Making connections between children's existing means of expression (play, art, and movement) and the intricacies of print is a necessary and time-honored approach to writing instruction in the early years of school, yet, after kindergarten, one that is easily overlooked. In this article, we examine an approach to writing instruction for…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine how kindergarten teachers teach writing and their beliefs about writing instruction using survey methodology. Participants in this study included 78 kindergarten teachers in the United States. Results revealed that most kindergarten teachers used a balanced approach to writing instruction,…

This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional…

The mixed methods study examined effects of evidence-based minilessons on student attitudes and achievement in writing. Researched literature concluded there is a decline of writing in the United States that mostly begins near fourth grade and continues through high school and college. Factors contributing to this gap included: lack of teacher…

Drawing from data generated in a third-grade classroom in the months following the 2016 US presidential election, this article zooms in on self-produced videos a child made of her writing process. Organized around 3 "takes" of the child's writing, the author provides readers a glimpse into (1) the child's composing in the videos, (2) a…

Writing has a leading role in learning and, although elementary-school curricula emphasize the development of this complex skill, many students still struggle with their writing performance. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and social validity of CriaTivo, a curriculum-based intervention developed following a Response to Intervention model…

Background: Traditionally writing instruction at the start of school has focused on developing students' ability to spell and handwrite. Teaching children explicit self-regulatory strategies for developing content and structure for their text has proved effective for students in later grades of primary (elementary) education. Aims: The present…

The authors employ hip-hop music as a literacy heuristic aimed at supporting the literacy development of kindergarten and first-grade students. How do young students learn to write hip-hop lyrics? How do young students engage in hip-hop reading and writing processes? The classroom examples show that students engaged in individual and interactive…

We think with several theoretical concepts from Jacques Derrida (defer, différance, deconstruction, and trace), in order to better understand how the processes of children, materials, and a teacher (re)defined and (re)imagined writing when they began to compose with a range of tools as writers in a second grade (7- to 8-year-olds) Writers' Studio.…

As schools work to meet the ambitious Common Core State Standards in writing in the US, instructional approaches are likely to be examined (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). However, there is little research on the current state of instruction. This study was designed to…

This article proposes ways to authentically amplify writer's workshop for emergent bilinguals. Through the study of one bilingual teacher's mediation in teaching, we examined the affordances that translanguaging and transmodal practices have for emergent bilingual students' writing processes. In this case study, we focused on a writing sequence…

Research suggests that experts and beginners use qualitatively different writing processes when given the same text to write. Throughout their writing, experts tend to create a network of executive, structural, and content problems that they continually refine and coordinate as they bring the text to fruition. Novices, in contrast, tend to focus…

This article presents a case study on two fourth grade students with learning disabilities in two different writing situations: writing for test preparation and writing for digital stories. The students' writing behaviors, processes, and products in these two settings are contrasted. The differences in the students' writing experiences suggest…

It is important to find the means by which struggling writers can find success in the English Language Arts. For students struggling with reading and writing, the visual arts may be a way of accessing and expressing their ideas and ultimately opening up a world of creative possibilities. This article explores drawing and painting as a pre-writing…

This study documented the writing practices of students in a Mexican elementary school and identified participants' attitudes toward different forms of writing. Data included observations in two classrooms as well as interviews with six case-study children and their parents. Results revealed copious writing in the school including dictations,…