The need for effective writing instruction

Department

Education

Document Type

Article

Publication Source

Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties

Publication Date

2013-05-01

Volume

18

Issue

1

First Page

87

Last Page

101

Abstract

Many students with writing difficulties have negligible editing skills at best. Existing research supports that a strategy approach to teaching writing conventions to students with learning disabilities is effective, particularly when the strategies involve mnemonics. Recognizing that classroom teachers are increasingly overburdened, our study offers an alternative setting for academic intervention - the after-school program - and focuses on an intervention utilizing a mnemonic designed to increase the efficacy of the time spent on editing in the writing process. This study investigates the impact of two instructional conditions on participants' editing skills: (1) the effects of direct instruction regarding writing conventions to a combination of direct instruction and (2) a mnemonic writing strategy from Step up to writing. Both approaches produced significant gains (p <.05). However, the combined approach exhibited a larger effect size of d =.77-.84 at post-test, as measured by TOWL-3 Contrived Composite scores. © 2013 Copyright Learning Difficulties Australia.

DOI

10.1080/19404158.2013.805149

https://doi.org/10.1080/19404158.2013.805149

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