Teachers' reported practices for teaching writing in England

Area of Science:

• Education
• Applied Linguistics

Background:

• Systematic studies on English teachers' writing instruction approaches are lacking.
• The 'simple view of writing' framework is utilized to analyze teaching practices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the nature and frequency of writing teaching approaches in English primary schools.
• To examine how different aspects of the writing process are addressed by teachers.

Main Methods:

• An online questionnaire was administered to 188 staff across ten schools.
• Data from 88 class teachers who completed all questionnaire items were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Teachers reported enjoying writing instruction and feeling prepared, yet nearly half found supporting struggling writers problematic.
• Word-level instruction occurred most frequently (several times a week), followed by transcription, sentence, and text levels (weekly).
• Planning, reviewing, and revising were least frequent (monthly). Younger students received more phonics/spelling focus, while older students received more focus on word roots, grammar, and text construction.

Conclusions:

• Primary teachers in England prioritize word-level skills, with less frequent attention to higher-order writing processes like planning and revision.
• Specific instructional differences exist between teaching younger and older primary students, particularly concerning phonics versus grammatical and textual elements.