How I see the “science of writing”
I have coined this phrase because of the popular interest in the Science of Reading.
It’s a way to bring attention to the importance of writing instruction, and since I use it a lot I want to explain what it means to me.
Here’s the definition of the “science of reading” from the Reading League (a national educational nonprofit led by educators and reading experts):
“The science of reading is a vast, interdisciplinary body of scientifically-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing. This research has been conducted over the last five decades across the world, and it is derived from thousands of studies conducted in multiple languages.”
Although writing is included in this definition, When it comes to science (meaning research), writing is at a distinct disadvantage to reading.
This book was written in 1955 and was a best seller.
Reading has been studied for decades, inside out and upside down. Many books have been written on why people can’t read. Opinions run so strongly that there have been - and still are - battles over how to teach it. Can the same be said for writing? Have you ever heard of the “writing wars”? And how many books are being written lamenting the fact that many people can’t write?
Most of the research on writing has been done with students in 5th grade through college. In fact, one of the most widely used curricula for writing, Lucy Calkins’s Units of Study, is based on studies of how college students learn to be better writers.
A few years ago I spent several full days in a college library going through research platforms for articles on K-2 writing. It was a pretty thorough search with all the key words I could think of, and I came up with a list of 11 researchers who had invested some amount of time into studying the youngest writers. Out of that group of 11, only a few had pre-K to grade 2 (Early Childhood) as their major focus. My point isn’t that I found everything there was. It’s this: if I had spent several full days looking up reading research in K-2, I would have been drowning in studies and lists of key researchers.
Why this lack? I believe it’s because writing instruction isn’t taken seriously for this age group. We know that students who can’t read well by third grade rarely catch up, but it seems there’s not the same urgency for writing. Perhaps people think that teaching kids to write really starts in third grade and that any writing activities in kindergarten, first, and second grade are just for fun.
Why writing is included in the science of reading
One definitive discovery about both reading and writing is that they aren’t wired into our brains. This is different from speech, which is a natural impulse for humans and is learned through exposure.
I remember in my first teaching years in the late 1980’s reassuring parents “be patient, the lightbulb will just turn on”. The prevailing belief was that with enough exposure, reading aloud, learning sight words and letter sounds (and time, your child just needs more time) and voila! it will happen!
This is true for some kids, which has helped the myth to stick around for so long. I could always give parents several examples of kids who just quickly - and seemingly instinctually - took up reading at age 8 or 9. But what does the science say? Research shows that our brains are not wired for reading and writing!
Even though some kids are genetically predisposed and/or have helpful early learning environments, everyone needs at least a bit of reading instruction, and at least half the population (somewhere between 50-60%) of children need thorough and explicit “code-based” (phonics) instruction daily in order to become proficient readers. How to help with children’s brain wiring (i.e. teach) children to become proficient readers and writers, is, as Louisa Moats puts it, “rocket science.”
Many of the same areas of the brain that we use for reading are also used to generate written text, which makes sense given that they both involve language, letters, words, and comprehension. The way children learn to write is dependent on many of the same skills as reading, such as phonemic awareness.
Steve Graham, a prominent researcher of children’s writing (and one of the names that came up over and over during my days in the library!) says:
“Reading and writing are connected, as they draw upon common knowledge and cognitive processes. Consequently, improving children’s writing skills should result in improved reading skills, and vice versa.”
Because reading and writing are so intertwined, it is safe to extrapolate from reading research that the same type of explicit instruction that works well for most young readers is also good for many young writers. Teaching kids to write takes a lot of time and effort. There is no writing instinct or sudden readiness that kicks in around third grade.
Scientific knowledge about writing instruction
Reading and writing have fundamental differences, though. Being a writer requires a deeper knowledge of sentence construction, spelling, and grammar than reading. People who can read and comprehend difficult text can’t necessarily produce it. The creates a need for research into how students learn to generate ideas, compose, edit, revise, and think about writing.
As I discovered in my days at the college library, most of this research has been conducted on students in 5th grade through college, which leaves many unanswered questions about the youngest writers.
However, there are a few topics relevant to K-2 that have come under the magnifying glass and are gathering enough evidence to be considered part of the “science of writing”.
Perhaps one topic that has been studied the most is handwriting. Evidence is mounting that handwriting instruction is a major boost to students’ abilities to compose writing, to write faster, and (for pre-K-1) to recognize letters. This is true not only for the youngest writers, but up through 9th grade. See my short video on handwriting that includes more details on this research.
There are also interesting studies showing that students who take handwritten notes (as opposed to typed notes) in high school and college retain more of what they have learned.
So, instead of handwriting being considered more and more unnecessary, it may be gaining a new status in the coming years.
What we do and don’t know about the “science of writing” for K-2
We know:
Writing, like reading, is a skill that is learned through instruction.
The type of instruction needed for many, if not most people, to become good readers and writers is explicit, thorough, systematic, and requires lots of well-designed practice.
Knowledge of phonics and morphology (word structure) supports reading, writing and spelling
Handwriting instruction is a critical part of early writing success, enabling children to get their thoughts on paper and to more quickly become familiar with letter names and sounds.
We don’t scientifically know:
We don’t know the best way to teach punctuation and conventions for the youngest writers. There are plenty of theories and how-to books, but not much is backed up by real research. I have developed some very explicit lessons to help children learn punctuation, and I’ve seen success, but in the big scheme of things it’s all still one grand experiment.
We don’t know what interventions work best for dysgraphia in young children, and how various interventions work with different types of dysgraphia. Here again, I think there are successful strategies that are being used with struggling writers, but not enough organized research that would lead to a meta-analysis and give the big picture. (If you know of any, please direct me to it!)
We don’t know lots of other stuff. You name it. What research would you like to see about how to teach writing to kids?
The science of learning
Looking outward to the broader picture, there is the what we could call the “science of learning”, a collection of accumulated knowledge from the past 70+ years about cognitive processing, educational psychology, motivation, learning environments, etc.
This “science of learning” is just as important to consider in any classroom application of reading or writing research.
Let’s take just one example from John Hattie’s work, one of over 1200 meta-analyses he has now done in the area of academic achievement. The effect size in the area of “teacher-student relationships” is high (.72). Let’s say a teacher is implementing all the right kinds of lessons supported by the reading research, but yells at the class frequently and clearly doesn’t like some of her students. We know from the “science of reading” that her instructional strategies are helpful, but we also know from the “science of learning” that some children will resist learning from someone who isn’t treating them well.
The various “sciences” behind Growing Writers
The design of Growing Writers includes knowledge from the research in reading, writing, and cognitive science. I think they are all important for a curriculum to work. My 12 training videos go into more detail about the How and Why of the program and provide tips for how to make it work in the classroom.
Visit the Growing Writers website here.
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