Highlights ways parents can support the development of writing at home through engaging activities. Offers suggestions including: (1) writing as an extension of imagination; (2) pictures and words; (3) expanding drawing; (4) entering the social world; and (5) everyday activities as sources of ideas. Asserts that forming a literacy club will help…

Describes "Studying Children in Context" as a reader- friendly book that situates studying children within the process of conducting qualitative research. Notes strengths including discussion of ethics and methods of data generation and organization, and inclusion of case studies that illuminate researchers' struggles. Notes limitations…

This article argues for a context-sensitive, integrative approach to research on reading, writing, and related text-based practices in second language acquisition (SLA). The approach views literacy not as universal psycholinguistic processes but as constellations of social, cognitive, and linguistic practices that vary with situational and…

Written and oral communications and the processes of writing and reading are highly valued within the scientific community; scientists who communicate well are successful in gaining recognition and support from members of their own communities, the research funding agencies, and the wider society. Yet how do scientists achieve this proficiency?…

Strategies are actions and behaviours used by the writer to solve problems in the writing process. These actions and behaviours reflect four clusters: meta-cognitive, cognitive, social, and affective processes. The goal of the overall study with 352 children was to check the effect of strategy usage on written output. Three research windows were…

The introduction of quilt pattern consisting of many quilt blocks formed by congruent triangles, for writing by the students in the geometry classrooms, is studied. It is found that the students enjoyed this method and writing also helped in understanding the geometric concepts expanding their vocabulary in geometry.

Current approaches to language pedagogy recognize the fact that ESL learners need explicit help to improve the grammatical accuracy of their writing. This research investigates the utility of an online resource intended to improve advanced-level ESL learners' writing by increasing their grammatical awareness and ability to correct the grammatical…

Digital media is a great multidimensional communication tool because it combines images, text, sound, and animation. For students to be effective communicators in the 21st century, they need to be sophisticated in expressing ideas with multiple communication technologies, not just the written word. Digital storytelling allows students to use…

This article presents a comprehensive model of daily, classroom informal writing assessment that is constantly linked to instruction and the characteristics of proficient writers. Methods for promoting teacher, student, and parent collaboration and their roles in dialoguing, conferencing, and reflection are discussed. Strategies for including…

A study examined and described a program to improve writing skills and related attitudes of elementary school students. Targeted population consisted of second- and fifth-grade students in a stable, middle class suburban community, located 20 miles southwest of Chicago, Illinois. The problems of underdeveloped writing skills and lack of student…

A keen understanding of ethnocentricity and the role it might play in classroom instruction may determine whether or not writing strategies for language-diverse learners will be effective. Research indicates that it is the attitudes of teachers toward students that most distinguishes successful teachers from unsuccessful teachers. The first…

This paper shows how changing the learning situations in which psychology students find themselves can affect their motivation to write differently. When students have something to say to someone for some reason, they can learn both content and important lessons about writing. The paper describes a project that involved an introductory college…

A study was based on a perceived need for creative writing improvement. A creative writing program was administered to three separate schools in two districts over an eight-week time period. The first district was in a middle class community with primarily White students. The other district was in a lower middle class community with primarily…

A study explored the constructive, collaborative process of a group of writers under circumstances which throw light on dimensions of meaning making. The writers were college freshmen receiving "process instruction" and working collaboratively in a writing course. Collaborative planning is a loosely structured planning process in which…

The purpose of this 3-year data gathering and analysis project is to specify ways in which strategic instruction is conducted in classrooms, including how teachers adapt instruction to their curriculum and how students adapt instruction to fit their purposes for and methods of writing. The purposes of the writing instruction on which the study is…