Bitesize Research: Enjoyment Of Writing

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week! This week I was interested in some of the findings from the National Literacy Trust (NLT) about children’s enjoyment of writing. This furthers our ongoing thinking about disciplinary literacy and the role that different subjects may play in this.

Objectives: To understand the current state of play with children’s enjoyment of writing

Summary: 

• The study has found that just 34.6% of students aged between 8 and 18 say that they enjoy writing, and that this drops to 25% by the age of 16.

• Despite this, the study found that many students believed writing had a positive impact on their wellbeing, creativity, social connections and ability to support causes they care about. 

• The study found that girls enjoyed writing more than boys and that students receiving free school meals enjoyed it more than their non-FSM counterparts. 

• This is consistent with NLT research over time which suggests that students from lower income backgrounds tend to enjoy writing in their free time more than other students. 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• What is important about writing in my subject? How am I currently promoting a love of writing?

• What opportunities for writing and building a love of writing might there be in my area?

• What further ideas or support do I need on this topic?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: How writing about classroom content impacts achievement

This week, I wanted to share with you a meta-analysis published by the Review of Educational Research in March 2020 by Graham, Kiuhara and MacKay.

Objectives of study: This review looked at how writing about classroom content impacted achievement in Maths, Science and Social Studies. Whether this varied from subject to subject, and whether age, assessment or writing activity type were influencing factors were also examined in this study. It used data from 56 studies, and around 6,000 pupils in years 2-12.

Headline findings: Writing about classroom content has a significantly positive impact on achievement in Maths, Science and Social Studies.

Summary of study: 

• The ages of pupils did not impact the correlation between writing and achievement; it was strongly positive in all age groups.

• The type of writing task (e.g. summarising a text, creating a narrative) did not impact the correlation between writing about classroom content and achievement.

• The type of assessment in each subject also did not impact the correlation. 

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflections questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How am I currently using writing tasks in my lessons? How impactful are they on student learning?

• In what ways can I create written tasks that enable students to better learn classroom content?

• How can I seek best practice with creating written tasks from subject areas such as English or Humanities?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please start the discussion below!