The saying goes that what gets assessed gets taught. But for teachers, when it comes to the act of writing to learn, that is not always true. Students can spend thousands of hours writing in the classroom, but if they struggle with writing it can still remain unaddressed. 

Why is writing the poor sibling to reading? And why can it remain a hidden problem for secondary school-age students? 

There is an emerging recognition in primary schools that the foundations of successful writing, such as spelling and handwriting, may need more attention. It is patently obvious where children struggle with the basics as well as the ‘big game’ of writing.

There is a helpful policy direction of travel to support those who struggle with writing too. OFSTED’s new Toolkit identifies “foundational knowledge” such as “accurate spelling” and “legible and fluent handwriting”. The new DfE Writing Framework similarly identifies the same “foundational concepts in English”. 

Move forward a few years and supporting students who struggle with writing gets murkier. Any student who sits their GCSEs has a battery of exams that are all mediated by writing skill. And yet, if you ask a geography teacher or a science teacher about handwriting fluency, and its potential impact on outcomes, they’ll likely be nonplussed.  

How many words can your teen students write in a minute? What is the impact of dysfluent handwriting? How does weak spelling knock on to the types of academic words students use in their writing? These questions invariably go unanswered. 

Why students may struggle to write

Ask teachers to identify struggling readers and they may start with talking about reading ages and standardised reading assessments. For writing, there is too little equivalent assessments to identify those students who struggle. 

We should then identify the big problem areas where and why students are likely to struggle and fall behind their peers:

  1. Troubles with transcription. Handwriting fluency, just like reading fluency, is vital to help students think and write effectively. (Read this on ‘Developing handwriting’). Spelling is just as foundational. Accurate fluent spelling unlocks language for writers, helping them be more ambitious in their vocabulary and cleaner in their expression. 
  2. Insecure sentence composition. The sentence is the kernel of all writing. We can expand them, combine them, shrink them, signpost them, play with them, or break the rules with them. But if a strong sentence of sentence composition is not secure, students ideas become unclear, and their creativity is stunted. (Read this on ‘Crafting great sentences’). 
  3. Getting lost in the writing process. The writing process is complex and multifaceted. You may plan, draft, editing, replan, revise, rewrite, and edit once more before publishing. Without careful scaffolding, students flounder and fail with various steps in the process. (Read this on the ‘Challenge of Editing Writing’). 
  4. The writing game shifts in every subject. As students mature, writing gets more subject specific. Expectations in science, history and English, shift and move. Words and sentence structures are expected in one subject, then mean something else in another. It is enough to catch out any student. They may overwrite in science, annotate poorly in art, write with style in English, or without evidence in history. If you’re struggling with spelling, this subject level stuff feels out of reach. 
  5. Writing requires ample reading. Students don't read habitually like they used to. Extended reading can also get a raw deal by an overfull curriculum in many areas. As a result, the many reading miles needed to generate knowledge, ideas, and language moves for writing don’t get enacted. Teachers end up over-scaffolding to compensate for a lack of reading. Writing can lack purpose, ideas, and the subtle genre or language features that are revealed by extensive reading. 

Is it any surprise that post-Covid writing outcomes have been worst impacted in English primary schools – below both maths and reading? Pre-pandemic results of 78% reaching the expected standard have plummeted to 71 and 72% more recently.

Are the brilliant opportunities gifted to students by their ability to write accurately, skilfully and creatively being lost? 

We need to focus on supporting teachers to better identify students who struggle with writing – particularly, but not exclusively, teen writers in secondary school. We need more focus on assessment – both standardised and formative assessment. 

Spying an issue with handwriting can be aided by formative assessments, such as the handwriting legibility scale. This can lead to a more standardised assessment, like the DASH assessment. Knowing how many words per minute your students can write is a start.

With better information, along with targeted training, we can play back to teachers the developmental practice that builds strong foundations for writing. 

We can tackle the five key problem areas if we make them a clear school improvement priority, aligning them with reading approaches in focused and creative ways. But we must also confront the reality that likely over a third of students struggle with writing. Unless we address this head-on, many will continue to fall behind, and their chances of wider school success will be compromised.

I am holding a unique Teachology Masterclass on 'Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers to Succeed'. It will be held LIVE in Manchester (and online) on November 28th. READ MORE DETAILS HERE.