Evidence-based teaching of essay writing: Intervention at primary school

ABSTRACT

Writing skills are important for educational achievement, employment and social and civic participation. This quasi-experimental study aimed to improve essay writing skills with an evidence-based intervention in two schools of mainstream P6 (grade 5) students (N = 44) in a largely rural local authority in Scotland. The intervention included peer revision of each other’s texts in a programme of writing strategy instruction and self-regulation. The control students (N = 46) followed an on-going parallel intervention. The experimental programme led to large positive effect sizes for writing quality. This was the first study in Scotland to investigate writing strategy instruction and self-regulation as part of an evidence-based intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• Writing skills
• writing strategy instruction
• self-regulation
• intervention
• elementary school

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.