Adolescents today need mental health support (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024), and schools are a place where a universal approach to positive well-being can be promoted (Weissberg, 2019). While programs exist for social and emotional learning (SEL), there is a call for teachers to find a way for daily SEL integration into the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the skills and types of instruction present within four commonly used writing textbooks at grades four and five via content and quantitative analyses. Determining the presence of standards-based skills and evidence-based practices may help shed light on the effectiveness and quality of these curricula. The…

Research suggests that current teachers' writing instruction does not prepare students for the demands of college and career writing, a problem that has persisted for decades. The purpose of this survey study of third- and fifth-grade teachers (N=159) across the U.S. was 1) to determine changes in teachers' frequency teaching writing using a set…

The author examines guided play among students in a South African classroom using a play-and-write workshop constructed by her and her students. She determines that the workshop displays the characteristics of playful learning, lies on the playful learning spectrum, and fits the criteria for guided play. She concludes that, given the benefits of…

The current study replicated an earlier investigation by Bouwer and van der Veen (2023) where 10 Grade 5 and 6 classrooms in the Netherlands (210 students) were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition, with treatment students evidencing improvements in the quality of their essays after practice writing argumentative essays, reading…

Student motivation to write is a pivotal factor influencing their writing achievement. However, individual motivation to write is not independent of the learning environment. It also is crucial for teachers to develop their own efficacy, knowledge, and ability in writing and writing instruction to help them utilize effective instructional methods…

Students with emotional behavioral disorders often exhibit comorbid academic and behavior deficits and benefit from strategies that address those needs. Writing can be significantly difficult for students with EBD due to the complex requirements when completing written activities. Chapter 1 consists of two research to practice papers discussing…

Text generation--the mental translation of ideas into language at word, sentence, and discourse levels--involves oral language abilities. However, oral language skills are rarely a target of writing interventions. We ran an intervention to improve fifth and 10th graders' written production through the development of oral sentence generation…

The intent of this study was to examine three high impact instructional strategies and determine their impact on self-efficacy in writing in fourth-grade and fifth-grade classrooms. Goal setting, goal tracking, and celebration of success are instructional strategies that are widely used with various capacities in the classroom. These strategies…

The purpose of this article is to share specific methods employed to support preservice teachers as they engage in culturally sustaining nonfiction writing instruction with elementary children in an embedded methods course. First, we explore theories of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies. Next, we define culturally sustaining writing…

A central goal of upper elementary schools is improving students' skills to write persuasively using source materials. This study focused on three essential areas of writing at the upper elementary grade levels. First, children learned skills to read and use source materials through the web-based intelligent tutoring system for the text structure…

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…

Culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy is an asset-based approach to teaching and learning. In this way, students' identities, languages, and cultures are centered in the learning experience, creating a sense of belonging. The authors observed culturally relevant and sustaining approaches to teaching and learning while visiting schools in New…

Writing analytically about text is a valued skill reflected in current academic standards. The quality of text-based writing opportunities in U.S. elementary schools, however, is generally weak, with variation in the rigor of the writing tasks teachers assign. Previous research suggests that teachers' beliefs about instruction significantly…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between two teaching methods used to teach reading and writing and reading comprehension skills and successes of fifth-grade students. The main difference between the two methods in our research; teaching of the first literacy in the sentence method, determined and sentences with various…