What is the research evidence on writing? - Department for Education

Sentence combining <strong>is</strong> an effective strategy to improve <strong>the</strong> syntactic
maturity of pupils in written Engl<strong>is</strong>h between <strong>the</strong> ages of 5 and 16 (Andrews
et al, 2004a).
Therapeutic teaching practices can be more effective than sensorimotor
teaching practices in teaching pupils to improve poor handwriting (Denton et
al, 2006).
Mult<strong>is</strong>ensory approaches to teaching handwriting may be more effective for
pupils in <strong>the</strong>ir second year of school than cognitive approaches (Zwicker and
Hadwin, 2009).
There <strong>is</strong> some <strong>evidence</strong> that <strong>the</strong> use of ICT to teach spelling can be more
effective than conventional methods, but it <strong>is</strong> not stat<strong>is</strong>tically significant
(Torgerson and Elbourne, 2002).
For struggling writers and pupils with specific learning difficulties or Special
Educational Needs (SEND), <strong>the</strong> approaches below are effective (Mason et al, 2011;
Santangelo and Olinghouse, 2009; Brooks, 2007; Humphrey and Squires, 2011):
Use explicit, interactive, scaffolded instruction in planning, composing and
rev<strong>is</strong>ing strategies;
Use cognitive strategy instruction;
For pupils with SEND, strategies that involve effective use and monitoring of
pupils’ data, which can be accessed by a range of stakeholders and can be
reviewed by both teachers and parents, having structured conversations
with parents and a comprehensive range of interventions have been
effective in ra<strong>is</strong>ing pupils’ achievement in Engl<strong>is</strong>h.
<strong>What</strong> do we know about <strong>the</strong> gender gap in writing?
Evidence suggests that boys perform less well than girls in writing. Research
<strong>evidence</strong> has identified a range of factors behind <strong>the</strong>ir underperformance (Daly,
2003; Estyn, 2008; DfES, 2007). These include:
Factors related to <strong>the</strong> quality of teaching such as teaching grammar
separately from contextual<strong>is</strong>ed writing, inappropriate use of interventions,
m<strong>is</strong>use of writing frames and a lack of connection between oral and writing
work.
School-level factors such as not offering children an active and free-play
environment which has been associated with more progress in reading and
writing.
Classroom-level factors such as ineffective use of ICT, setting and streaming.
Behavioural and social-level factors.
Factors related to <strong>the</strong> way lessons are conducted such as too much emphas<strong>is</strong>
on story writing, not giving boys ownership of <strong>the</strong>ir writing, a d<strong>is</strong>crepancy
between boys’ reading preferences and writing topics, using ‘counting down’
time strategies and a d<strong>is</strong>like by boys of drafting and figurative language.
The following strategies for ra<strong>is</strong>ing boys’ performance have been identified (Daly,
2003; Ofsted, 2005b):
School and classroom level approaches such as using active learning tasks;
appropriate approaches to d<strong>is</strong>cipline; target setting, monitoring and
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