Journal of Writing Research Oct 2015 OA PDF

Teaching children to write: A meta-analysis of writing intervention research

M. Koster ; E. Tribushinina ; P.F. de Jong ; H. van den Bergh

Abstract

It has been established that in the Netherlands, as in other countries, a majority of students do not attain the desired level of writing skills at the end of elementary school. Time devoted to writing is limited, and only a minority of schools succeed in effectively teaching writing. An improvement in the way writing is taught in elementary school is clearly required. In order to identify effective instructional practices we conducted a meta-analysis of writing intervention studies aimed at grade 4 to 6 in a regular school setting. Average effect sizes were calculated for ten intervention categories: strategy instruction, text structure instruction, pre-writing activities, peer assistance, grammar instruction, feedback, evaluation, process approach, goal setting, and revision. Five of these categories yielded statistically significant results. Pairwise comparison of these categories revealed that goal setting (ES = 2.03) is the most effective intervention to improve students’ writing performance, followed by strategy instruction (ES = .96), text structure instruction (ES = .76), peer assistance (ES = .59), and feedback (ES = .88) respectively. Further research is needed to examine how these interventions can be implemented effectively in classrooms to improve elementary students’ writing performance.

Journal
Journal of Writing Research
Published
2015-10-01
DOI
10.17239/jowr-2015.07.02.2
CompPile
Open Access
OA PDF Diamond
Topics
writing pedagogy teacher development revision assessment grammar and mechanics
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Vandermeulen et al. (2023)
    Writing Process Feedback Based on Keystroke Logging and Comparison With Exempla…
    Written Communication

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