The ability to produce fluent and coherent written text impacts learning and attainments. Valid and reliable assessments of writing are needed to monitor progression, develop goals for writing and identify struggling writers. In order to inform practice and research a systematic review was conducted to investigate which writing productivity measures captured writing development and identified struggling writers in elementary school. Sixty-seven empirical studies were identified for inclusion, appraised, and their data extracted under the themes of writing genre, duration of writing task, use of priming of topic knowledge prior to the writing assessment, use of planning time, writing modality, gender, age of participants and learning difficulties. Total Number of Words and Correct Word Sequences were the most common means of measuring productivity. Productivity varied significantly between genres and durations of writing tasks and was higher in girls than boys. Students with learning difficulties scored significantly lower in writing productivity when compared to typically developing peers. Insufficient research was available to draw conclusions regarding the effects of priming of topic knowledge, planning and modality on writing productivity. Study limitations, links to the assessment of writing and recommended further research are discussed.

Writers typically produce their writing in bursts. In this article, the authors examine written language bursts in a sample of 33 children aged 11 years with specific language impairment. Comparisons of the children with specific language impairment with an age-matched group of typically developing children ( n = 33) and a group of younger, language skill–matched children ( n = 33) revealed the role of writing bursts as a key factor in differentiating writing competence. All the children produced the same number of writing bursts in a timed writing task. Children with specific language impairment produced a shorter number of words in each burst than did the age-matched group but the same as the language skill–matched group. For all groups, spelling accuracy and handwriting speed were significant predictors of burst length and text quality. The frequency of pauses at misspellings was related to shorter bursts. These results offer support to Hayes’s model of text generation; namely, burst length is constrained by language and transcription skills.