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The current study examined the effectiveness of a "writing is caught" approach with young developing writers in Norway. This method is based on the premise that writing competence is acquired naturally through real use in meaningful contexts. Our longitudinal randomized control trial study tested this proposition by examining if increasing first grade students' opportunities to write in various genres for different purposes and for a range of audiences over a two-year time period improved the quality of their writing, handwriting fluency, and attitude towards writing. The study included data from 942 students (50.1% girls) in 26 schools randomly assigned to the experimental treatment, and 743 students (50.6% girls) in 25 schools randomly assigned to the business-as-usual (BAU) control condition. Across Grades 1 and 2, experimental teachers were asked to supplement their typical writing instruction by implementing 40 writing activities designed to increase students' purposeful writing. Increasing experimental students' writing over the two-year period did not result in statistically detectable differences in the writing quality, handwriting fluency, and attitude towards writing of students in the experimental and BAU control conditions. These findings did not provide support for the effectiveness of the "writing is caught" approach. Implications for theory, research, and practiced are discussed.

This study examined if in-class, online, and hybrid (in-class and on-line) instruction provided to middle and high school students in the U.S. differed during the third school year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provided a description of how writing was taught to secondary students. Thirty-eight middle and high school teachers (32 female, 6 male), who mostly taught languages arts (84%), were asked to complete a survey each day during the 2020/2021 school year for a single class that best represented how they taught writing. The survey included questions about mode of instruction (in-class at school, online, and hybrid), whether writing or writing instruction was provided that day, and if so, whether 11 specific writing activities occurred. Teachers completed 2676 surveys, and their responses indicated there was only one statistically detectable difference between in-class, online, and hybrid lessons in terms of the proportion of lessons that included each of the targeted writing activities or the time devoted to them. The only difference involved creating digital written products, which occurred more often in hybrid lessons than at school in-class lessons, but not more often in online lessons One significant finding across all reported lessons was that teachers devoted little time to teaching writing. Writing and writing instruction did not occur in close to one-third of all lessons; teachers typically included only one writing activity in a lesson; and an average of just 19 min a lesson was devoted to the targeted writing activities.

The current study replicated an earlier investigation by Bouwer and van der Veen (2023) where 10 Grade 5 and 6 classrooms in the Netherlands (210 students) were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition, with treatment students evidencing improvements in the quality of their essays after practice writing argumentative essays, reading and discussing them with a small group of peers, and revising each essay based on the discussion that ensued. In the present study, 12 Grade 2 to 4 classrooms in Türkiye (383 students) were randomly assigned to this write, talk, and rewrite dialogic treatment or to a control condition. Students in the control condition practiced planning and writing the same four argumentative essays as treatment students did during the experiment, and each of these essays was shared with peers (time spent in both conditions was comparable). Control students did not, however, discuss their essay with peers or use such feedback to revise them as was done by students in the write, talk, and rewrite dialogic treatment. When the nested nature of the data and pretest scores were held constant, the quality of the argumentative posttest essays produced by students in the treatment condition evidenced greater improvement than essays written by control students. The same outcome was obtained for the length of essays (number of words) when the nested nature of the data and pretest scores were held constant. This investigation provided evidence that the write, talk, and rewrite dialogic intervention tested by Bouwer and van der Veen (2023) was effective in improving the argumentative writing of even younger students in a different country. Implications for research and practice are provided.

Writing is a critical skill for success in all areas of life, but it is one of the least taught skills in school. Teachers consistently report being unprepared to teach writing. In this study, set in a Southern U.S. boomtown, teachers received two days of practice-based professional development for a ten-week implementation of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD), an evidence-based writing intervention, to support student persuasive and informational writing as well as performance on the state standardized writing exam. This multi-site cluster randomized controlled study evaluated the effectiveness of SRSD on student writing outcomes including prompt adherence, elements, and holistic quality. Multilevel modeling analysis was used to evaluate data from 418 fourth-grade students (256 treatment, 162 control) nested across 33 classes (n = 17 treatment taught by 8 departmentalized teachers; 16 control, 9 departmentalized teachers) within 11 schools randomly assigned to condition. Teachers implemented SRSD with high fidelity (M = 92%; range 91-100%). SRSD had a statistically significant and large effect on prompt adherence (p < 0.001; Hedges' g = 1.87), elements (p < 0.001; Hedges' g = 0.84) and holistic scores (p < 0.001; Hedges' g = 0.87), while holding gender and pretest scores constant. Effects of SRSD on all writing measures were not significantly moderated by students' gender, students' pretest scores, or schools' pretest scores. There were complications with teacher observations, especially related to technology. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

We present 11 evidence-based practices for teaching writing to students. These include recommendations for teaching writing to younger students (aged 5-11) and older students (aged 6-18). The recommendations are based on findings from close to 1000 investigations. The proposed recommendations are: (1) students need to write, but writing is not enough; (2) students need to be supported as they write; (3) foundational writing skills (handwriting, spelling, grammar and sentence construction) need to be taught; (4) students become better writers when strategies for planning, revising and editing are taught; (5) teaching creativity, critical thinking and imagery can enhances writing; (6) teach students how to write summaries; (7) enhance students' knowledge about writing; (8) use twenty-first century writing tools in the classroom; (9) have students write across the curriculum; (10) connect reading and writing instruction and (11) creative a motivating writing environment.

Seventy-five general and 65 special education teachers working in the same 65 elementary schools in 12 different U.S. school districts were surveyed about their mindsets concerning the malleability of writing and intelligence as well as their practices for teaching writing. All teachers taught writing to one or more fourth-grade students receiving special education services, including students with learning disabilities. Both general and special education teachers typically held a growth mindset toward the malleability of writing and intelligence. Collectively, these teachers' mindsets predicted writing frequency (i.e., frequency of students' writing) and how often they taught writing skills and processes once variance due to teachers' preparation, efficacy to teach writing, teaching experience, and type of teacher was first controlled. The observed relationships between teachers' mindsets and reported practices for teaching writing were not mediated by type of teacher (i.e., general or special education). General and special education teachers did not differ in writing frequency for three types of writing collectively (narrative, informative, and persuasive) or how frequently they made 18 adaptations for teaching writing collectively, but general education teachers reported teaching writing skills and processes more often than their special education counterparts. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice are presented.