by Young-Suk Grace Kim, Dandan Yang, Marcela Reyes & Carol Connor
Original article: LINK
This study looked into how different teaching methods impact the writing skills of children aged 5-9. The researchers focused on whether the effects varied depending on what aspects of writing were being improved, like how well children expressed their ideas (quality), how much they wrote and the fluency/legibility of their writing.
After analysing data from 24 studies involving over 5500 students, they found that overall, writing teaching had a moderately positive effect on improving children’s writing skills. However, the impact varied depending on what the teacher was teaching and how they were teaching it. For example, transcription instruction had no impact on the quality of children’s compositions. However, one teaching method, called Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), consistently had large and positive effects across all aspects of writing. In particular, self-regulation strategy development (SRSD) had a significantly larger effect on writing quality for students with weak writing skills when compared to receiving transcription instruction.
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This study focused specifically on young children and aimed to understand how different factors affect the effectiveness of writing instruction. The researchers conducted a meta-analysis, which means they analysed data from multiple studies to draw broader conclusions.
The study found that comprehensive instructional approaches that address various writing skills are more advantageous for children than those which focus on developing children’s writing skills in isolation.
Contrary to their expectations, instruction targeting transcription skills alone did not yield significant effects on any compositional outcomes. While we know that developing children’s transcriptional skills like spelling and handwriting are crucial for writing, the findings suggest that instruction solely focused on these areas may not consistently improve the quality of children’s writing.