What Works for Children with Literacy Difficulties? - Digital ...

24 Paired Writing (3)
Main references: Yarrow and Topping (2001). Also summarised in Topping (2001), and
Topping et al. (2000). Approach also described in Topping (1995).
Date: not stated (c.1997?)
Age-range: Scottish Primary 6 (=Y5) (‘10- and 11-year-olds’)
Type of children: ‘A problematic mixed-ability class’
N of experimental group: 13 (14 at pre-test but one pair lost), all in one class in one school
N of control group: 13 (14 at pre-test but one pair lost), all in same class
Equivalence of groups: Children matched in pairs on basis of gender and pre-test writing
scores and allocated to groups; groups then allocated randomly to be experimentals or
controls. Each group then divided at median score – lower half of experimentals became
writers (tutees); lower half of controls became their control group; upper half of experimentals
became helpers (tutors); upper half of controls became their control group. However,
here all experimentals are treated as one group and all controls as another because Ns would
otherwise be too small.
N of alternative intervention groups: (no alternative intervention group)
Nature of alternative intervention: n/a
Length of intervention in weeks: 6 (8 weeks between pre-and post-test)
Writing assessment: as Sutherland and Topping (1999) but using 35 sub-criteria to create
35-point scale. The writing was marked by people who were unaware of which group the
children belonged to.
Pre-and post-test average raw scores and gains for writing, s.d’s of post-test and gain
scores (s.d’s of pre-test scores not stated), and effect size:
Interaction (exps) No Interaction (conts)
pre-test 11.10 11.16
post-test 16.15 13.54
(s.d.) (4.06) (4.89)
gain 5.08 2.38
(s.d.) (2.33) (3.52)
Statistical significance: p = 0.016
Effect size: 0.53
Ratio gain: n/a
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