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The current best evidence meta-analysis reanalyzed the data from a meta-analysis by Graham et al. (J Educ Psychol 115:1004–1027, 2023). This meta-analysis and the prior one examined if teaching writing improved the writing of students in Grades 6 to 12, examining effects from writing intervention studies employing experimental and quasi-experimental designs (with pretests). In contrast to the prior meta-analysis, we eliminated all N of 1 treatment/control comparisons, studies with an attrition rate over 20%, studies that did not control for teacher effects, and studies that did not contain at least one reliable writing measure (0.70 or greater). Any writing outcome that was not reliable was also eliminated. Across 148 independent treatment/control comparisons, yielding 1,076 writing effect sizes (ESs) involving 22,838 students, teaching writing resulted in a positive and statistically detectable impact on students’ writing (ES = 0.38). Further, six of the 10 writing treatments tested in four or more independent comparisons improved students’ performance. This included the process approach to writing (0.75), strategy instruction (0.59), transcription instruction (0.54), feedback (0.30), pre-writing activities (0.32), and peer assistance (0.59). In addition, the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model for teaching writing strategies yielded a statistically significant ES of 0.84, whereas other approaches to teaching writing strategies resulted in a statistically significant ES of 0.51. The findings from this meta-analysis and the Graham et al. (2023) review which included studies that were methodologically weaker were compared. Implications for practice, research, and theory are presented.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education around the world, resulting in the implementation of different forms of remote instruction. The present study provided a description of one interesting and unique approach to providing such instruction by analyzing 144 language arts lessons designed and implemented by 61 distinguished and experienced teachers in Xiangzhou, China. The lessons were used to teach first and second grade students the pronunciation, meaning, recognition, and writing of simplified Chinese characters. These lessons provide a possible model for teaching Chinese characters in the future. The 144 lessons were delivered synchronously through live video interactions with two to four students, while other students were able to access them simultaneously at home via an internet device or on TV (the lessons were accessed 2.1 million times). Lessons were taught four to seven times a week, and teachers devoted 58% of lesson time to teaching characters: 69% and 46% of lesson time was spent teaching characters in grades one and two, respectively. A large number of recommended behaviors for teaching characters (77 out of 80 behaviors assessed) were applied across the 144 lessons, but a relatively small number of teaching behaviors (14) were used in each lesson. This typically included two behaviors for teaching character recognition and four behaviors each for teaching pronunciation, meaning, and writing of characters. Congruently, 6.32, 5.83, 5.49, and 3.78 min per lessons were used to teach character pronunciation, writing, meaning, and recognition, respectively. Character instruction in these lessons was coherently and logically designed, but all live interactions between teachers and students were teacher directed. Directions for future research are presented and implications for practice discussed.

Reading in English is an essential skill that emergent bilingual students in the United States (U.S.) must master to be successful in school and to fully take advantage of the affordances reading in English offers. The current meta-analysis examined the extent to which reading instruction improved English reading outcomes for preschool to grade 12 emergent bilingual students in the U.S. Across 38 experimental and quasi-experimental treatment-control group comparisons, teaching reading to these students had a positive impact on multiple aspects of their reading. When standardized and unstandardized reading assessments were aggregated, reading instruction produced small but statistically significant positive average weighted effects across all grades (0.17), for grades 4 to 8 (0.25) and for reading comprehension (0.20). Statistically significant outcomes were also obtained for standardized reading tests across all grades (0.24), preschool to grade 3 (0.17), grades 4 to 8 (0.30), grades 9 to 12 (0.26), word reading measures (0.22), vocabulary (0.17), and reading comprehension (0.21). Variability in effects were associated with type of reading treatments, duration of treatments, and student identified challenges with reading as well as study quality indicators. Recommendations for research and implications for practice are provided.

This study examined the intrinsic, extrinsic, and self-regulatory motives for writing and writing achievement of three groups of third- to fifth-grade students in an urban school district: (a) 189 emergent bilingual students receiving services for English language development (ELD); (b) 374 reclassified bilingual students who had exited ELD programs; and (c) 563 native English-speaking students. Intrinsic and self-regulatory writing motives were significantly higher for emergent bilingual students and reclassified bilingual students than their native English-speaking peers. Extrinsic writing motives were significantly higher for reclassified bilingual students than both emergent bilingual and native English-speaking students. Native English-speaking students scored significantly higher on a district standardized writing achievement test than both reclassified and emergent bilingual students, with reclassified bilingual students scoring significantly higher than emergent bilingual students. Finally, after controlling for variance related to student language status (e.g., emergent bilingual), gender, and grade, motives for writing predicted a small but statistically detectable amount of variance in writing achievement. Implications for practice and research are provided.

There is considerable concern that many adolescents do not attain the writing competence needed to be successful in school, their personal lives, or the workplace. Ensuring that students acquire this competence is a basic responsibility of schools. In order to meet this objective, teachers need access to effective practices for teaching writing. In this meta-analysis, we examined if teaching writing improved the writing and reading of students in Grades 6-12, and what specific writing treatments enhanced students' writing. Our review included writing treatments tested using an experimental or quasi-experimental design (with pretests) and published and unpublished studies, and computed effect sizes (ESs) for all writing and reading outcomes assessed. Across 406 independent comparisons, yielding 3,514 ESs involving 52,529 students, teaching writing had a positive and statistically detectable impact on students' writing (ES = 0.47) and reading (ES = 0.22). Moreover, a variety of different writing treatments improved students' performance on writing measures. Across all writing outcomes, statistically detectable effects (presented in parentheses) were obtained for comprehensive writing programs (0.47; which included the process approach to writing), strategy instruction (0.76), digital writing tools (0.31), transcription instruction (0.71), computer-assisted instruction (0.32), teaching critical/creative thinking skills for writing (0.27), emulating good models of writing (0.46), feedback (0.34), goal setting (0.44), prewriting activities (0.49), grammar instruction (0.77), sentence instruction (0.73), inquiry (0.92), observing writers/readers, peer assistance (0.41), summarization instruction (0.49), and text structure instruction (0.39). Implications for practice, research, and theory are discussed.

Textbooks are the primary materials for teaching in the Greater China Region, including the teaching of Chinese as a second language. This qualitative study examined how two teachers of first to fifth grade students in an international school in Macao selected, used, and adapted textbooks to teach Chinese to non-native Chinese speakers. It also examined the beliefs that drove teachers' decisions and actions. Multiple forms of evidence were analyzed, including responses to interview questions posed at multiple points, responses to a questionnaire administered at the beginning of the study, school documents, and content analyses of lessons in the selected textbook series and materials teachers made to accompany textbook lessons. The two teachers in this study made a conscious decision to continue using two textbook series selected by others and used the year before. The selection and use of these textbooks were underpinned by a set of interrelated beliefs, including their views on effective instruction (e.g., clearly presented topic, appealing and motivating materials, effective learning activities, focus on Chinese culture); their students' needs and motivations; their own teaching capabilities and attitudes; their epistemological beliefs about learning and knowledge; and the importance of local, national, and international standards and assessments. The two teachers devoted considerable effort to adapting the textbooks by developing their own materials that added, reduced, deleted, restructured, replaced, and re-ordered textbook learning activities. These adaptations were driven by specific teacher beliefs (e.g., the need for more meaning focused activities). Recommendations for future research and implications for teaching are offered.

Thirty-eight fourth-through sixth-grade teachers (28 female; 10 male) in urban schools in Chile were interviewed to determine how teachers' preparation to teach writing and their knowledge of how to do so acted as facilitators and/or barriers to classroom writing instruction. Teachers overwhelmingly identified their preservice preparation as a barrier to teaching writing, although several teachers viewed this mode of preparation as a facilitator. For teachers who expressed views about in-service and personal preparation as well as teaching experience, they almost unanimously indicated such modes of preparation facilitated classroom writing instruction. Teachers identified five forms of teaching knowledge that acted as facilitators and barriers to writing instruction. This included knowledge of how to differentiate writing instruction, assess writing, support the writing process, teach writing genres, and apply pedagogical teaching methods. A lack of instructional knowledge in each of these areas served as a barrier to classroom writing instruction, whereas knowledge about each acted as a facilitator. In addition, a lack of knowledge about how to teach fundamental writing skills acted as a barrier for some teachers. Implications and directions for future research are provided.

Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) involves teaching cognitive writing strategies and apprenticing novices within collaborative writing communities. It is responsive to deaf students' diverse language experiences through embedded metalinguistic/linguistic components. A randomized controlled trial of SIWI was conducted with 15 teachers and 79 students in grades 3-5. Recount, information report, and persuasive genres were taught across three 9-week periods. Writing samples analyzed for writing traits, language clarity, and language complexity were collected prior to instruction for the genre, immediately following, and 9 weeks after withdrawal of instruction for the genre. Standardized writing measures and motivation surveys were collected at the beginning and end of the academic year. Genre-specific writing outcomes were statistically significant for recount and information report writing, with substantial effect sizes for treatment and maintenance. Standardized writing outcomes mirrored these results. All others variables demonstrated small to moderately large treatment effects, although not all statistically significant.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the move by governments worldwide to cancel in-class instruction and move to emergency remote instruction in March and April of 2020 created an unprecedented disruption in children's education. As the COVID-19 pandemic took form and continued to impact education in the following 2020/2021 academic year, multiple concerns were raised about possible negative effects on students' learning. The current longitudinal replication study examined this proposition for second-grade students in Norway. In a previous investigation (Skar et al. Journal of Educational Psychology 114:1553-1566, 2022), we found that scores for quality of writing, handwriting fluency, and attitude toward writing of first-grade children tested immediately after emergency remote instruction ended in the Spring of 2020 (During COVID-19 cohort) were lower than the scores of first-grade students from the same schools tested a year earlier before the start of the pandemic (Before COVID-19 cohort). In the present study, we compared the scores for the During COVID-19 cohort (333 girls, 308 boys) on these same writing measures 1 year later at the end of second grade to a During COVID-19 cohort of second-graders (888 girls, 780 boys) from the same schools tested 2 years earlier before the start of the pandemic. The initial negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on first-grade students' writing observed by Skar et al. (Journal of Educational Psychology 114:1553-1566, 2022) was no longer evident 1 year later at the end of second grade in the current study.

Carriers of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene ("carriers") have been found to have an increased risk of persistent asthma. However, it is unclear at what level of CFTR function this risk exists and whether it is modified by asthmogens, such as air pollution. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of children born in California between July 2007 and December 2013, linking CFTR genotype data from the California newborn screening program to Medicaid claims records through March 17, 2020 to identify asthma cases, and to air pollution data from CalEnviroScreen 3.0 to identify levels of particulate matter with diameter 2.5 microns or smaller (PM2.5 ). Log-binomial regression models for asthma risk were fitted, adjusting for race/ethnicity and sex. Compared to population controls, carriers had higher risk of asthma (adjusted risk ratio (aRR) = 1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.98, 1.69; p  0.2). These results suggest carriers with CFTR functional levels between 25% and 45% of wildtype are at increased risk of asthma. Knowledge of CFTR genotype in asthmatics may be important to open new CFTR-related treatment options for these patients.

Seventy-six general education and 67 special education teachers working in the same 66 elementary schools were surveyed about their beliefs about writing. Each teacher taught writing to one or more fourth-grade students receiving special education services, including students with learning disabilities. Survey findings indicated that general education teachers believed that they were better prepared to teach writing than special education teachers, and they were more positive about their own efforts to learn to teach writing. General education teachers also held more positive attitudes about teaching writing and their own capabilities as a writer than their special education counterparts. Furthermore, general educators were more likely than special educators to indicate that writing developed through effort and process, and less likely to think that writing knowledge came from experts. Beliefs about adequacy of preparation to teach writing predicted teachers' beliefs about their level of knowledge to teach writing, efficacy to overcome students' writing difficulties, and attitudes toward teaching writing. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice are presented.

This randomized controlled trial with first- and second-grade students is the first experimental study addressing long-running disagreements about whether primary grade students should develop transcription and oral language abilities before learning to compose. It is also the first study at these grade levels to teach close reading (using science text aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards) to plan and write a timed informative essay. Theoretically and evidence-based multi-component writing instruction was developed, termed "Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) Plus." SRSD Plus integrates evidence-based practices for transcription (handwriting and spelling) and oral language skills (vocabulary and sentence structure) with SRSD instruction for close reading to learn and then write informative essays. A total of 93 children in Grade 1 (n = 46, 50% female) and Grade 2 (n = 47, 51% female) in a high poverty school participated in the study (50% boys; mean age = 6.68; SD = 0.48). Students were randomly assigned to either teacher-led SRSD Plus or business-as-usual (writers workshop) condition within class in each grade. SRSD Plus was implemented with small groups for 45 min, three times a week, for 10 weeks. Outcomes examined included: instructional fidelity, spelling, handwriting fluency, vocabulary, sentence proficiency, discourse knowledge, planning, writing quality, structural elements in informative essays, number of words written, use of transition words, expository text comprehension, and use of source text. Results showed moderate to large effect sizes in writing outcomes, oral language skills (vocabulary and sentence proficiency), spelling, and discourse knowledge. Differential effects due to grade, gender, and race are examined, and directions for future research are discussed.

Many educators assume that choice in writing leads to better writing outcomes; however, there are few studies to support this belief. In the present study, we examined the effects of choice and preference on writing quality with college students. The students wrote two argumentative essays on controversial topics in special education. For the topic at time 1, half of the students were randomly assigned to choose a position to defend, and the remaining students were assigned their position. For the topic at time 2, student roles reversed. Prior to writing on either topic, students completed a knowledge measure on each topic and a measure of self-efficacy for writing. Before each writing task, students indicated their preference for which position they wanted to defend, and after completing their essays at time 1, they completed a measure of perceived competence for the writing task. Variance attributable to knowledge, writing self-efficacy, and race were controlled for in all analyses. The effects of choice were limited. The quality of students' writing improved for students who did not choose a topic at time 1 but chose which position to defend at time 2. Quality of writing for students who chose a topic at time 1 and not at time 2 did not differ. Further, having choice at time 1 increased students' perceived competence, which lead to improved writing quality at time 2. No statistically significant effects for preference were found. Recommendations for future research and practice were provided.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the sudden cancellation of in-class instruction for many students around the world presented an unprecedented disruption in children's education. As the COVID-19 pandemic took form, multiple concerns were raised about the potential negative impact on students' learning. The current study examined this proposition for children's writing. We compared the quality of writing, handwriting fluency, and attitude toward writing of first grade Norwegian students during the COVID-19 pandemic (421 girls, 396 boys), which included emergency remote instruction for almost 7 weeks, with first grade students in the same schools a year before the pandemic began (835 girls, 801 boys). After controlling for variance due to national test scores, school size, proportion of certified teachers, students per special education teacher, school hours per student, student gender, and native language, we found that students attending first grade during the pandemic had lower scores for writing quality, handwriting fluency, and attitude toward writing than their first grade peers tested a year earlier before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Implications for policy and instruction as well as future research are presented.

The current study examined how Chinese characters were taught by primary grade teachers in Macao during online instruction resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., emergency remote instruction). A random sample of 313 first to third grade teachers in public and private schools were surveyed about their instructional practices. Most teachers surveyed (72%) reported they taught a lesson about Chinese characters once every 3-4 weeks during emergency remote instruction, and 83% and 81% of teachers indicated they assigned homework for writing and reading characters, respectively, at the same rate. On average, they reportedly spent 97 min per week teaching students to write, read, and understand the meaning of new characters, devoting equal time to each of these skills. They also indicated students practiced writing and reading characters in class for 40 min per week. They further noted students were expected to spend 35 min a day practicing writing and reading characters for homework. While teachers reportedly used a variety of instructional practices for teaching characters (M = 30.38), the typical teacher applied less than one-half (N = 64) of practices assessed. Teachers reported use of asynchronous (online learning activities which can be completed at other times) and synchronous (real-time videos and audio/text) teaching methods and perceptions of adequacy of technical support predicted reported teaching practices. The findings from this study raise questions about the teaching of Chinese characters in Macao during emergency remote instruction.

Within the context of the Direct and Indirect Effects model of Writing, we examined a dynamic relations hypothesis, which contends that the relations of component skills, including reading comprehension, to written composition vary as a function of dimensions of written composition. Specifically, we investigated (a) whether higher order cognitive skills (i.e., inference, perspective taking, and monitoring) are differentially related to three dimensions of written composition-writing quality, writing productivity, and correctness in writing; (b) whether reading comprehension is differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition after accounting for oral language, cognition, and transcription skills; and whether reading comprehension mediates the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to the three dimensions of written composition; and (c) whether total effects of oral language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension vary for the three dimensions of written composition. Structural equation model results from 350 English-speaking second graders showed that higher order cognitive skills were differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition. Reading comprehension was related only to writing quality, but not to writing productivity or correctness in writing; and reading comprehension differentially mediated the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to writing quality. Total effects of language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension varied largely for the three dimensions of written composition. These results support the dynamic relation hypothesis, role of reading in writing, and the importance of accounting for dimensions of written composition in a theoretical model of writing.

A central goal of upper elementary schools is improving students' skills to write persuasively using source materials. This study focused on three important areas of writing at the upper elementary grade levels. First, the web-based intelligent tutoring system for the text structure strategy (ITSS) was used to teach children how to read source materials, select important ideas in the text, generate main ideas, and write summaries. Second, instruction about planning and writing persuasive essays was delivered using the self-regulated strategies development (SRSD) model. Third, We Write web-based tools were used to facilitate the learning and mastery of the persuasive writing strategies taught to upper elementary grade children. The We Write computer tool is a teacher-led system choreographing the roles of the teacher and technology to achieve maximum instructional impact. Teachers received practice-based professional development with coaching and modeling to implement the intervention. In a cluster randomized trial with 12 fifth grade classrooms, this approach was effective in improving students' writing. Results show that after 6 weeks of text structure instruction on the web using ITSS, effect sizes on writing quality and planning were 0.30 and 0.77. After an additional 12 weeks of SRSD-based writing instruction effect size on planning quality was 1.60 and writing quality 2.29. These strong results can inform the design of technology supported writing interventions for elementary grade students. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED620523.]

An important goal of schooling is teaching students how to write. Teachers need access to effective writing practices to meet this goal. For close to 40 years, meta-analyses of writing intervention studies have been used to identify evidence-based practices in writing. Most of the research included in these reviews involved studies conducted in the U.S. and Europe. The current meta-analysis included 77 experimental studies examining the effectiveness of writing interventions conducted in schools in Turkey with 4,891 students in primary grades through college. The writing outcome in all of these studies was quality of students' writing. The average weighted effect size for teaching writing across all 77 studies was 1.39. The average weighted effect sizes for the five writing treatments tested in four or more studies were 0.92 for peer assistance, 1.55 for pre-writing activities, 1.30 for the process approach to writing, and 1.28 for strategy instruction. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

Motives for writing is a new research area in the field of writing motivation. Recent studies have identified important motives for students' writing. Adding to this nascent foundation, the current study examined relationships between writing motives, writing self-efficacy and time spent on writing using a sample of grade 4 Chinese students in Shanghai (n = 619) who completed a questionnaire assessing these constructs. Four alternative models, driven separately by key motives including social recognition, curiosity, competition and grades, depicted complex relationships between motives, self-efficacy and time on writing. The grades driven model best-fitted the data. This final model showed the importance of grades as a key motive for writing and how intrinsic and extrinsic motivational pathways were originated from this performance-focused motive, connecting with writing self-efficacy and time spent on writing. Cluster analyses classified these Chinese students into seven groups of beginning writers holding contrasting profiles of writing motives. Extremely-motivated and highly-motivated writers held multiple motives in their profiles. The motive profiles of curious and averagely-motivated writers were dominated by curiosity and involvement. Performance-focused and weakly-motivated writers focused predominantly on grades as a key motive. Finally, unmotivated writers did not hold any clear motives for writing. These clusters of writers differed in writing self-efficacy but not in their time spent on writing. Complementing the findings of path analyses, cluster analyses showed grades as a dominant motive for writing among different clusters of motivated writers.

Until children can produce letters quickly and accurately, it is assumed that handwriting disrupts and limits the quality of their text. This investigation is the largest study to date (2596 girls, 2354 boys) assessing the association between handwriting fluency and writing quality. We tested whether handwriting fluency made a statistically unique contribution to predicting primary grade students' writing quality on a functional writing task, after variance due to attitude towards writing, students' language background (L1, L2, bilingual), gender, grade, and nesting due to class and school were first controlled. Handwriting fluency accounted for a statistically significant 7.4% of the variance in the writing quality of primary grade students. In addition, attitude towards writing, language background, grade and gender each uniquely predicted writing quality. Finally, handwriting fluency increased from one grade to the next, girls had faster handwriting than boys, and gender differences increased across grades. An identical pattern of results were observed for writing quality. Directions for future research and writing practices are discussed.

Within the context of the Direct and Indirect Effects Model of Writing (Kim & Park, 2019), we examined a dynamic relations hypothesis, which contends that the relations of component skills, including reading comprehension, to written composition vary as a function of dimensions of written composition. Specifically, we investigated: (1) whether higher-order cognitive skills (i.e., inference, perspective taking, and monitoring) are differentially related to three dimensions of written composition--writing quality, writing productivity, and correctness in writing; (2) whether reading comprehension is differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition after accounting for oral language, cognition, and transcription skills, and whether reading comprehension mediates the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to the three dimensions of written composition; and (3) whether total effects of oral language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension vary for the three dimensions of written composition. Structural equation model results from 350 English-speaking second graders showed that higher-order cognitive skills were differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition. Reading comprehension was related only to writing quality, but not to writing productivity or correctness in writing, and reading comprehension differentially mediated the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to writing quality. Total effects of language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension varied largely for the three dimensions of written composition. These results support the dynamic relation hypothesis, role of reading in writing, and the importance of accounting for dimensions of written composition in a theoretical model of writing.

This article is an expanded version of my presentation to Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Association for the Career Achievement Award for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education in 2019. It provides an overview of research conducted by colleagues and I that examined the following four topics: (a) the role of writing knowledge, strategies, motivation, and skills in writing and students' growth as writers; (b) the connections between writing, language, reading, and learning; (c) the identification of effective writing practices; and (d) the current state of writing instruction in schools. For each topic, I provide examples of the logic and the different types of evidence collected in studying each area. Concluding comments focus on areas still in need of investigation.

This study evaluated the validity of a multi-dimensional measure of motives for writing. Based on an earlier instrument and theoretical conceptualisations of writing beliefs, we developed the Writing Motivation Questionnaire (WMQ). A sample of 2,186 fourth- (558 girls; 521 boys) and fifth-grade students (546 girls; 561 boys) completed 28 writing motivation items assessing seven motives for writing. Two of these motives addressed intrinsic reasons for writing (curiosity, involvement); three motives assessed extrinsic reasons (grades, competition, and social recognition); and two motives examined self-regulatory reasons (emotional regulation, relief from boredom). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesised structure of the WMQ, and each of the seven motives evidenced adequate reliability for research purposes. Measurement invariance was established for grades four and five students, girls and boys, White and non-White students, children receiving or not receiving free/reduced lunch, and students receiving or not receiving special education services. The WMQ predicted students' writing performance.

Three studies examined if teachers' beliefs about writing predicted their efficacy to teach writing. We surveyed primary grade teachers from Taiwan (N = 782), Shanghai (N = 429), and the United States (N = 214). At each location, teachers completed surveys assessing attitudes toward writing and the teaching of writing, beliefs about students' progress as writers, and epistemological beliefs about writing instruction, writing development, and writing knowledge. We examined if each of these beliefs made unique and statistically significant contributions to predicting efficacy to teach writing after variance due to all other predictors, as well as personal and contextual variables, was controlled. With one exception, these three sets of beliefs each accounted for unique variance in predicting teacher efficacy at each location. There was, however, variability in unique variance in teacher efficacy scores accounted for by specific beliefs across locations and the factor structure of various measures by location.

Two hundred fifty-four intermediate-grade teachers (88% female) in urban public schools in Chile indicated how frequently they made writing instructional adaptations for their weakest writers, which included students with learning and other disabilities. A majority of teachers reported making the following adaptations for their weakest writers at least once a week: individual tutoring, assistance from a peer when writing, and extra instruction in grammar/spelling, planning/revising, handwriting, sentence construction, and text structure. On a monthly basis or more often, a majority of teachers reported they provided weaker writers with choice about writing assignments, the opportunity to complete an alternative writing assignment, and extra writing instruction via computer technology. How often an adaptation was applied did not differ by grade. The perceived adequacy of teacher undergraduate preparation to teach writing, their efficacy to teach writing, and the proportion of students with disability in their classes each made a unique and statistically significant contribution to predicting how frequently teachers applied adaptations for their weakest writers. The Chilean teachers in this study reportedly made adaptations for weaker writers in their class more often than teachers in studies conducted in other countries, including the United States.

If children are to receive the writing instruction they need and deserve, it is essential that teachers develop a coherent and well-constructed vision for teaching writing. This article provides an example of how such a vision can be created. It is based on three assumptions. One, developing a vision for teaching writing should be guided by theory. This provides a framework for thinking about how writing instruction should proceed. Two, visions for teaching writing should be informed by the best scientific evidence available. This increases the likelihood that the resulting vision is an effective plan. Three, theory and evidence-based writing practices are necessary but not sufficient for developing classroom visions for teaching writing. Teachers need to bring their own knowledge, gained through experience, to this process. Collectively, these three ingredients make it possible for teachers to make informed, judicious, and intelligent decisions when constructing a vision for teaching writing.