Writing performance for a large number of adolescents, with and without learning disabilities (LD), in the United States is below the level required for success in college and in the world of work. Despite the importance of writing and students' with LD documented difficulties in this academic domain, writing intervention research for adolescents…

Discusses the need for composition courses for non-native English speaking students who are majoring in science and technology to prepare them to write on scientific/technical topics. Unique differences between conventional and technical writing tasks are discussed, and teaching implications are assessed. (GLR)

Reports on the work being done by Martha King with the writing of primary grade children. (FL)

Observes that children are ready to write when they understand what writing does, when they are interested in writing, when they want to communicate through writing, and when they understand that written symbols represent meaning. (RL)

Reviews literature comparing traditional manuscript alphabets to slanted manuscript alphabets and finds insufficient evidence to support requiring kindergarten, first-, and second-grade children to learn the slanted manuscript alphabet. Notes that since many children enter school knowing how to form their letters in the traditional style, learning…

Reviews what researchers have found out about prewriting, and postulates how this information can help teachers promote growth in writing. (CRH)

Discusses the importance of preschool literacy training. (FL)

To determine the designs, procedures, and findings of studies related to an investigation of the developmental aspects of the writing processes of children, a literature search was made of documents indexed in "Current Index to Journals in Education" (CIJE) and "Resources in Education" (RIE). A search was also made of the literature in…

Explores how children become oriented to literacy and how their perceptions of the purpose of print develop as they move toward becoming more fluent users of print. (DF)

Addresses the following aspects of context: multidisciplinary perspectives and definitions of context, contextual shifts between the home and the school, contextual factors involved in the process of learning to write, and pedagogical implications for curriculum development. (CB)

A research review examined approaches on how to tap into writing so that students will be motivated to want to express their thoughts on paper. In addition, interviews were conducted with a well known principal and teacher of an inner city school in Chicago, Illinois and with a professor of writing at Murray State University in Kentucky. A writing…

Presents a model that predicts writing growth in children as a logical outcome of language acquisition. Provides a list of the kinds of language learning underway in the elementary school years and suggests that teachers may use this list to anticipate where and how such learning will influence the writing processes of children. (FL)

Writing readiness theories and the evolution of writing styles are reviewed, noting the strengths and weaknesses related to the special needs of dyslexic or learning-disabled students. Also discussed are the Children's Handwriting Evaluation Scale and its counterpart for college students, which provide objective measures of rate and quality of…

Designed to alleviate the confusion caused by the existence of a multiplicity of approaches to writing research, the four parts of this book present explicit discussions of research principles and methods used by researchers actively working within a variety of disciplines. The two chapters in Part 1 describe very broad views of the entire…

Recognizing the differences between reading and writing is as important as recognizing their similarities for improving current methods of teaching composition. Environment and motivation are two areas in which these differences are most noticeable. Since motivation is a preexisting quality that can only be fostered and not implanted, environment…