We used a single case concurrent multiple probe across participants design to evaluate the effects of a multi-component intervention package on the number of correct sentences used when writing about a story for three rural elementary students with intellectual or developmental disabilities and extensive support needs. The package was comprised of…

To ensure adequate writing support for children, a profound understanding of the subskills of text quality is essential. Writing theories have already helped to better understand the contribution of different subskills to text quality, but empirical work is often limited to more general low-level transcription skills like handwriting fluency and…

This paper reports an exploratory pilot study--which is part of a larger study--examining the impact of an innovative approach to enhancing the writing skills of primary school students with dyslexia, digital storytelling (DST), linked to critical and cultural learning. The study adopted a single-subject design with a pre-experimental approach…

Many students in the United States struggle to achieve proficiency in writing. Writing is an important skill to develop, as it is a way for students to communicate what they know and integrate knowledge and critical thinking skills. A lack of writing proficiency can have a significant impact on academic performance in secondary school and on…

Before formal instruction, preschoolers represent words in print in various degrees of conventionality. Unlicensed letters are letters that have no connection to the word that the child is aiming to write; they are neither licensed by phoneme-grapheme rules nor by orthographical representations in the mental lexicon. In the current paper, we…

Many students in vocational education and training (VET) have difficulties with reading and writing. To date, there is little research on whether and how the development of VET students' writing skills may benefit from teaching approaches that integrate reading and writing. This study reports results from a semester-long intervention study…

The purpose of this observational study was to examine the amount and type of writing instruction and practice in kindergarten classrooms. Participants included 78 kindergarten teachers from 34 elementary schools across three states in the US. Classroom teachers were videotaped three times (fall, winter, and spring) during the academic year. We…

Imitation is a crucial process for learning and brain development. It is based on the mirror neuron mechanism and underlies our understanding of actions and the gestures of others. Some researchers hypothesized a possible correlation between a low functioning mirror neuron system (MNS) and developmental coordination disorder, including dysgraphic…

Struggling writers often need more instructional support than is present in commercially available process writing curricula. In this study, we employed a one-group, pretest-posttest design to evaluate whether 41 struggling primary grade writers who attended a university-based summer learning program would increase in writing ability, given a…

For attaining success in writing, motivation is essential. Crucially, instruction is dependent on knowing the student's capabilities and inner drives. To date, research on writing has yet to establish a consistent framework for assessing writing motivation, and often fails to acknowledge students' self-reports, rather favoring evaluations of…

There is considerable concern that many adolescents do not attain the writing competence needed to be successful in school, their personal lives, or the workplace. Ensuring that students acquire this competence is a basic responsibility of schools. In order to meet this objective, teachers need access to effective practices for teaching writing.…

The action-oriented approach (AoA) is a powerful basis to inform teaching, learning, and assessment in the classroom that identifies learners as social agents and focuses on language learning through language use. This paper answers the call for developments that help teachers teach and learners learn in an AoA-informed way. We argue that…

Writing is one of the most important forms of communication we have, yet many find it to also be one of the most challenging tasks to do, and in the case of educators, to teach. Becoming a proficient writer is one of the most important lifelong skills teachers can help students develop, but many educators do not have ample preparation to teach…

U.S. employers have reported that many college graduates are underprepared in written communication when hired and that lack of preparedness hinders these graduates' employment success. Higher education institution (HEI) administrators need information regarding which writing skills should be taught across the curriculum to improve student…

This dissertation investigates social annotation use in undergraduate reading and writing courses. It comprises three interrelated studies that examine different aspects of social annotation practices and pedagogical decision-making. The first study focuses on student annotations and analyzes students' knowledge construction practices. The second…