This study examines the impact of course-based collaboration between an elementary teacher education program and a writing center. Written texts of preservice teachers (n=141) were analyzed to establish the most frequent errors/problems in their writing. Based on the first analysis, the researchers designed and implemented an intervention focused…

Background: Important to improve writing skills in elementary school students; therefore appropriate teaching materials are needed to fulfil learning facilities. Digital storytelling based on local wisdom is a teaching material solution that is relevant to the times and precisely facilitates storytelling learning to improve students' skills of…

Sounds-Write is a systematic synthetic phonics approach that has been successfully used to teach students to read and spell for the last two decades. This volume brings together twelve case studies -- written by practitioners -- of implementation of the Sounds-Write programme in different settings and geographical contexts (Europe, US, Australia).…

The paper shows the importance of Storybird, an online platform, for developing writing and storytelling among young learners of a foreign language. Storybird is an extremely engaging collaborative storywriting website that embodies three ideas--creating, reading, and sharing. It is also a collaborative storytelling tool that allows students to…

Word processing software eliminates the physical barrier that young children experience as they struggle to make letters, by hand as well as the psychological barriers some children perceive when they equate their poor handwriting with a lack of writing ability. (MT)

The effects of intensive vocabulary instruction on students' use of taught words in their writing and on the quality of their writing was investigated. Results indicated that students who received instruction learned more of the words, used them more frequently in their writing, and their writing was of higher quality. (Author/JD)

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often experience difficulties in writing fluently and using a diversity of words. To help these students, specific and effective writing strategies must be incorporated into instruction and demonstrated to them through modeling. This study examined the effectiveness of using a story map and story map…

A teacher shares her technique for improving student writing: add detail. Forget organization, cutting, and adding more information. Get students to focus only on adding more detail to information already included. Examples are given. (MT)

Reports on research which argues that if students are to develop their own writers' voices, they must be given the time to mull over and make changes to their writing and to discuss and appreciate the voice in the writing of others. (SR)

Suggestions to help elementary educators teach students to use adjectives sparingly yet effectively include presenting and discussing definitions of adjectives from grammar books, incorporating models of adjective use from literature, explaining redundant adjective use, avoiding grammar exercises that require rewriting to add adjectives, and…

Discusses how teachers can build upon childrens' natural sense of story, identify good books to serve as models of story elements and structure, and highlight the worth of an author's or illustrator's techniques of story craft as models for improved student writing. (SR)

Offers a conceptual framework for building language awareness through the reading of poetry, encouraging children to reflect on language in interesting and powerful ways. Provides an instructional model for constructing literature-based experiences in the classroom. (SR)

The article describes a student peer-evaluation activity in writing which not only saves the teacher's grading time and energy but also increases students' creativity and style while they learn to edit their work. (CB)

Explores thoughts about what teachers owe young writers in helping them learn to spell. Considers the variety of ideas in the educational community on this topic, discussing briefly invented spelling, spelling in the writing process, word lists, and spelling patterns. (SR)

Presents and discusses a speller's bill of rights, consisting of nine items to guide a spelling curriculum and ensure that children leave elementary school able to express themselves strongly and effectively in writing, including the ability to ensure that words in their writing are spelled appropriately without spending hours on proofreading. (SR)