This report builds on National Literacy Trust's previous work to highlight how children and young people in Scotland felt about writing in early 2023. It explores how many enjoyed writing in their free time at home and at school, how often they wrote, what they were writing in their free time, and what motivated and inspired them to write. This…

The value of school libraries is well-established, with reviews and studies worldwide highlighting the impact on children and young people's academic achievement and literacy outcomes. Yet, it is still not a statutory requirement for schools to have a school library or school library system. As such, there are no official figures as to the number…

This report only outlines findings that relate to writing, taken from the author's second annual literacy survey, which she conducted in November/December 2011. Nearly 21,000 young people aged 8 to 16 participated. Writing is an important issue in the UK today. While children's and young people's writing standards had plateaued between 2006 and…

This report outlines findings that relate to writing, taken from the third annual literacy survey, which was conducted in November/December 2012. 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16 participated. Key findings include: (1) 44.1% of children and young people enjoy writing either "very much" or "quite a lot"; 14.8% of children and…

This article reviews research on motivation in the academic domain of writing situated within a social cognitive perspective. First we summarize major findings related to 4 theorized components of human motivation--self-efficacy beliefs or perceived competence, mastery and performance goal orientations, task interest and value, and attributions…

The question of what makes writing "good" touches several important areas of classroom writing instruction: assessment and evaluation, instruction, and teacher response during one-on-one conferences. The current paper examines contemporary views of what makes writing "good," along with the classroom implications and limitations…

A convenience sample of 618 children and adolescents in grades 4 through 10, excluding grade 8, were asked to complete a writing motivation and activity scale and to provide a timed narrative writing sample to permit an examination of the relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, writing performance, and the student…

There were 18,141 young people aged eight to 17 who participated in this online survey in November and December 2010. While the survey focuses on young people's attitudes towards reading, writing and communication skills as well as technology use, this report centers exclusively on the writing aspect of the survey. More specifically, it explores…

In contrast to the educational research and policy literature depicting urban adolescents as reluctant and struggling readers and writers, young people in recent young adult novels claim writing as an efficacious practice for self-discovery and social understanding. Analysis of the images of writers and writing in "Locomotion" and "Call Me Maria"…

This report presents second year information about the degree to which children and young people in Middlesbrough enjoy reading and writing, how often then engage in reading and writing, what types of materials they read and write and how they feel about reading and writing. It also outlines information about their confidence in their own…

This article discusses a National Writing Project Young Writer's Camp for students in grades four through twelve with initial varying attitudes and writing experiences and how "campers'" attitudes and beliefs about writing and their own identities as writers were transformed over two weeks. Based on matched pre- and post-surveys,…

Students' academic self-concepts have a reciprocal relationship with their academic performance, so high academic self-concepts are desirable. Yet, academic self-concepts typically decline during the late elementary and early middle school years. Little is known about how students' academic self-concepts are influenced to change. Fifth and sixth…

The purpose of this paper is to develop different guided writing strategies based on media richness theory and further evaluate the effects of these writing strategies on younger students' writing attitudes in terms of motivation, enjoyment and anxiety. A total of 66 sixth-grade elementary students with an average age of twelve were invited to…

Background: There are two approaches to the differential examination of school motivation. The first is to examine motivation towards specific school subjects (between school subject differentiation). The second is to examine school motivation as a multidimensional concept that varies in terms of not only intensity but also quality (within school…

Writing is an important issue in the UK today. While children's and young people's writing standards steadily improved until 2006, levels have not increased in recent years. Writing is much more than just an educational issue--it is an essential skill that allows people to participate fully in today's society and to contribute to the economy.…