Improving the writing performance of struggling writers in second grade

An important goal in preventing writing disabilities is to provide effective early instruction to at-risk students to maximize their writing development. This study examined whether or not explicitly teaching six at-risk second-grade writers, including children with disabilities, how to plan and draft stories would improve their story writing as well as their recall of narrative reading material. The self-regulated strategy development model was used to teach these strategies; the impact of this instruction was evaluated via a multiple-baseline design. Instruction had a positive impact on students' writing, as their stories were longer, more complete, and, with the exception of one student, qualitatively better. Instructional effects also transferred to the recall of narrative reading material for four of the six students. These findings were generally maintained over time.