This study examined the effectiveness of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) to improve students' ability to write expository essays after reading social studies text. Third-grade general education teachers (N = 14) were randomly assigned by clusters to SRSD or a business as usual control condition. One hundred and eighty consented students…

Studies that specifically test the effectiveness of instructional procedures for improving the writing of young African American males who experience difficulty learning to write are almost nonexistent. Although writing intervention studies include these children, researchers rarely disaggregate their data to determine whether the writing…

Explicitly and systematically teaching strategies for planning and drafting specific types of text has improved the writing of elementary and middle school students with disabilities in previous studies. In this investigation, we examined the effect of teaching a planning and drafting strategy for persuasive writing to high school students with…

This study examined whether discourse knowledge about various forms of writing predicted young developing writers' (Grade 2 and Grade 4 students) story writing performance once 4 writing (handwriting fluency, spelling, attitude toward writing, advanced planning) and 3 nonwriting (grade, gender, basic reading skills) variables were controlled. It…

In this study, we examined whether early, supplemental strategy instruction in planning helped ameliorate writing difficulties. Second-grade students experiencing difficulty learning to write were taught a strategy for planning and writing stories. Learning to use the strategy had a positive effect on writing, as students' stories became more…

The effects of dictation and explicit instruction in planning on the composing skills of 42 fifth, sixth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities were studied. The combination of dictation and instruction in advanced planning resulted in more complete and qualitatively better essays than those written by comparison students. (SLD)