eef literacy review

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How the EEF helps to improve literacy education standards

By Oliver Shrouder

05 Dec 2022

In this article:

Who is the Education Endowment Foundation?

Why do the education endowment foundation focus so strongly on literacy, what do the education endowment foundation do to improve literacy instruction, guidance reports, how schools can embed eef guidance into their teaching.

Established in 2011 by the Sutton Trust, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent charity which supports teachers and senior leaders directly, with the aim of raising attainment and closing the disadvantage gap. The EEF supports the development of those aged between two and nineteen, especially those who are currently in difficult situations, and provides resources to prepare them for the world of work and further study.

To achieve this, the EEF works with a network of 36 research schools to analyse and summarise the strongest, most up-to-date evidence available to support learners. This information is then provided to teachers and senior leaders through the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit , which is used by 70% of secondary schools across the United Kingdom.

Additionally, the EEF funds independent evaluations of high-level projects to discover the strongest methods of teaching within the classroom. The charity has tested over 190 programmes so far, working alongside partners and funders to break the link between income and achievement and close the disadvantage gap .

Language and literacy are foundational skills for learners’ progress throughout their education. Literacy not only provides the building blocks for academic success, but it also leads to more rewarding career opportunities during a learner’s adult life. This has led to the EEF placing a significant amount of focus into the areas of literacy and language. To date, the EEF has funded 24 literacy projects for younger and struggling readers, as well as an ongoing Primary Literacy Campaign in the North-East of England.

It is vital that each student has a strong understanding of reading comprehension throughout their lives, not just for success in English but to thrive in every subject across the curriculum. The EEF’s science literature review discovered that the reading capability of a student was the best predictor of later achievement in science, which reveals how crucial a learner’s knowledge of language and literacy is during their development: progress in literacy boosts attainment in every discipline .

The EEF has found that learners improve most consistently when the approach to reading and literacy is balanced, combining a focus on reading comprehension and the decoding of words. As a child progresses through their education, what they learn in the classroom will shift according to their needs and priorities . The EEF has already begun to see promising results from this balanced approach. For example, oral language interventions provide a space for spoken interaction within a classroom; this focus has already shown an improvement in younger children from disadvantaged backgrounds. For learners between four and seven, evidence from the EEF has shown that learning phonics - establishing a relationship between sounds and symbols - markedly improves a learner’s understanding of the written word.

The EEF also employs reading comprehension strategies , which focus on a learner’s understanding of any given text. These strategies teach a range of techniques that allow students to infer meaning from context, identify key information, develop ways of questioning a text, and give students the ability to identify the areas they find the most difficult.

Schools should first focus on developing core strategies within the classroom which improve the literacy ability of the whole class, decreasing the need for additional support. Once this is established, a teacher can identify the students who need further help with literacy, and this can be provided through high-quality targeted interventions. This ensures that every student, regardless of their ability, can gain a deeper understanding of literacy and language.

The EEF commissions literature reviews to investigate specific areas of interest in the greatest possible depth. These reviews provide a basis on which to identify issues in the classroom, and test approaches against them to discover the best methods to make a difference for each learner.

Each of these reviews focuses on a specific area of issue and seeks to ensure the best possible methods are employed within the classroom to ensure each student can learn to the best of their ability. One systematic review into English as an additional language (EAL) discovered that identifying the degree of support an EAL student requires, then directing funding towards the needs of the learner, leads to a noticeable improvement in each student’s ability and achievement.

Another review, focusing on literacy development in secondary schools , discovered that environmental factors such as family and home literacy indirectly influence a student’s literacy development. Children who have limited access to printed text (such as books and newspapers) at home, for example, are found to have more difficulty understanding text within the context of a classroom. However, the EEF’s review also found that, if high quality literacy education is embedded within a rich literacy environment , many of these challenges can be overcome.

These reviews commissioned by the EEF are essential to understanding how students learn, and how their life outside of the classroom can impact their reading comprehension and writing composition. Each branch of literacy demands the use of different underlying skills and, as a result, students can find some aspects of literacy more difficult than others.

To ensure every student reaches their full potential, the EEF takes every area of literacy development into careful consideration to help teachers identify the next best steps to make their teaching most effective for every student.

The EEF Toolkits are accessible summaries of a range of approaches to improve teaching and learning. There is an enormous amount of evidence online which explores what works best in the classroom; when researching how to ensure your students get the best education, the wealth of research available can be overwhelming and hard to navigate. The Toolkits provided by the EEF filter through the research available and collate the studies which matter most to the way teachers teach. These are designed for teachers who are making decisions about improving learning outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students.

In total, the Toolkits present over 40 approaches to improving teaching and learning, underpinned by an analysis of the highest quality studies. Each of these strands is summarised through graphics, which represent its impact in the classroom and its possible cost. Each Toolkit presents a padlock rating from one to five, and this represents the quality of the evidence in each study. The quality is dependent on the recency of the contained information, as well as the number of schools which took part in the study. Each Toolkit presents a complete summary of what has worked for classrooms in the past and provides more information on promising approaches which develop every day.

The Toolkits are a live resource and are updated frequently to ensure all information is accurate. The Toolkit does not aim to make definitive claims about what will work in every classroom; instead, the Toolkit presents a range of information for each strand, which includes further reading as well as relevant resources and EEF projects.

Each Toolkit functions as a starting point to allow teachers to make decisions about improving teaching and learning in their schools. The findings each Toolkit presents are based on real life data from approaches used in schools and, as such, they do not provide definitive answers. It is important to employ professional judgement when deciding what will work best in your classroom.

EEF guidance reports summarise the best available evidence on a particular aspect of teaching and learning. The reports then present methods to employ the findings in the classroom. These guidance reports explore a wide range of topics, from literacy to effective professional development, and offer direct paths of action from evidence-based guidance to practise within schools. Each recommendation provides useful evidence about language and literacy which can be used to make a significant difference to the learning of each pupil.

The Key Stage 1 guidance report marks the transition from decoding words into sounds, to emerging readers who can comprehend words on sight. As such, the EEF guidance report for improving literacy in Key Stage 1 aims to provide effective approaches for improving literacy during this period of a learner’s development, supporting those who are making rapid progress and older pupils who have fallen behind their peers. The report contains eight recommendations by the EEF to ensure that every student can reach their literacy potential in the classroom, and advises active engagements with different media, as well as asking learners questions throughout discussions to ensure a complete understanding of a given text.

The Key Stage 2 guidance report offers practical recommendations relevant to all learners, developed from the review of the best international research. The report aims to provide key principles for effective literacy teaching, corroborated by consulted experts and current studies. This report highlights seven effective methods to improve literacy for Key Stage 2 , such as introducing collaborative learning activities where pupils can share their thought processes, and guided oral reading to increase fluency. Each of these strategies aims to support pupils in their reading comprehension, with less and less prompting from a teacher.

For Key Stage 3 and 4, the EEF has compiled a guidance report to help secondary schools improve literacy in all subject areas . The report contains seven recommendations relating to the development of reading and vocabulary to emphasise the importance of disciplinary literacy. This approach recognises literacy skills as subject specific as well as general, making sure that teachers of every subject support students in their reading and their communications within the classroom. These methods vary from helping learners make connections between words across each subject, to reading strategies (such as prediction and questioning) that engage students with complex academic texts.

The EEF aims to break the link between family income and educational attainment using the evidence from what has worked within classrooms in the past. Each guidance report presents teachers with actionable advice that is relevant to all pupils, especially those who are struggling with literacy and language. Each guidance report uses the most up to date evidence to ensure every child receives the best resources to aid in their day-to-day learning.

Alongside the guidance reports and the EEF Toolkit, the EEF has produced a series of resources which explore unique aspects of the school and the classroom in depth. These resources vary in topic from teaching assistants to mathematics, and each of them is updated frequently to ensure the most up to date information is presented.

One resource presents a planning guide for schools during the academic year to support schools and their planning efforts. The guide presents a model which helps schools balance approaches to improving teaching through investment in professional development, targeted academic support for individual students, and wider strategies to improve attendance and behaviour. Each of these approaches is supported by the latest evidence available. The EEF can also provide Pupil Premium , which gives additional funding for schools to improve outcomes for disadvantaged students and supports the development of effective classroom strategies.

Each of these guides, alongside the Toolkits and guidance reports, creates a comprehensive evidence-based resource which is essential for any classroom seeking to boost student learning. The EEF presents an accessible summary of international evidence to ensure every student receives the best resources and education for them.

Every school aims to provide the best possible education for their children and young people. To ensure this, schools explore new methods in the classroom, learning from each experience to embed the practices which work best. Implementation of these new methods is a key aspect in the improvement of schools, and it is important to monitor each change to maximise the chance of success.

The EEF aims to demystify the process of implementation and documents the steps that previous schools have implemented to manage change and ensure success for their students. This models successful implementation of new educational theories for teachers, resulting in a stronger learning experience for students.

It is vital to treat implementation as a process, rather than an event. The benefits of methods outlined in the guidance reports do not develop overnight, and effects are rarely seen immediately. Instead, each method should be executed in stages, and enough time should be given to ensure effective implementation through routine changes, policy, or practices. Each decision made should be informed by evidence first, and this evidence should be examined in relation to the context of the school. Once the issue in the classroom is defined, the appropriate practices and programmes identified and implemented.

Finally, it is important to plan how to sustain and scale an intervention from the beginning, so it can be continually acknowledged and nurtured. This attentiveness will ensure the guidance can be fully implemented during its use in the classroom, and any changes that occur can be analysed in real time as they occur.

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The Writing For Pleasure Centre

– promoting research-informed writing teaching

The Education Endowment Foundation’s Improving Literacy In KS2 Guidance Report: Our Review And Implications For Teaching Writing

On the 26h of November 2021, the Education Endowment Foundation published its revised guidance report entitled ‘ Improving Literacy In KS2 ’. It purports to be updated with the latest research and provides guidance for schools to help them deliver evidence-informed literacy provision that improves outcomes for all.

The mission of The Writing For Pleasure Centre is to help all young people become passionate and successful writers. As a think tank for exploring what world-class writing teaching is and could be, a crucial part of our work is analysing emerging guidance reports such as the one provided by the Education Endowment Foundation. It is therefore important that we issue a review of what this document has to say.

What we concluded from our review of the document

The recommendations made in the EEF’s report are timely and generally welcome. However, we at The Writing For Pleasure Centre believe we can provide more detail, guidance and examples for teachers and schools. We urge anyone interested in developing world-class writing teaching to read the cited research at the end of this review before making any changes to their writing teaching or commercial offerings. The EEF’s report supports many of the research recommendations related to the 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). For example, there were recommendations related to the following principles:

• Build a community of writers.
• Read, share, think and talk about writing. 
• Pursue purposeful and authentic writing projects.
• Be reassuringly consistent.
• Teach the writing processes.
• Set writing goals.
• Teach mini-lessons.
• Balance composition and transcription.
• Be a writer-teacher.
• Pupil conference: meet children where they are.
• Connect reading and writing.

We will reflect on these in more detail.

Teach writing composition strategies through modelling and supported practice

(EEF’s Improving Literacy In KS2 . p.31)

We are pleased to see the EEF highlight one of the key principles of world-class writing teaching: teach the writing processes . However, as we know, writing is not the linear process the EEF’s illustration might, perhaps inadvertently, suggest. Firstly, it is better to use the term writing processes. This is because there isn’t a single writing process. Each writer’s approach to the process of writing is different and they will use these processes in different ways and in different combinations. We can see that in the different writing habits that are discussed with children in Writing For Pleasure schools:

The writing habits below come from our book Real-World Writers . Writing habits are our own way of doing things. You might be an Adventurer , who likes to draft first then use it as a plan for a second draft. Perhaps you’re a Planner , writing a tight plan to precede your draft.

(Young & Ferguson 2020 p.60)

Many people are Vomiters , quickly drafting from a plan and attending later to revising and editing. Others are Paragraph Pilers , only drafting the next paragraph when they have revised and edited the one before. And there are Sentence Stackers , who perfect a sentence before moving on to the next. I have always identified myself as a dedicated Sentence Stacker , whereas my writing partner is a confirmed Vomiter . It’s totally amazing that we get our writing done together without too much pain. You can have great conversations with children about what kind of a writer they think they are, and they love giving themselves a writerly label and seeing how their friends identify themselves too. 

Of course children can and will chop and change their writing habits depending on the type of writing they are doing or indeed the type of mood they find themselves in on that particular day.

The purpose of this type of lesson is to tell children that they can experiment with different writing habits, and to invite them to try one out in their writing today. Point out that this will help them find their own preferred one in time. Show them examples from your own notebook where you have tried some different ones out, perhaps according to the type of writing you were doing.

The process of producing writing can also be different depending on age and experience. For example the process of writing can look like this in The EYFS:

(Young & Ferguson 2021b )

And like this in KS1:

(Adapted from Young & Ferguson 2021c )

Before looking something like this in KS2:

(Adapted from Young & Ferguson 2020 )

When teaching the writing processes is combined with two other key principles, namely: teach daily mini-lessons and be a writer-teacher , we see powerful instruction in our writing classrooms. For example, in our Writing For Pleasure schools, we see teachers explicitly teach and model a single writing strategy or technique before inviting children to use it for themselves during that day’s writing time. This happens every single day.

If we boil down our approach to teaching the craft of writing, it is as simple as:

Teach, then Invite

• Teach. Provide explicit and direct instruction to your class on an aspect of writing you feel they need a better understanding of.
• Invite. Invite children to try it out during that day’s writing time.

For more information on teaching grammar, sentence-level instruction, and other craft knowledge, please see the following mini-books:

• The WfP Centre’s BIG BOOK of writing mini-lessons: Lessons that teach powerful craft knowledge for 3-11 year olds [ LINK ]
• The WfP Centre’s grammar mini-lessons for 5-11 year olds [ LINK ]
• The WfP Centre’s sentence-level instruction for 3-11 year olds [ LINK ]

Setting process goals

Here we can see another principle of world-class writing teaching being suggested by the EEF: the setting of a process goal (also known as a writing deadline), the thing children need to get done in that particular writing session. Here are some examples of what process goals can sound like in Writing For Pleasure classrooms:

• Today, our goal is to fill out our planning grids. 
• Today, our process goal is to let the last few people finish their planning grids.
• Today, our goal is to write our second section.
• Today, our goal is to write about your third topic.
• Today, our process goal is to write our endings. 
• Today, our process goal is to write our introductions.
• Today, our goal is to write one of our sections.
• Today, our process goal is to write our conclusion.
• Today, our goal is to think about our character description.
• Today, our goal is to try out writing some suspense into our pieces. 
• Today, our process goal is to finish our drafts if we can.
• Today, our goal is for the last few children to finish their drafts.
• Today our goal is to check our writing against our revision checklist.
• Today, our process goal is for the last few children to finish revising their pieces.
• Today, our process goal is to check for capitalisation. 
• Today, our goal is to check for our use of vocabulary.
• Today, our process goal is to check our punctuation.
• Today, our goal is to check our spellings. 
• Today, our goal is for the last few children to have time to check their spellings.

Obviously, once children have a secure understanding of the writing processes and the strategies they can use to negotiate their way through these processes, teachers can begin to set more open-ended writing deadlines (process goals). For example:

• Today is our first writing day. You have 14 writing sessions in total. Use your time wisely!
• What do you want to get done today? Make sure you’ve set yourself a process goal.
• What do you want to get done today? Remember, we’ve got 8 more writing sessions left before our publication deadline.
• Can I check where everyone is at? Who is drafting? Who is revising? Who is proof-reading? Who has handed in their manuscript?
• We’ve only got a few more days left before our publishing deadline. You need to make sure your manuscripts are nearly ready.
• We’ve got a couple of days left. You need to make sure you’re proof-reading now. These manuscripts need to be ‘reader ready’. 
• This is our last day. I need all your final manuscripts in. They must be full proof-read. If they’re not, you better work with some friends to get them sorted. 
• OK, I can see that despite our best efforts, loads of us aren’t quite ready yet. I’m therefore going to extend our final deadline by a few days. This is to give you all the very best chance of producing your best pieces. For those who are finished, please enjoy a few more days of personal project time.

Whilst many teachers appreciate how this kind of instruction can help children navigate their way through a writing project successfully, many rightly bemoan the fact that children will finish what they are required to do at different times. That’s why we highly recommend that, once children have finished what they’ve been requested to do as part of the class writing project for that day, they know they can continue working on their personal writing projects (Young & Ferguson 2020 ). This ensures that all children are engaging in meaningful and productive writing practice throughout the whole writing session, what we call being in a ‘constant state of composition’ (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). For more information on how to set up personal writing projects in your classroom, please see our dedicated mini-book on the subject.

What happened to generating ideas as its own distinct writing process?

One aspect of the EEF’s guidance that was disappointing was to see that the most important writing process fails to receive the attention it deserves: generating ideas. Idea generation is a process which happens before writers begin planning, and indeed is a process which informs how one decides to plan. Too often we see teachers or scheme writers taking cognitive and emotional responsibility for this part of the writing process and as a result children fail to receive a complete writerly apprenticeship (Young & Ferguson 2021a ).

Teachers or scheme writers who formulate writing ideas on children’s behalf are making a serious instructional mistake (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). One of the problems is that children don’t have equal access to writing topics. For example, when teachers or scheme writers choose topics for writing derived from their own personal interests and cultures, they are only ever helping children who are most ‘like them’. Writing on a topic chosen by someone else also makes the task of writing more cognitively difficult (Stein 1983 ; Heller 1999 ). In contrast, when children are allowed to choose and access a topic they are familiar with and emotionally connected to, their writing performance improves and they produce higher quality texts (Bruning & Horn 2000 ; Kellogg 2001 , 2008 ; Graham 2006 ; Purcell-Gates et al. 2007 ; Flint & Fisher 2014 ; Behizadeh 2014 , 2018 ; Fletcher 2016 ; Young 2019 ; Harmey 2020 ). If teachers are interested in teaching their students strategies and techniques for generating their own ideas within the parameters of a variety of written genres, consider looking at our BIG Book Of Mini-Lessons: Lessons That Teach Powerful Craft Knowledge For 3-11 Year Olds which includes over 70 such techniques.

Let’s have an ideas party

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas – Linus Pauling

Generating ideas is one of my favourite things about teaching young writers. Children have a wonderful ability to come up with unique and original ideas in a way that I can’t. When you gather children onto the carpet with some flipchart paper next to you, write ‘things we can write about’ at the top and then invite them to come up with ideas for the class writing project, it’s like a creative bomb goes off. This is especially true with children who have had a long apprenticeship with the principles of a contemporary writing workshop approach (Young & Ferguson 2020 , 2021a ). The best thing about generating ideas in a social way with others is that often other people’s ideas spark your own ideas off too. You can pin these lists up around the room so children can refer to them over many days if they want to. With the youngest of children, you may want to draw diagrams of the things they suggest, as opposed to writing it down.

Here we see the Nursery children in Marcela Vasques’ class being invited to have an Ideas Party.

An example of what an Ideas Party can look like in KS1

An example of what an Ideas Party can look like in KS2. Here the teacher asked the children to come up with a variety of short story ideas for each of the themes in the middle of the paper. The children worked together to ensure they had ideas evenly spread across the different themes by keeping a tally chart. After around twenty minutes, the class had generated around 200+ story ideas. 

Taken from Young and colleagues ( 2021 )

Teach writing composition strategies through modelling and supported practice: Balance composition and transcription

This is good advice. However, you rarely hear these two components of advice being reversed. For example, if we teach children (through repeated, daily, meaningful practice) about composition, they have more cognitive energy to focus on skills like transcription. Indeed a daily, meaningful and sustained period in which to write is one of the best ways of ensuring automaticity of not only transcriptional skill but also compositional competence (Dahl & Freppon 1995 ; Hall 2019 ; Roitsch et al. 2021 ; Young & Ferguson 2021a ).

Developing handwriting accuracy and fluency

It’s well known that early writers should focus their efforts on ‘automaticity’ and fluency of handwriting rather than on the adherence to any particular style (Graham et al. 2012 ; Santangelo & Graham 2016 ). The main aim at this age is for children to write quickly, accurately and effortlessly. The fact is children who write with automaticity go on to perform very well in their later years and produce higher-quality pieces (Puranik & AlOtaiba 2012 ; Malpique et al. 2017 , 2020 ). We are therefore pleased to see the EEF’s guidance supporting this position.

Developing compositional fluency

Many Writing For Pleasure classrooms will help children to focus on their composition whilst drafting and will also support children’s writing fluency by giving them the drafting advice below. Getting children to draft quickly, fluently and happily is essential to their writing success. It’s while drafting that children discover, perhaps for the first time, what it is exactly they want to say. This is no easy task and we can often make this process even harder by inundating children with additional burdens. While meaning well, we are directing children to focus on the wrong things at the wrong time. Children simply must be allowed to draft freely. They can attend to additional demands like success criteria when they are revising and transcriptional accuracy when they are proof-reading.

Drafting advice

(Taken from Real-World Writers Young & Ferguson 2020 )

It’s a good idea to give this drafting advice at the beginning of the year. It’s also useful to share it across a whole school, and a poster on the working wall is helpful. For this lesson, it’s good to show children a piece of your own writing where you’ve applied the advice. Let them ask you questions about your writing process too. Over time, you’ll find children beginning to develop their own idiosyncratic ways of drafting.

Developing children’s ability to attend to and correct their spellings

Our Writing For Pleasure schools take proof-reading extremely seriously. The expectation is that children are to prepare their manuscripts for genuine publication beyond just teacher evaluation. As a result, they are explicitly taught how to proof-read and are given multiple sessions to get their manuscripts ‘reader ready’ prior to publication (Young & Ferguson 2020 ). Part of proof-reading is obviously attending to your spellings.

Children are taught to circle any ‘temporary spellings’ (also known as unsure spellings, invented spellings or ‘sound spellings’) when drafting (Young et al. 2021 ). This reminds them to look up the conventional spelling when it comes time to proof-read. However, dictionaries are probably one of the worst places to go if you are trying to look up a spelling you don’t know, since their main function is to supply definitions for words. Instead, we recommend children use:

• Word walls (a list of common words children should know how to spell are up on the wall).
• Common word lists (x10, x100, x1000).
• Their friends.
• The book they are reading.
• Electronic devices (such as computers or tablets) which include speech facilities like Siri or Google.
• Electronic spell checkers.
• Phonic dictionaries like ACE.

Teach writing composition strategies through modelling and supported practice: Set writing goals

It’s really great to see ‘ setting goals ’ and ‘ genre study ’ being mentioned in the report. However, this could do with a little more unpacking. Firstly, we know that goal setting can be one of the most effective practices for teachers to employ in their writing classrooms (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). Goal setting includes:

• Establishing a publishing goal for a class writing project. Who is going to receive the writing at the project’s end (beyond teacher evaluation).  
• Product goals. These are things you might need to do or include to write ‘the best piece in the whole entire world’. 
• Process goals. These are process deadlines: things you need to get done on the road to final publication or performance.

Here we can see the variety of mentor texts which have been discussed and studied as part of an information text class writing project. The class have studied other children’s successful texts from previous years, commercially published texts which match the kind of writing the children are expected to make, and their teacher’s own exemplar text.

Genre-study is a significantly effective teaching practice (Graham and Perin 2007 ; Purcell-Gates et al. 2007 ; Rose 2008 ; Graham et al. 2012 Olinghouse et al. 2015 ; Koster et al. 2015 ; Young & Ferguson 2021a ). Writers learn about writing by studying the texts of their heroes. These can be called mentor texts. If I asked you to write a film review and you’d never written one before, I suspect your first thought would be to read a few. The same is true in our writing classrooms. We want teachers and children to study the kind of writing they are about to embark on in their class writing project. These texts need to match the kind of writing you’re expecting children to make themselves. If children are writing short information texts, read short information texts. If you’re writing poetry, read poetry. As you’re discussing and studying these mentor texts, you need to make a list of ‘product goals’ (Young & Ferguson 2020 , 2021a , 2021g ). These are the things you’re going to try and do to write ‘the best texts in the whole entire world ever…’

For example:

Here we can see a list of product goals children and their teacher have identified whilst discussing and studying a variety of fairytale mentor texts. These will inform the teacher’s future writing lessons.

Teach writing composition strategies through modelling and supported practice: Pursue purposeful and authentic writing projects

It’s great to see the EEF acknowledge that writing is a cognitively demanding activity which requires children to engage in daily practice which is meaningful, motivating and engaging; writing that is orientated towards writing for purpose and genuine audiences. ‘Consideration of purpose and audience can support effective writing. Like adults, children may benefit from having a reason to write and someone to write for’ (p.31).

Being moved to write The EEF suggests that there are four purposes for writing: to describe, to narrate, to inform and to persuade. Readers might find it interesting to know that our curriculum and resources are developed around the idea that there are six common reasons we are moved to write. These include:

One way to get the children to reflect on their own writing and ideas is to ask them to think about: Why do writers write? They can then also reflect on why they write, what they like writing about and the purpose behind their writing and other writers’ writing. You can create a poster for your class or the children can create and generate ideas in their books. When I taught this lesson, it was good to have the display that the children had created because we kept referring to it, during conferencing and other writing lessons. They knew and could readily tell me why they were writing, with a definite increase in confidence and motivation .

We want writing in classrooms to match (as closely as possible) the reasons people are moved to write out in the world. This is what purposeful and authentic writing is all about. Class writing projects should therefore be written for an audience beyond just teacher evaluation. Children’s writing should find its way into people’s hands, into their ears and across their screens. We make this recommendation not only for its affective and motivational benefits but also because it helps children write higher-quality texts (Boscolo & Gelati 2019 ; Bruning & Horn 2000 ; Gadd & Parr 2016 ; Hickey 2003 ; Young & Ferguson 2021a ). However, teachers can often struggle to plan authentic writing projects. This is why we provide a host of example projects on our website for teachers to download and use . Teachers could also consider how they can adapt their existing projects to make them more authentic. For example:

Alternatively, a class (teacher and pupils together) can identify a genuine purpose and audience for any class writing project themselves by using our Publishing And Performance Menu .

Choose something delicious from the publishing menu

Publishing is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message – Margaret Atwood

At the beginning of a new class writing project, I always give out what I call my ‘publishing menu’. It’s a place where children can see all the different options for where our writing could go when we publish at the end of the project. We talk about the menu options. We discuss their pros and cons. This kind of discussion inevitably leads to us talking about the possible audience for our writing too. 

By the end of this lesson, we will have chosen from the menu where our writing will end up. This publishing menu can be found in any of our class writing project resources . However, I can highly recommend making your own – and ask your class what they think could go on the menu too. Children have great ideas about where their writing can end up.

Finally, the EEF rightly points out that ‘ combining reading and writing instruction can support children’s development in both ’ (p.31). However, we need to be careful. This is what we currently know, from educational research and from case-studies of exceptional writing teachers, about the interconnections between writing and reading in the classroom:

• When young writers read, ideas for writing occur.
• Children learn much about the craft of writing and develop an ‘inner ear’ for language if they are given regular, sustained and wide opportunities to read. 
• Children who read and listen to high-quality texts include more literary features and write better texts.
• Children who read poetry include more imagery and other poetic devices in their own writing. 
• Young writers often develop strong affective bonds with the things they have read and use aspects of these texts in their own writing.
• Children who write in response to the texts they have read significantly enhance their comprehension of those texts.
• Children having ample time to read is fundamental to their writing development. 

(Young & Ferguson 2021a )

We argue that learning to be a writer is one of the best ways children learn to read . However, we also encourage teachers and commercial providers to reflect on the limitations a literature-based approach can have on children’s writing development .

Developing children’s language capabilities: Pupil-conferencing

Pupil-conferencing is one of the principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). We therefore welcome the EEF’s recommendation that schools ‘design a school feedback policy that prioritises and exemplifies the principles of effective feedback’ (p.34). This is because it gives pupils and teachers an opportunity to engage in quality talk. We see aspects of good pupil-conferencing shared in the EEF’s report too. For example:

For more information on assessment-based responsive teaching, please see our Writing Development Scales & Assessment Framework and Pupil-Conferencing Mini-Book . 

Developing children’s language capabilities: Read, share, think and talk about writing

We know that writing and being a writer is a personal and intensely social undertaking which is both cognitive and emotive. One of the principles of world-class writing teaching is to ensure that children read, share, think and talk about their writing . We ensure that children learn that they can articulate and develop their ideas with their peers prior to writing them down. 

You can read about how Writing For Pleasure teachers have created a classroom culture that encourages dialogue by reading the examples of practice below:

• You can read about how Benjamin Harris incorporates opportunities for dialogue into daily writing sessions through the Author’s Chair [ LINK ].
• You can read and listen to how writer-teacher Sadie Phillips taught her children to peer-conference [ LINK ].
• You can read about how Tobias Hayden talks with his class about what writing instruction they feel they need most [ LINK ].
• You can also read our article about how to develop children’s talk for writing [ LINK ].

Developing children’s language capabilities: Expanding pupils’ vocabulary

Explicitly teaching and modelling strategies writers use to consider their word choices is an important part of receiving a well-rounded writerly apprenticeship. There are a number of mini-lesson designed to help establish good habits when it comes to considering vocabulary in the Word Choices section of our BIG book of mini-lessons . For example:

‘Cracking open’ boring words

We all do it. In our excitement to get our thoughts down, we will write the words that come to mind immediately. This is fine and is a good way of drafting fluently. However, it is always worth revising your draft afterwards to notice just how often you may be using the same words. Sometimes I use my Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words & Phrases to help me, but online thesauruses are excellent too. Otherwise, I will ‘crack open’ the word by drawing a circle around it and writing alternatives.

The best thing to do with this lesson is to show children how you have used this technique yourself in your writer’s notebook. You can explain how you went about it and answer any of the children’s questions. You can then invite your young writers to have a go for themselves in their own writing that day. This lesson is most effective when the majority of your class are revising their pieces. Taken from Young et al. 2021

Teaching spelling and recognising types of spelling error

We recognise the EEF’s frustrations at the lack of high quality evidence about how to teach spelling, but agree that the evidence we do have points towards spelling being actively taught rather than simply tested (Adoniou 2014 ; Alves et al. 2019 ; Young & Ferguson 2022 ).

Harold Rosen once famously said to Donald Graves that any idiot can tell a genius they’ve made a spelling mistake (Graves 1983 p.188). We are sure there are many who have experienced ridicule or been made to feel unintelligent simply because they were unable to spell conventionally. Unfortunately, these negative views still persist in society and have serious long-term consequences for an individual’s confidence and desire to write.

Ways in which teachers can improve children’s spelling include:

• Prolific opportunities to write.
• Prolific opportunities and time to read.
• Explicit instruction in how to proof-read.
• Explicit spelling instruction. It is suggested that children be exposed to a balanced approach to instruction which includes teaching phonology, morphology, orthography and etymology in combination and at the earliest of stages.

Taken from Young & Ferguson 2021a (p.181)

Sentence construction

At The Writing For Pleasure Centre we’ve recognised the need to take sentence-level instruction seriously and to teach children about sentences in a way that helps them write what they mean. We know that formal grammar instruction has always had a negative impact on children’s writing development (Kolln 1996 ; Fearn & Farnan 1998 ; Andrews et al. 2006 ; Weaver et al. 2006 ; Wyse & Torgerson 2017 ; Hudson 2017 ; Myhill 2018 ; Young & Ferguson 2021 ). However, like the EEF, the types of sentence-combining instruction suggested within the pages of our Sentence-Level Instruction Mini-Book are far more promising (Keen 2004 ; Graham & Perin 2007 ; Limpo & Alves 2013 ; Saddler 2019 ; Walter et al. 2021 ; Young & Ferguson 2020 ). We believe work around sentences should be in the service of developing children’s style as writers. We describe sentence-level instruction, and by extension instruction on style, as being about helping children:

• Share their writing voice and identity.
• Achieve the purpose they have for their writing. 
• Write with clarity and simplicity.
• Develop, elaborate on and embellish their initial ideas.

Our mini-book breaks this instruction down into three categories:

• Focused sentences
• Balanced sentences
• Developed sentences

Target teaching and support by accurately assessing pupil needs

The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Writing Development Scales And Assessment Toolkit is written predominantly to support our affiliate schools who pursue the principles of Writing For Pleasure. Assessment is at its most powerful, and most useful, when it is aligned to a school’s curriculum and what teachers and students are doing in class every single day. However, we believe any school can use this material if they appreciate the need for children to:

• Receive direct and explicit instruction in the craft of writing every day (Young et al. 2021 ; Young & Ferguson 2021d ; Young & Ferguson 2021e ).
• Be given an opportunity to write meaningfully and for a sustained period every day (Young & Ferguson 2020 , 2022 ).
• Receive additional responsive teaching through daily pupil conferencing (Ferguson & Young 2021 ).
• Develop their artistry, narrative, opinion and non-fiction writing over time (Young & Ferguson 2020 , 2022 ).

We also need to look at the principles of assessment. For example, our toolkit is as much about assessment-based responsive instruction as it is about assessment itself. Assessment isn’t about data. Data has never helped a child write better. Assessment is about obtaining valuable information to make your teaching more effective and efficient. Assessment-based instruction is about:

• Children finding out what makes a piece of writing successful and meaningful.
• Children being involved in setting writing goals for class projects.
• Teachers providing daily writing lessons that are responsive to what their class needs instruction in most (Young et al. 2021 ; Young & Ferguson 2021d ; Young & Ferguson 2021e ).
• Teachers providing individualised feedback, through pupil-conferencing, that is responsive to what their pupils need instruction in most (Ferguson & Young 2021 ).
• Children crafting their writing because they have an emotional investment in it being the best it can be (Young & Ferguson 2021a ).

Is there a moral purpose to teaching writing? At The Writing For Pleasure Centre, we believe children should know how to successfully live a writer’s life after leaving school. We want them to write well for educational purposes (to pass exams and to share what they know with skill and precision).  We also hope they would know how to live the writer’s life for economic reasons (the ability to write with authority, daring and originality is great currency). We hope they could live the writer’s life for political or civic reasons – sharing their knowledge and opinions with clarity and imagination. We also hope they would write for personal reasons – as an act of reflection or recording. Finally, we would want them to know how to write for reasons of pure pleasure and recreation – feeling a sense of joy and accomplishment in sharing their artistry, identity and knowledge with others in ways that are profound and confident.

The thing that’s disappointing about the EEF’s guidance report is its lack of a clear vision of what writing is and what being a writer should mean. As we have said, writing and being a writer is personal and intensely social, and is both a cognitive and emotive undertaking (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). However, the EEF’s report draws heavily on a theoretical framework which fails to fully appreciate this. The model used to influence the report was originally called The Simple View Of Writing. This view of writing is now outdated and has required repeated revisions in recent years. Academics have recently noted how The Simple View Of Writing leaves out major aspects of how children develop as writers.

The simple view originally suggested that writing is made up of only two components: ideation and transcription (Juel, Griffith, & Gough 1986 ; Berninger et al. 2003 ) and later a third component of ‘executive function’ was added in 2006 (Beringer & Winn 2006 ). One problem with this framework is that it treats writing as a simple marriage between transcription and ideation, when really it involves numerous highly interconnected components. Another issue is that interpretations of this theoretical framework regularly result in flawed pedagogical recommendations being suggested and adopted by policy-makers, commercial providers and teachers, namely in the form of a ‘presentational skills’ orientation towards writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2021a ). Thankfully, we don’t believe this is the case with the EEF’s report. Finally, despite The Simple View Of Writing influencing policy and practice for many decades, we still see profound underachievement in writing across England where it has been highly influential. This underachievement is rightly recognised as a major issue in Professor Francis’ forward to the EEF’s report. As we’ve said, the Simple View Of Writing cited in the EEF’s report has since been revised and its limitations highlighted. Below, we provide references to the latest thinking around The Simple View Of Writing for people’s interest. However, whilst these revisions are making the framework better all the time, they are, in our view, still limiting and incomplete.

• Kim, Y., Schatschneider, C. ( 2017 ) Expanding the developmental models of writing: A direct and indirect effects model of developmental writing (DIEW) Journal of Educational Psychology 109(1) 35-50 
• Kim, Y,. & Park, S. ( 2019 ) Unpacking pathways using the direct and indirect effects model of writing (DIEW) and the contributions of higher order cognitive skills to writing Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal , 32, pp.1319–1343

This isn’t just a problem for the EEF. The Writing For Pleasure Centre is also in the process of trying to devise an alternative conceptual framework which can better encapsulate what it means to develop children’s writing and themselves as writers. There is no doubt teachers and commercial providers need an alternative framework which can fully acknowledge the complex social, cognitive and emotive nature of writing and being a writer, alongside pedagogical and instructional recommendations that centre around helping children write the most accomplished texts that they can. Our early work suggests a need for us to move towards a ‘whole-child’ approach. Please note that our use of the phrase ‘whole-child’ shouldn’t be confused with a child-centered or naturalistic approach to writing teaching. As we’ve already discussed in previous writing, this would not be our recommendation (Young & Ferguson 2021a ).

A whole-child approach to teaching writing and developing writers. Adapted from Young & Ferguson ( 2021a )

Ross Young & Felicity Ferguson

• Adoniou, M. (2014).What should teachers know about spelling Literacy , 48(3), 144–153.
• Alves, R., Limpo, T., Salas, N., and Joshi, R. (2019). Handwriting and spelling. In Best Practices in Writing Instruction, Graham, S., MacArthur, C., and Hebert, M. (Eds.) (3rd Ed.) (pp.211–240). New York: Guilford Press.
• Andrews, R.,Torgerson, C., Beverton, S., Locke,T., Low, G., Robinson, A., and Zhu, D. (2006). The effect of grammar teaching on writing development. British Educational Research Journal , 32(1), 39–55.
• Behizadeh, N. (2014). Xavier’s take on authentic writing: Structuring choices for expression and impact. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(4), 289–298.
• Behizadeh, N. (2018). Aiming for authenticity: Successes and struggles of an attempt to increase authenticity in writing. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(4), 411–419.
• Berninger, V., Amtmann, D. (2003) Preventing written expression disabilities through early and continuing assessment and intervention for handwriting and/or spelling problems: Research into practice. In: Swanson, H.Harris, K., Graham, S., Eds. Handbook of Learning Disabilities New York: The Guilford Press (p.323-344)
• Berninger, VW., Winn, WD. (2006) Implications of advancements in brain research and technology for writing development, writing instruction, and educational evolution. In: MacArthur, C.Graham, S., Fitzgerald, J., editors. Handbook of writing research New York: Guilford (p.96-114)
• Boscolo, P., and Gelati, C. (2019). Motivating Writers. In Best Practices in Writing Instruction , Graham, S., MacArthur, C., and Hebert, M. (Eds.) (3rd Ed.) (pp. 51–78). New York:The Guilford Press.
• Bruning, R., and Horn, C. (2000). Developing motivation to write. Educational Psychologist , 35(1), 25–37.
• Dahl, K., Freppon, P. (1995) A Comparison of Innercity Children’s Interpretations of Reading and Writing Instruction in the Early Grades in Skills-Based and Whole Language Classrooms Reading Research Quarterly 30(1) pp.50-74
• Fearn, L., and Farman, N. (1998). Writing Effectively: Helping Students Master the Conventions of Writing. London: Pearson.
• Ferguson, F., Young, R. (2021) A Guide To Pupil-Conferencing With 3-11 Year Olds: Powerful Feedback & Responsive Teaching That Changes Writers Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Fletcher, A. (2016). Exceeding expectations: Scaffolding agentic engagement through assessment as learning. Educational Research, 58(4), 400–419.
• Flint, A.S., and Fisher,T. (2014).Writing their worlds:Young english language learners navigate writing workshop. In Writing & Pedagogy, 6(3), 1756–5839.
• Gadd, M., and Parr, J. (2016). It’s all about Baxter:Task orientation in the effective teaching of writing. Literacy , 50(2), 93–99.
• Graham, S. (2006). Strategy instruction and the teaching of writing:A meta-analysis. In Handbook of Writing Research, McArthur, C., Graham, S., and Fitzgerald, J. (Eds.) (pp. 187–207). New York: Guilford Press.
• Graham, S., and Perin, D. (2007). Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents In Middle School & High Schools.Washington, DC:Alliance For Excellent Education
• Graham, S., Bollinger, A., Booth Olson, C., D’Aoust, C., MacArthur, C., McCutchen, D., Olinghouse, N. (2012) Teaching elementary school students to be effective writers: A practice  guide (NCEE 2012–4058). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
• Hall, A., (2019) Every Child is a Writer: Understanding the Importance of Writing in Early Childhood Institute for Child Success [Online: https://www.instituteforchildsuccess.org/publication/every-child-is-a-writer-understanding-the-importance-of-writing-in-early-childhood-writing/%5D%5D
• Harmey, S. (2020). Co-constructing writing: handing over the reins to young authors. Education 3-13, 3–11.
• Heller, M. (1999). Reading-Writing Connections: From Theory to Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Hickey, D.T. (2003). Engaged participation versus marginal nonparticipation: A stridently sociocultural approach to achievement motivation. The Elementary School Journal , 103(4), 401–429.
• Hudson, R. (2017). Grammar instruction. In Handbook of Writing Research , MacArthur, C., Graham, S., Fitzgerald, J. (Eds.) (pp. 288–300) (2nd Ed.). New York: Guildford Press.
• Juel C, Griffith PL, Gough PB. (1986) Acquisition of literacy: A longitudinal study of children in first and second grade Journal of Educational Psychology (78) pp.243–255.
• Kellogg, R. T. (2001). Competition for working memory among writing processes. American Journal of Psychology , 114(2), 175–191.
• Kellogg, R. T. (2008). Training writing skills: A cognitive developmental perspective. Journal of Writing Research 1(1), 1–26.
• Kolln, M. (1996). Rhetorical grammar: A modification lesson. English Journal , 85(7), 25–31.
• Koster, M.,Tribushinina, E., De Jong, P.F., and Van de Bergh, B. (2015).Teaching children to write: A meta-analysis of writing intervention research. Journal of Writing Research , 7(2), 249–274.
• Limpo,T., & Alves, R. (2013).Teaching planning or sentence-combining strategies: Effective SRSD interventions at different levels of written composition. Contemporary Educational Psychology , 38,328–341.
• Malpique, A., Pino-Pasternak, D., Valcan, D. (2017). Handwriting automaticity and writing instruction in Australian kindergarten: An exploratory study Reading & Writing 30(8) 1789-1812
• Malpique, A., Pino-Pasternak, D., Roberto, M. (2020) Writing and reading performance in Year 1 Australian classrooms: associations with handwriting automaticity and writing instruction Reading & Writing 33 pp.783-805
• Myhill, D. (2018). Grammar as a meaning-making resource for improving writing (Contribution to a special issue Working on Grammar at School in L1-Education: Empirical Research across Linguistic Regions). L1-Educational Studies Language and Literature , 18, 1–21.
• Olinghouse, N., Graham, S., and Gillespie, A. (2015). The relationship of discourse and topic knowledge to fifth graders’ writing performance. Journal of Educational Psychology , 107(2), 391–406.
• Puranik, C., AlOtaiba, S. (2012) Examining the contribution of handwriting and spelling to written expression in kindergarten children Read Writ 25:1523-1546
• Purcell-Gates,V., Duke, N., and Martineau, J. (2007). Learning to read and write genre-specific text: Roles of authentic experience and explicit teaching. Reading Research Quarterly , 42(1), 8–45.
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• Saddler, B. (2019). Sentence combining. In Best Practices in Writing Instruction, Graham, S., MacArthur, C., and Hebert, M. (3rd Ed.) (pp. 240–261). New York: Guildford Press.
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Reading Recovery Europe

• About Reading Recovery
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EEF - Improving Literacy in KS1 Guidance Report

21 September 2020

The report contains eight key recommendations to impact children’s learning in KS1 and cites Reading Recovery as an evidence-based approach.

There is extensive and consistent evidence of the impact of intensive small group and one-to-one support. Significantly, this tutoring seems most impactful for younger pupils, particularly when the additional support is offered in school or when focused on reading.   There are many intervention programmes available for schools to purchase, however, only a handful of targeted literacy programmes have been rigorously evaluated in England or evaluated with KS1 pupils.

Reading Recovery, an intensive teacher-led 1:1 reading programme for KS1 pupils, is highlighted by the EIF guidebook for the positive impacts found in several high-quality evaluations conducted in America. This is consistent with the evidence that 1:1 tuition can have particularly positive impacts if delivered by a teacher. (p.47)

Read the full report , EEF, September 2020. 

• Read case studies of effective Reading Recovery intervention.
• The evidence base for the impact of Reading Recovery.
• Contact your local Teacher Leader about training a Reading Recovery teacher for your school.

Image: Philip Meech for Reading Recovery Europe 

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EEF and the Royal Society publish review of the evidence on the science attainment gap

Testing theories through experiments and trials is crucial for pupils to learn science and could improve results for disadvantaged pupils in primary and secondary schools, according to a new report  (PDF) published by the Education Endowment Foundation and the Royal Society today. 

Researchers from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford reviewed the best international research to identify the interventions and approaches for which there is evidence of a positive impact on young people’s learning outcomes, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

They found good evidence that the ability to reason scientifically – by testing hypotheses through well-controlled experiments - is a strong predictor of later success in the sciences and that programmes that allow pupils to design experiments that test the impact of one thing on another can develop this skill. Many effective programmes give teachers training to guide their pupils’ scientific reasoning by setting questions that can be investigated and getting them to design fair tests.

The researchers found that the strongest factor affecting pupils’ science scores is how well they understand written texts. According to the report, poor literacy skills can affect how well a pupil is able to understand scientific vocabulary and to prepare scientific reports. This suggests that strategies to boost disadvantaged pupils’ reading comprehension could have a positive impact on their achievement in science too.  

The report finds that lack of ‘opportunities to learn’ is a major factor related to lower achievement in science. This is the basis for the success of other strategies identified in the report as effective, including school science clubs and trips to museums. The review found good evidence that programmes that allow pupils to visit places like a university laboratory or a museum, or get scientists to visit a school, can boost science grades for secondary school pupils, provided that the experiences are set up in carefully structured ways. 

The report also analysed attainment data to measure the extent of the gap in science outcomes between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off classmates. The findings confirm that there is a gap in science outcomes at every stage in the education system, which first becomes apparent at Key Stage 1 (ages 5 – 7) and only gets wider throughout primary and secondary school and on to A-level. The gap is as wide as it is in English and maths and grows particularly strongly between the ages 5-7 and 11-16. 

The report finds that it is not lack of motivation to learn science that is contributing to the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off classmates. Analysis of attainment data finds that the biggest predictors of pupils’ attainment in science are their levels of literacy and their scientific reasoning ability.

The EEF will use this review to inform guidance for teachers on teaching science, due to be published in Spring 2018. The guidance will set out practical and evidence-based recommendations for teaching science in primary and secondary school. 

Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said today:

“The data in today’s report is clear. Pupils from disadvantaged homes are much less likely than their peers to get good grades in science and to go on to take a science subject at A-level and beyond.

“Helping schools to use evidence and to understand better the most effective ways to improve results is the best way to tackle this country’s stark science attainment gap. Today’s review identifies some promising approaches with the potential to raise standards and close the gap.”

Professor Tom McLeish FRS, Chair of the Royal Society’s Education Committee, said:

“Scientific literacy deepens enjoyment of the world, empowers people to make informed choices and equips them to work in an advanced economy. To secure the health and wellbeing of our nation, we must ensure that children from all walks in life receive the best education possible to develop the strong foundations needed for our future economic prosperity.

“Though the attainment gap is observable from the first year in school, it is encouraging that certain educational programmes that improve children’s literacy or their awareness and understanding of their own thought processes show promise in reducing this gap.”

Find out more about education research at the Royal Society .

• Evidence review

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