A longitudinal intervention study of the effects of increasing amount of meaningful writing across grades 1 and 2

Journal article


Skar, Gustaf B., Graham, Stephen, Huebner, Alan, Kvistad, Anne Holten, Johansen, Marita Byberg and Aasen, Arne Johannes. (2023). A longitudinal intervention study of the effects of increasing amount of meaningful writing across grades 1 and 2. Reading and Writing. 37(6), pp. 1345-1373. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10460-0
AuthorsSkar, Gustaf B., Graham, Stephen, Huebner, Alan, Kvistad, Anne Holten, Johansen, Marita Byberg and Aasen, Arne Johannes
Abstract

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.

Keywordswriting; teaching writing; increasing writing; writing is caught approach
Year01 Jan 2023
JournalReading and Writing
Journal citation37 (6), pp. 1345-1373
PublisherSpringer-Verlag Dordrecht
ISSN1573-0905
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10460-0
Web address (URL)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-023-10460-0
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range1345-1373
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online08 Jun 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted26 May 2023
Deposited08 Aug 2024
Additional information

© The Author(s) 2023

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Open access funding provided by NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology (incl St. Olavs Hospital - Trondheim University Hospital). This study was funded by a grant from the Norwegian Research Council (Grant No.: 288795).

Place of publicationNetherlands
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