
2. They have a reason for saying it
3. They have someone to say it to

They are moved to write⁴. 

This is at the core of what composition, rhetoric, creative writing and journalism courses all call ‘the rhetorical situation’⁵: there is a writer, there is an audience, there is a purpose, and there is a message.

A class writing project therefore begins with a class knowing they have something to say and setting themselves an authentic and purposeful writing goal through which to say it (see LINK for more details). For example: to craft persuasive letters to people in positions of authority, memoirs for loved ones, information texts for their mates, or short stories for the younger children in the school. 

Once that intention has been set, teachers and students look outward to high-quality mentor texts that resemble the kind of writing they are looking to produce for themselves. This is reading as a writer: noticing structure, studying grammatical, rhetorical and literary craft moves, analysing authorial voice, and borrowing writerly techniques⁶.

Taken from Reading In The Writing Classroom (Young & Ferguson 2024), here are just some of the things you can look for and discuss as you read as writers:

And here are some of the writerly conversations you might have.

“Children read stories, poems and letters differently when they see these texts as things they themselves could produce.” – Frank Smith

This approach mirrors how writers actually work. While we in no way seek to diminish the importance of children developing as readers, we need to be clear that, in the writing classroom, writing should be the driver for reading. Reading should be in the service of the writers’ goals.

Here is a beautiful representation of what we are talking about. On the display, we can see just some of the high-quality commercial texts children have been reading as part of their fairytale project. In addition, we can see how writer-teachers have shared their own fairytales as mentor texts too. All this rich reading has resulted in the class coming up with their own success criteria for the project: the things they believe they’ll have to do or include to write their own great fairytales too. 

In a writing classroom, the act of reading is responsive, deep, and authentic. Children and teachers study texts together because they know it helps them grow as writers. High-quality mentor texts are chosen because they match the class’ writing project (you can see examples here). This is the real apprenticeship of writing. It gives students agency, craft knowledge, and a deep sense of why being a writer matters.

“To learn how to write for newspapers you must read newspapers. For magazines, browse through magazines. To write poetry, read it.”  – Frank Smith

For teachers like Sam Creighton, who love reading, such an approach is a dream come true as he finally gets to expose his class to loads of his favourite high-quality texts. Here are just some of the texts he plans to share with his class as part of their memoir writing project. 

2. Children’s production strategies for writing

As part of our work devising a conceptual framework for writing teaching, which we called The Writing Map, we described what young writers are doing as they make writing. When a child settles down to write, they will: 

Conceptualise As you’ve already read, conceptualising a piece of writing involves establishing the rhetorical situation. Consciously or subconsciously, a young writer will consider the purpose and audience for their writing. 

As teachers, we can support children with this. For example, teachers and children, together, can establish a publishing goal for a class writing project [LINK] before reading as writers [LINK].

Generate ideas Next, your young writers will generate ideas of what it is they would like to share with their reader(s). Again, as teachers, we should help and support children by teaching them idea generation techniques that writers actually use [LINK].

Translate This is where your young writers have to convert the ideas they have in their heads into possible phrases and sentences. Teachers can support this process in three ways:

1. Ask children to draw their ideas first.
2. Invite children to talk about (and otherwise ‘tell’) their drawings with us and their friends.
3. Model a planning strategy that we used, before inviting children to use the same strategy for themselves [LINK].

Transcribe Transcription includes attending to letter formation, handwriting (or typing), and spelling. At this point, children must physically make their marks on paper or screen. These skills support children in getting their ideas down in a way that can be read by others, but the accuracy of spelling and handwriting will naturally be variable at this stage. What matters most is that children can record their thinking; refinements to accuracy will be revisited later during the reconceptualise phase. 

However, over time, it is important that these transcriptional skills become increasingly fluent and automatic [LINK]. This fluency develops through a balance of regular spelling and handwriting instruction alongside meaningful opportunities to write [LINK].

Reconceptualise This is actually something children are doing all the time. They will regularly stop, think, rethink, draw, redraw, share, discuss, re-read, revise, proof-read and perform their developing compositions. Teachers can support children’s reconceptualisation processes by ensuring that they: 

• Have regular moments during writing time to stop and share what they have crafted so far that day. For example, by giving children class sharing and Author’s Chair time [LINK]. 
• Provide children with explicit revision instruction and revision checklists [LINK]. 
• Engage in systematic and daily pupil-conferencing with their pupils [LINK].
• Provide ample opportunities and instruction in how to proof-read their manuscripts in preparation for publication or performance [LINK].

Finally, we can personify the production strategies children use to craft text as if they were being undertaken by different people. In reality, of course, these are done by the individual writer. These people would include:

It’s important to remember that a piece of writing will move between these four people all the time. For example, the evaluator might have to go and talk to the proposer. The translator and transcriber are likely to be in back and forth conversation too.

3. The writing process in the early years

What does the writing process look like for the youngest of children? Well, having observed children writing for a number of years, we’ve noticed that a developmentally appropriate writing process for the EYFS-KS1 looks a little something like this:

We talk At this stage, children are often developing their ideas and translating those ideas through spoken language. Talking helps them to clarify their thinking, play with word choices, and rehearse the structure of what it is they want to say. Children talk their texts into being. As you can see, talk is vital at all parts of a young writer’s process. For example, children talk with one another before they write, as they write and after they write. These interactions occur in different ways and can include:

• Idea explaining Children share what they plan to write about during the session with others.
• Idea sharing Children work in pairs or small ‘clusters’ to co-construct their own texts together.
• Idea spreading One pupil mentions an idea to their group. Children then leapfrog on the idea and create their own texts in response too.
• Supplementary ideas Children hear about a child’s idea, like it, and incorporate it into the text they are already writing.
• Communal text rehearsal Children say out loud what they are about to write – others listen in, comment, offer support or give feedback.
• Personal text rehearsal Children talk to themselves about what they are about to write down. This may include encoding individual words aloud. Other children might listen in, comment, offer support or give feedback.
• Text checking Children tell or read back what they’ve written so far and others listen in, comment, offer support or give feedback.
• Performance Children share their texts with each other as an act of celebration and publication.

We draw Children often like to translate their ideas visually. Drawing allows them to plan and express their thoughts before writing, and it supports their understanding of chronology and narrative sequencing. It also gives them something to talk about and otherwise ‘tell’ prior to transcribing it to paper.

We write Here, children transcribe their ideas into the written form. This may involve mark-making, early letter formation, or structured sentences depending on their stage of development. They apply their phonics knowledge, through encoding, and begin to explore spelling, punctuation, and grammar in context.

We share Children continually share their compositions with others – reading or ‘telling’ aloud or discussing their writing with peers and adults. This stage fosters pride, purpose, and a sense of audience, and it encourages reflection and further development of their writing skills.

This recursive process supports young writers in building both the transcriptionally and compositional aspects of writing in a meaningful and developmentally appropriate way.

4. Ellen Counter’s ‘Writing House’

To teach writing effectively, we must encourage children to see writing as a process, while also teaching and modelling strategies that support its key stages: idea generation, planning, drafting, editing, and proofreading.

Whilst the writing process is recursive (we naturally move back and forth between stages), and although it can look different depending on what is being written and why, children need to understand that each stage of the process is distinct and requires a different kind of focus.

We could argue that this process is like building a house. Without time and teaching dedicated to each stage, the writing (like a house) could fall apart and not be fit for purpose. In the same way, our feedback will only be effective if we consider the stage children are at in the process and tailor our advice accordingly⁸.

Using this model, we can extend the metaphor to guide what we focus on during writing time. It all depends on the stage. After all, you wouldn’t insist on ordering paint colours before the walls have even been built. As the DfE’s Writing Framework suggests, it makes little sense to focus on children’s spelling inaccuracies when they are still working hard on getting their ideas down onto the paper⁹.

Figure: A visual representation of the writing process to support shared understanding © HFL Education, used within ESSENTIALWRITING | HFL Education

The terms generate ideas, plan, draft, revise, re-read, evaluate, edit, proof-read, perform and share are all mentioned within the National Curriculum, but teacher training and writing schemes rarely equip teachers with how to explicitly teach these processes. 

For example, children are often told to proof-read or ‘check’ their writing without being taught how writers do this, within a clear framework of shared strategies to support them¹⁰. 

Take the case of a Year 1 child who was thought to be falling behind in her writing because she wasn’t punctuating her sentences. Interestingly, she: 

• Could identify where a full-stop belonged when shown an unpunctuated sentence. 
• Had age-appropriate knowledge of sentence structure. For instance, she could read her writing back, recognised where one idea ended, and understood that her reader would need a full-stop before the next idea began. 

So what’s happening here? 

The issue lies in the misconception and expectation that writing must be 100% accurate at the point of drafting¹¹. The child was only given one shot to get everything ‘right’, so the absence of punctuation is treated as failure. In reality, the problem is we’ve overlooked how writing actually works. Like building a house, writing requires time for each stage: strategies for proof-reading need to be explicitly taught, and space for evaluating and reconceptualising is needed¹⁰. The child wasn’t failing – the approach was failing the child.

Conclusion and next steps

Planning a writing unit

In 2019, we were lucky enough to interview and observe some of the best performing writing teachers in England. We released our findings as a book in 2021. What was clear was how these teachers used the writing processes to plan their class writing units.

Teaching the writing processes is also a validated evidence-based practice, with a potential effect size of +1.28 (for context, anything over +0.4 is considered to be significantly effective). 

To find out more about the components of an effective writing unit, see our article.

Children also developing their own writing processes

As well as planning effective writing units, the exceptional writing teachers we observed gave their pupils time to develop their own writing process by way of personal writing projects. To find out more, see this publication. In teaching children the writing processes, we do more than guide them to craft great pieces, we hand them the tools to shape their voices, their stories, and, over time, their worlds.

By Ross Young & Ellen Counter

References

1. How Writing Works: From the Invention of the Alphabet to the Rise of the Social Media by Dominic Wyse [LINK]
2. ‘Teachers’ orientations towards teaching writing and young writers’ [LINK] and ‘Six discourses, four philosophies, one framework: A critical reading of the DfE’s writing guidance’ [LINK]
3. The science of teaching primary writing [LINK]
4. Motivating writing teaching [LINK]
5. The rhetorical situation [LINK]
6. ‘Reading like a writer’ [LINK] and ‘Reading in the writing classroom’ [LINK]
7. How to teaching writing [LINK]
8. A guide to pupil-conferencing with 3-11 year olds: Powerful feedback & responsive teaching that changes writers [LINK]
9. The DfE’s Writing Framework [LINK]
10. No more: ‘My pupils can’t edit!’ A whole-school approach to developing proof-readers [LINK]
11. Debunking edu-myths: Writing errors form bad habits [LINK]

In the complex instructional landscape of literacy, the profound connection between reading and writing is a central tenet. This article explores the specific, interdependent relationship between early reading and early writing, framing them not as separate subjects but as ‘two sides of the same coin’. The goal of literacy instruction is, of course, comprehension and composition; however, there can be no reading comprehension without word reading, nor conventional written composition without word writing. Understanding their shared foundations and development is therefore essential for effective teaching practice.

Students’ abilities in word reading and word writing develop along a continuum, moving through distinct phases that are greatly facilitated by systematic instruction. For word reading, this progression is often conceptualised in five phases:

1. Pre-alphabetic phase: The child approaches words as visual wholes, using clues like logos, without understanding the alphabetic principle. For example, “McDonalds!”
2. Partial alphabetic phase: The child begins to use some letter-sound knowledge, often focusing on initial and final sounds.
3. Full alphabetic phase: The child can form connections between all graphemes in a word and their corresponding phonemes.
4. Consolidated alphabetic phase: The child starts to recognise and use consolidated letter sequence units (e.g. -ight, re-) rather than decoding letter by letter.
5. Automaticity phase: Word reading becomes accurate, fast, and effortless, as words are recognised by sight without conscious analysis.

A similar progression occurs in word writing development, which can be understood through five stages:

1. Emergent/precommunicative: The child hasn’t yet got an understanding of the systematic relationship between letters and sounds. To see the stages of emergent writing, click here.

2. Letter name: The child begins using letter-sound knowledge, but accuracy is usually limited to consonants and short vowels.

• cat → ct (child writes the consonants, may omit vowels)
• dog → dg
• sun → sn
• bat → bt

3. Within word: The child can spell most single-syllable words but struggles with more complex patterns like silent long-vowels.

• make → mak or make (may omit the silent e)
• home → hom
• bike → bik
• read → red or reed (confusion with long-vowel spelling patterns)

4. Syllables and affixes: Errors typically occur at syllable junctures or in unaccented syllables.

• hoping → hopeing (error at the syllable juncture where the silent “e” should be dropped)
• running → runing (omitting the doubled consonant at the syllable break)
• family → famly (dropping an unaccented syllable)
• different → diffrent (leaving out the unstressed middle syllable)

5. Derivational relations: Errors are most common with low-frequency, multisyllabic words involving derivational morphemes.

• electricity → eletricity (dropping a syllable within a derived form)
• responsibility → responsiblity (omitting the derivational suffix syllable)
• biological → bioligical (confusing the placement of the derivational suffix -ical)
• nation → natian (misapplying the derivational -ion pattern)

It is important to note that these developmental phases are not rigid, and children will move between these stages depending on the specific word they wish to write.

The shared foundations: Emergent literacy skills

The development of both word reading and word writing is contingent upon a set of foundational emergent literacy skills. These skills are drawn upon for both decoding (reading) and encoding (writing), which explains why the two abilities are so strongly correlated. The three critical skills are:

1. Phonological awareness: This is the knowledge and awareness of the sound structure of language, from larger units like syllables down to the smallest units, phonemes. This skill is essential because English is an alphabetic writing system, where symbols primarily represent speech sounds.

• Big sounds: Children can detect or segment the larger parts of words, like the ‘claps’ (syllables) in a word. For example, ‘but-ter-fly’ has three claps.
• Rhyming parts: They can hear smaller parts, like the rhyme in a word. In ‘cat’, they can hear the ‘at’ part.
• Tiny sounds: They can hear the tiniest sounds (phonemes) in a word. They can hear that ‘cat’ is made of three sounds: /k/ /æ/ /t/

2. Orthographic awareness: This refers to the knowledge of print concepts, graphemes (the letters or groups of letters like sh or augh that represent sounds), and the permissible spelling patterns of the language. This is the skill of knowing all about letters and printed words.

• Letter shapes and names: Children learn what each letter looks like and what it is called.
• Letter teams: Children learn that sometimes letters work together to make one sound. For example, the letters ‘s’ and ‘h’ team up to make the /ʃ/ sound in ship. This combination of letters that represents one sound is called a grapheme.

3. Morphological awareness: This is the understanding of morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in words (e.g., re-, -act, -s in reacts). This awareness is particularly crucial in English, a morphophonological system where meaning-based units can override apparent phonological patterns (e.g. recognising re- and act in react prevents it from being misread as /rikt/). 

• For example, the word ‘cats’ has two meaning parts: ‘cat’ (the animal) and ‘-s’ (which means more than one).
• The word ‘redo’ has two meaning parts: ‘re-’ (which means do again) and ‘do’.
• Knowing these parts helps children read and spell big words, like ‘photosynthesis’ or ‘incredible’

Principles and practices for reading and writing instruction

The shared foundation of early reading and writing has critical implications for instruction. First, because they draw on the same skills, integrated teaching has a synergistic effect: teaching writing promotes reading development, and teaching decoding promotes encoding development. Second, a student who is weak in one is very likely to be weak in the other. However, it is important to recognise they are not identical; word writing requires production and greater precision of a word’s mental representation, making it typically more difficult than the recognition task of reading.

Effective instruction is built upon several core pedagogical principles. Teachers should employ differentiated instruction based on ongoing assessment to meet children’s varying needs and rates of learning (see here for more). It is also vital to consider students’ diverse linguistic backgrounds, recognising that foundational principles of literacy instruction are effective for all children when teachers understand and value their language experiences (see here for more). Finally, instruction should be delivered using evidence-based approaches, namely explicit and systematic teaching that provides structured modelling and scaffolding, such as the I Do, We Do, You Do model (see here for more). For example: 

• I Do: First, you model exactly what to do. For example, you show children how you are using your sound mat to help you encode the words you want to write in the picturebook you’re making.  “I want to write ‘cat’. I hear three sounds: /k/ /æ/ /t/. The first sound is /k/. That can be a ‘c’ or a ‘k’. I’ll use the ‘c’ on my sound mat. The next sound is /æ/. That’s an ‘a’. There it is on the sound mat. The last sound is /t/. That’s a ‘t’. Let me write it: c-a-t. Yes, that’s what it looks like when I see it in books!”
• We Do: Next, you do it together. The children use their sound mats to help them encode the words they want to write in their picturebook that day.
• You Do: Finally, the children continue to use their sound mats when making picturebooks on their own during provision.

Here’s another example:

• I Do: You show children how, when you really want to write a word, but you don’t know all the grapheme-phoneme correspondences yet, you use ‘kid writing’ as a replacement. “When I was your age, and I wanted to write a really cool word, and I didn’t know all my sounds yet, I used to do this. Watch. I want to write ‘dinosaurs’. I can hear the first sound: /d/. That’s the letter ‘d’. I’ll write that. Next, I hear /aɪ/ I don’t know all the ways to spell that sound yet, so I’ll just write the letter ‘i’. Then I hear ‘no’ like the word ‘no’. After that, I can hear lots of sounds, but I don’t know how to write them yet, so I’ll just use ‘kid writing’ for those. At the end, I can hear /s/. That’s the letter ‘s’. So my ‘kid writing’ says: d-i-no-〰〰-s. It’s not the same as the adult spelling, but it shows all the sounds I do know! This way, we can still write all our wonderful ideas and share our stories.”
• We Do: Next, you do it together. The children use their sound mats and ‘kid writing’ to encode their more ambitious or complex vocabulary in their picturebook that day.
• You Do: Finally, the children continue to use ‘kid writing’ and their sound mats when making picturebooks on their own during provision.

Finally, one last example:

• I Do: You show children how, when you want to write a tricky word that doesn’t follow the usual sound–letter patterns, you use the word wall to help you. “Ah, watch this! I really want to write the word ‘said’ in my picturebook. Hmm… if I try to sound it out, I might think it’s s-e-d. But I know that ‘said’ is one of our tricky words, and it’s on our word wall. Let’s look. Here it is: s-a-i-d. I can copy it from the wall into my writing. Now my sentence looks just like it does in books.”
• We Do: Next, you do it together. The children use the word wall to copy down any common tricky words in their picturebook that day.
• You Do: Finally, the children continue to use the word wall independently to spell tricky words while they are making picturebooks during provision.

Using this routine every day can help children feel safe and confident in learning new strategies and skills.

Research-supported recommendations

Based on these principles, four key recommendations emerge for effective, integrated word reading and word writing instruction:

Teach phonological awareness and grapheme–phoneme correspondences. This involves systematic instruction in manipulating sounds (e.g. blending, segmenting) and explicit teaching of letter formation. Letter instruction should focus on frequent exposure, making name-sound connections explicit, teaching visually similar letters non-sequentially, and building automaticity in both recognition and letter writing (see here for more).

Model chunking. As students progress, they must learn to process chunks larger than individual graphemes. This includes modelling (1) common rime units or phonograms (e.g. -ock, -ight, -ean), (2) syllable types:

• Closed syllables (CVC): cat, hop, pen
• Open syllables (CV): he, go, me
• Vowel-consonant-e (VCe): make, bike, hope
• Unaccented final syllables: table, pencil, cabin

and (3) morphemes (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, roots)

• Prefixes: un- (undo, unhappy), re- (redo, rewrite)
• Suffixes: -ful (hopeful, careful), -less (hopeless, fearless)
• Roots: struct (construct, destruct, structure), port (transport, portable, import)

Activities like word sorts and word building are highly effective for this work.

Model decoding and encoding. Foundational skills must be explicitly applied to the acts of reading and writing. An analytic approach should be used even for irregular words, focusing on the parts that do follow predictable patterns (e.g. the sh and d in should). Teachers should view informed spelling not merely as an error, but as a valuable window into a student’s current knowledge and a crucial opportunity for them to practise applying grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

Incorporate connected texts. Children should be regularly invited to use and apply these skills in the context of meaningful reading and writing experiences. The use of decodable and high-quality commercial texts provides beginning readers with opportunities to practise taught patterns in a supportive context. Similarly, students should be encouraged to apply their ever developing encoding knowledge in daily book-making time (see here for more), reinforcing the connection between skill acquisition and authentic communication.

In conclusion, word reading and word writing are inextricably linked skills that are foundational to all later literacy development. By providing explicit, systematic, and integrated instruction that targets their shared underpinnings, teachers can capitalise on their relationship and build a robust foundation for students’ success in both reading and writing.

Recommended further reading

• Feldgus, E. G., Cardonick, I., & Gentry, J. R. (2017). Kid writing in the 21st century: A systematic approach to phonics, spelling, and writing workshop. Hameray Publishing Group
• Kim, Y. S. G. (2022). A Tale of Two Closely Related Skills: Word Reading and Spelling Development and Instruction. In Z. A. Philippakos & S. Graham (Eds.), Writing and reading connections: Bridging research and practice. Guilford Press
• Kim, Y. S. G. (2022) Co-Occurrence of Reading and Writing Difficulties: The Application of the Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 00222194211060868
• Ray, K. W., & Glover, M. (2008). Already ready. NH: Heinemann

Improving children’s reading AND writing: Connecting research and practice

Four online sessions focusing on children’s reading and writing will take place in November and December from 4pm – 5pm. These sessions are designed for UK primary school teachers, primary school leaders, literacy leads and education consultants. 

ThE sessions are designed to provide research insights to support children’s reading and writing acquisition and development. With a focus on supporting both reading and writing skill, all those attending will have greater access and insight into contemporary research to inform their classroom practice.

Participants will gain insight into implications for practice, a curated collection of key open access research articles and, if all four sessions are attended, a certificate of completion.

Sessions can be booked individually for £15 each or all four sessions can be booked at a discounted price of £50.

Sessions overview

Session 1: Learning to read – Thursday 20 November 2025, 16:00-17:00pm 

Delivered by Professor Sarah McGeown

This session highlights the core skills underpinning reading development, research-informed practice to support children’s word reading, and the importance of nurturing an early love and interest in books, words, and stories. 

Session 2: Reading motivation and engagement – Thursday 27 November 2025, 16:00-17:00pm 

This session provides insight into the importance of reading motivation and engagement throughout primary school, research-informed principles to support reading engagement, and the reading, language, social and emotional benefits accrued from reading.

Session 3: Learning to write – Thursday 4 December 2025, 16:00-17:00pm 

Delivered by Ross Young

This session explores key aspects of writing development, research-informed strategies to support children as apprentice writers, and the importance of nurturing a lifelong love of writing.

Session 4: Writing motivation and engagement – Thursday 11 December 2025, 16:00-17:00pm 

This session provides insight into the importance of writing motivation and engagement throughout primary school, research-informed principles to support children’s engagement with writing, and the social, emotional, and expressive benefits gained through the experience of being a young writer.

Biographies

Professor Sarah McGeown is Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Literacy Lab. She has published widely in academic and professional journals, with research focusing on early reading acquisition and development to motivation and engagement in reading. She is an advocate for research-practice partners and closing the gap between research and practice to improve children’s reading experiences and outcomes. 

Ross Young is a former primary school teacher and co-founder of The Writing for Pleasure Centre. His work focuses on translating writing research into effective classroom practice, and he regularly collaborates with teachers and children in schools. He has written several books on teaching writing and leads professional development through organisations such as the UKLA. Ross is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Literacy Lab, studying children’s writing lives in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. 

The myth

A persistent education myth claims that young children shouldn’t begin writing because ‘their bones aren’t ready’ or because they first need to perfect their gross and fine motor skills. According to this argument, letter formation and handwriting instruction should wait until a child’s hand bones are fully ossified or their motor coordination is deemed ‘mature enough.’

The evidence

1. Bone development is certainly not a barrier to basic writing movements.
Research on hand anatomy shows that children’s bones are still developing but ossification is not required for the basic movements involved in early writing (LINK). Even with flexible cartilage, young children are physically capable of drawing, engaging in emergent writing, and beginning letter formation.

2. Emergent writing is developmentally appropriate and essential.
Emergent writing includes scribbles, mock letters, and informed spellings. It is a normal, developmentally appropriate stage of writing development observed across cultures (LINK). Through emergent writing, children experiment with making meaning while learning more about conventional ‘adult writing’ and beginning explicit letter formation and handwriting instruction. Emergent writing kills dead the ‘motor skills first’ argument entirely. For more on this, I can highly recommend these two publications:

3. Fine motor skills and handwriting develop together, not in isolation.
Writing researchers have shown through meta-analyses that activities that only focus on gross and fine motor exercises — without letter formation and handwriting instruction — do not significantly improve children’s handwriting (LINK). Children can develop their motor control by actually writing, not just by cutting, beading, or doing unrelated fine motor tasks. The best place for children to develop their motor skills for writing is by writing!

What this means for practice

• ✅ Offer emergent writing opportunities as early as possible: Provide children with crayons, chunky pencils, regular pencils, markers, and blank picturebooks. Understand children’s marks as being their early writing.
• ✅ Integrate handwriting instruction gradually: Provide letter-formation instruction and meaningful writing tasks — for example book-making (LINK).
• ✅ Support motor development within context: Strengthen small-muscle control through motor skill activities, handwriting instruction and authentic writing projects, rather than relying on motor exercises alone.
• ❌ Don’t demand perfect cursive or flawless handwriting from very young children: The goal is accuracy and fluency, not adherence to a particular handwriting style.

The bottom line

Emergent writing + letter formation and handwriting instruction + motor skill activities + meaningful writing opportunities provide the strongest bridge to fluent handwriting and writing success.

The ‘bones aren’t ready’ and ‘motor skills first’ argument oversimplifies child development and risks delaying important writerly experiences. Rather than waiting for perfect motor skills or ossified bones, we should nurture children’s natural curiosity and give them real reasons to write (and learn more about writing) from the very start [LINK].

We’re delighted to announce that we’re collaborating with HFL Education and UK Literacy Association’s School Of The Year Elmhurst Primary School to bring you our new training: Getting Writing Right: What the Evidence Says.

Join us for a day of learning!

About this course

Held at Elmhurst Primary School in London, this training will equip teachers and leaders to understand what the latest evidence and research concerning quality writing teaching is.   

The day will consider how schools can ensure that all children make maximised progress in writing.  The essential features of writing teaching will be discussed, such as: 

• How to set rigorous writing goals
• How to plan a class writing project with the greater-depth standard as the standard
• What’s involved in delivering an effective writing lesson
• How to deliver sentence-level and grammar instruction
• How to connect reading and writing profitably.

Learning Outcomes

• Have a secure understanding of what the evidence and research says around effective writing teaching
• Be given practical ideas and strategies for writing teaching to use in the primary classroom immediately
• Be equipped with greater confidence and subject knowledge concerning the teaching of writing

Additional Information

09:30 – 15:30 – 16/10/2025

Lunch & refreshments will be provided.

Schools will also receive a school license (worth £54.75) for our latest eBook How To Teach Writing.

On the 8h of July 2025, the Department for Education published its non-statutory guidance document entitled The Writing Framework. It purports to draw from the best available evidence about teaching writing.

The mission of The Writing For Pleasure Centre is to help all young people become passionate and successful writers. As a think tank for exploring what world-class writing is and could be, a crucial part of our work is analysing emerging governmental policy. It is therefore important that we issue a response to what this document has to say.

Overall conclusion
While most of the recommendations in this policy paper are welcome, the document at times presents contradictions and remains notably incomplete.

Our aim is not to let this review slip into unproductive criticism, but rather to offer constructive additions that we hope will add value. We therefore encourage anyone seeking to develop world-class writing instruction to engage with the research cited before making changes to their teaching practices or commercial offerings.

As Writing For Pleasure teachers, we are lucky enough to witness the transformative journey a pupil’s writing goes on – from their initial idea to its final publication or performance. However, a crucial, yet sometimes overlooked, stage in this process is revision. 

Revision is about re-seeing, re-thinking, reviewing, and otherwise re-envisioning drafted writing, offering children the privilege to splash around in their existing text and to be playful and take risks. For children to truly develop as writers, developing an effective approach to revision is paramount. This is because, at this stage in the writing process, children have the cognitive space to tackle higher-order writerly techniques.

One impactful strategy is the use of revision checklist sessions.

What are revision checklists?

Revision checklists are powerful tools derived from the product goals (success criteria) you established collaboratively with your class at the beginning of a writing project. These product goals represent all the great craft moves you identified from the high-quality mentor texts you studied together¹. These are the things you and the class want to achieve in their compositions, often extending far beyond mere grammatical features. 

Having been taught all these craft moves during the drafting phase, the checklist serves as a guide, prompting children to reflect on whether they have indeed incorporated these desired craft moves into their own writing.

How they are created and look

As the name suggests, a revision checklist lists the product goals on the left-hand side. On the right, children indicate if they have used the craft move in their writing. If a craft move hasn’t been used, they can demonstrate how they could have used it on their ‘revision and trying things out page’. This approach ensures that revision is a proactive, reflective process rather than a punitive one.

Here’s an example of a double-sided revision checklist for a Year Four short story project. None of the items on this checklist were a surprise to the children. All of the craft moves were modelled and taught during the drafting stage of a class writing project. 

The benefits of revision checklist sessions

Implementing revision checklist sessions offers numerous benefits, backed by significant research:

• Increased academic progress: When children are given specific time to revise their compositions for quality, it can lead to a positive effect size of +0.64². Moreover, inviting children to evaluate their writing against class-generated product goals yields a remarkable effect size of +2.03². An effect size above +0.4 is generally considered to have a significant positive impact on children’s writing progress.

• Improved confidence, self-concept and independence: These sessions increase children’s sense of confidence in their writing abilities³. Children also develop a feeling of competence and an ability to write well independently, reducing reliance on constant adult intervention⁴. Students gain a feeling of ownership over their writing and the choices they make about its content and style.

• Increased motivation: Children understand the ‘why’ behind their writing choices, leading to a deeper desire to produce high-quality writing⁵.

• Fostering a community of writers: Collaborative checklist creation and small-group instruction and discussion during these revision sessions promote a feeling of being part of a supportive writing community. Teachers finally have the time to get into deep and rich discussion with children about their writing – often about subjects that go far beyond what’s on the revision checklist itself.

Conducting an effective revision checklist sessions

Here’s how to introduce and run successful revision checklist session in your classroom:

1. Collaborative checklist creation: The most effective revision checklists are those constructed in response to the product goals you identified jointly with your class when you read mentor texts at the beginning of your writing project¹. Nothing on the checklist should be a surprise to the children at this point. All the items will have been modelled and taught to the children during the drafting stage of your class project.

2. Teacher modelling: You can begin by showing your class how you used the revision checklist with your own writing. Explain your personal process, the decisions you made, and invite questions from the children. This makes the process tangible and relatable.

3. Right-hand side for revision: Encourage children to draft on the left-hand side of a double page in their notebooks. This leaves the right-hand side blank for their revisions and “trying things out”. If they like a revision, they can use a star to indicate where it should be incorporated into their final manuscript. This dedicated space allows children to experiment with craft moves they haven’t yet used in their main draft. It’s a low-stakes environment for creativity and risk-taking.

4. Small group sessions: It is highly recommended to conduct revision checklist sessions with your class in small groups over a number of days. This allows for focused, individualised instruction and feedback. While you work with a small group, the rest of the class can be engaged in their personal writing projects⁶, ensuring continuous productive writing time.

5. Recognising the behaviour of greater-depth writers: It’s crucial to understand that children are not obliged to include everything on the checklist! If a child experiments with a craft move on their ‘trying things out page’ but makes an authorial decision not to include it in their final piece, this is a sign of a greater-depth writer. This approach avoids ‘overwriting’ and encourages genuine authorial voice and independence.

6. Assessment: Writing produced on revision pages can (and should) still be formally assessed. This provides valuable evidence of a child’s critical thinking and engagement with the writing process⁷.

7. EYFS and KS1 adaptations: For younger children, revision can often occur spontaneously through your daily verbal feedback, using children’s illustrations to elicit more information about their text⁸. Providing extra blank pages allows them to make significant changes to their books if needed.

What to avoid

To ensure your revision checklist sessions are truly effective, steer clear of these common pitfalls with success criteria:

• Narrow focus: Do not limit revision checklists solely to grammar craft moves.
• Completely teacher-imposed: Avoid creating lists without any input from the children.
• Lack of context: Ensure the checklist items are linked to the lessons you taught during the drafting stage of a class project.
• Vague goals: ‘Language devices’ or ‘good grammar’ are too vague. Break these down into specific, named craft moves that children can understand and apply.
• Separate revision from proof-reading: Remember that revision and proof-reading are two distinct cognitive processes⁹. Give them their own dedicated instructional time and checklists.

By embracing the collaborative, reflective, and empowering nature of revision checklist sessions, teachers can cultivate classrooms where young writers not only master curriculum objectives but also develop confidence, agency, and a genuine love for refining their craft.

References

1. Reading in the writing classroom: A guide to finding, writing and using mentor texts with your class [LINK]
2. The enduring principles of effective writing teaching [LINK]
3. Self-efficacy [LINK]
4. Self-regulation [LINK]
5. Motivating writing teaching [LINK]
6. A guide to personal writing projects & writing clubs for 3-11 year olds [LINK]
7. Writing development scales and assessment toolkit [LINK]
8. How to teach narrative writing in EYFS, KS1 [LINK and LINK]; How to teach nonfiction in the EYFS, KS1 [LINK and LINK]

No more: “My class can’t edit” A whole-school approach to developing proof-readers [LINK]

For decades, we have rightly celebrated writing as a profound intellectual pursuit. We teach our students to think critically, organise their ideas logically, and craft sophisticated arguments. Indeed, writing is often seen as the quintessential representation of thought. However, this strong emphasis on cognition, while valuable, has inadvertently created a ‘blind spot’ in how we understand and teach writing: the role of emotion.

As teachers, we readily acknowledge that emotions motivate our students. Yet, the prevailing belief often holds that feelings have little to do with the actual process of making writing. Drawing on insights from Alice G. Brand’s The Why of Cognition: Emotion and the Writing Process¹, this article argues that a truly complete psychology of writing must embrace affective (emotional) as well as cognitive phenomena.

The limitations of taking a purely cognitive view

Our respect for writing as an intellectual enterprise is understandable. We often assess children’s writing by looking for features like: organisation, elaboration, exemplification, and critical thinking. However, the dominant cognitive models of writing², while promising to reunite writing and thinking, fall short in several crucial areas:

🤷 Missing the most important ‘Why’: While cognitive psychologists tell us that our writing choices aren’t random, they struggle to explain why we choose what we choose to write about. This fundamental question often involves our interests, values, funds-of-knowledge and identity which are deeply intertwined with emotion³.

🤷 Neglecting motivation: Teaching recommendations often only give lip-service to motivation, often subordinating it to intellect. It’s frequently tucked into corners or delicately skirted around. Yet, major research highlights the role of emotions like apathy, anxiety, frustration, engagement, persistence and commitment play in learning to write⁴.

😐 The myth of emotional neutrality in non-fiction writing: Some erroneously link ‘emotional neutrality’ as being a sign of quality non-fiction writing. They suggest that being aloof from your emotions, experiences and values is the hallmark of great non-fiction writing. We disagree⁵. Some of the best non-fiction involves passionate and emotional contributions from the writer.

🌑 Methodological blind spots: Cognitive models often rely on ‘think-aloud protocols’ to understand students’ writing processes. Think-aloud protocols are a research method where students verbalise their thoughts in real time while performing a writing task, so researchers can infer their underlying cognitive processes. Yet, these protocols are limited to what people can articulate and what they are asked to articulate. They tend to overlook the emotional thoughts that run through our heads. A significant amount of material – grunts, groans, squeals of delight, flashes of mental pictures, random connections, and side comments loaded with feeling are often left out.

🤖♥️ Lack of emotional language and mechanical metaphors: Cognitive process models provide no language for emotion, effectively excluding it from their research and pedagogy². Instead, it’s common for cognitive psychologists to use jargon that sounds mechanical, promoting almost a robotic view of writing. Calling students monitors or operators rather than individuals or persons creates the idea that children are circuits, transistors, or else are acting like computers. Indeed, many cognitive process models are called computational models for this reason. This perspective fails to capture the rich psychological dynamics of humans; computers, unlike humans, do not grow, think, experience, learn, understand, or feel.

🗺️📍 Assumed motivation and objectivity: Cognitive models of writing can lead teachers to apply the model too directly, expecting students to write in the ways the model prescribes. This assumes a kind of flat, uncomplicated objectivity (and motivation) that may not actually exist for students. As teachers, we know that some of the best writing children produce comes from those who resist or defy us, while some of the weakest writing can come from those who mindlessly obey. The implication that one writing process is superior simply because it aligns with a single cognitive model is far from the truth².

The power of emotion in writing

Cognitive models for writing are not ‘wrong’; they are merely incomplete. Emotions and children’s affective needs are not side effects but fundamental elements in learning to write. The field of writing instruction has shifted from focusing on what students produce (the product) to how they write (the process). Now it is time to fully embrace the why of writing: children’s affective needs and motivation⁶.

Here’s how acknowledging the role of emotion can transform our teaching:

🥳😀🥱😭😤😡 Understanding emotional cues: Help students attend not only to the intellectual but also the emotional cues of writing. What feelings arise in the space between having an idea and beginning a draft? How do students’ affective needs shift depending on purpose, genre, audience, topic, or time constraints?

♥️🧠 Attending to children’s affective needs: For students who struggle with writing, understanding and supporting children’s affective needs at different parts of the writing process can significantly improve their writing performance⁶. Studying how professional writers, recreational writers, and their own teachers engage emotionally with writing can also provide pupils with valuable insights⁷.

Ultimately, while it is in cognition that writing ideas make sense, it is in emotion that this writing finds value. By integrating the whys of writing into our teaching, we can offer a more effective and affective approach to teaching writing.

References

1. The Why of Cognition: Emotion and the Writing Process by Alice G. Brand [LINK]
2. The Science Of Teaching Primary Writing [LINK]
3. Writing Realities [LINK]
4. Motivating Writing Teaching [LINK]
5. How To Teach Non-Fiction Writing In The EYFS [LINK], How To Teach Non-Fiction Writing In KS1 [LINK] and Real World Writers [LINK]
6. The affective domains of writing for pleasure [LINK]
7. Be a writer-teacher [LINK]

Every teacher knows the challenge: ask your class what makes ‘good writing’ and they’ll give you answers like neat handwriting, using ‘wow’ words, or it has full-stops. Ask a staffroom full of colleagues and you’ll perhaps hear a broader definition: clarity, organisation, originality, voice, emotional connection, interest, adherence to genre-specific conventions, and audience awareness.

The truth is, there isn’t one universal definition of good writing. What counts as ‘good’ depends on who you ask — and what they value most about writing. 

I want you to think about your own reading: when you sit down with a book at home, what is it about the author’s writing that you value most? More than anything else…

Educational theorists (and writers themselves) have long debated this, and their perspectives can help us as teachers reflect on what we value in our own classrooms.

Here are five influential ways of thinking about ‘good writing.’

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E.D. Hirsch – The formalist view

For E.D. Hirsch, good writing is about correctness and adherence to the conventions of Standard English¹. Spelling, punctuation, grammar, and vocabulary matter most. Hirsch also links good writing to cultural literacy — the shared knowledge and forms that enable effective communication across society.

👉 Good writing, here, means: error-free, standardised, and conforming to agreed conventions.

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Peter Elbow – The expressionist view

Peter Elbow sees writing primarily as a tool for self-expression and discovery. The process of freewriting, experimenting and finding a personal voice matters as much as the quality of the final outcome². For Elbow, good writing is writing that feels authentic, fluent, and true to the writer’s knowledge, feelings and experiences.

👉 Good writing, here, means: authentic voice, individual style and fluency, and a sense of personal satisfaction.

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J.R. Martin & David Rose – The genre theorists

Martin & Rose emphasise that writing is always social. A persuasive essay, a science report, and a personal narrative each have different structures and purposes — and students need to be explicitly taught the typical conventions for these ‘genres.’ In their view, good writing is writing that does its job in context: a good discussion essay looks different from a good story because each piece serves a different function³.

👉 Good writing, here, means: matching structure and language to the text type and purpose.

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Aristotle – The mimetic tradition

The roots of the mimetic tradition go back to Aristotle, who described art and literature as mimesis — complete accuracy to reality. From this perspective, writing is good when it convincingly represents the world: vivid description, believable characters, accurate accounts. Whether in fiction or non-fiction, good writing reflects truth in human experience⁴.

👉 Good writing, here, means: representing the world clearly, vividly, and sincerely.

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Martin Nystrand – The audience-focused view

Martin Nystrand highlights writing as a conversation between writer and reader. A text isn’t ‘good’ on its own — it becomes good if it connects with its audience. That means anticipating readers’ expectations, engaging their interest, and communicating effectively.

👉 Good writing, here, means: audience-centred communication — readable and responsive to the readers’ needs.

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Why this matters for teaching

Each perspective suggests a different classroom focus:

• Formalist: teach ‘rules’, correctness, and shared conventions.
  
• Expressionist: encourage the development of voice, flair and personal satisfaction.
  
• Genre theory: explicitly teach text types and purposes.
  
• Mimetic: develop vivid, accurate, realistic writing.
  
• Audience-focused: build audience awareness and adaptability.

No single view has all the answers. The kind of writing we value depends on our goals and the context. A history essay, a science report, and a private poem each demand different things — but all can be ‘good writing’ in their own terms.

For teachers, the challenge and opportunity is to help students navigate these varied expectations — focusing on transcriptional conventions, textual features, voice, accuracy, purpose and audience. Ultimately, good writing isn’t one fixed standard: it’s about making choices that fit the purpose, context, and reader.

References

1. The Philosophy of Composition by E. D. Hirsch Jr [LINK] for a critique see Telling Writing by Ken Macrorie [LINK] 
2. Writing Without Teachers by Peter Elbow [LINK] for a critique see Writing With Teachers by David Bartholomae [LINK]
3. Genre Relations by J.R Martin & David Rose [LINK] for a critique see Policing the Text: Structuralism’s Stranglehold on Australian Language and Literacy Pedagogy by Megan Watkins [LINK]
4. Richard Fulkerson’s Four Philosophies of Composition [LINK]
5. The Structure of Written Communication: Studies in Reciprocity between Writers and Readers by Martin Nystrand [LINK] for a critique see Text & Talk by David R. Olson [LINK]