The Nuffield Foundation in the UK recently published a report from researchers at Ulster University that analyzes the outcomes of classroom-based mathematical interventions, and gives teachers access to a body of evidence that can assist them in helping primary school children with math.

The systematic review included studies that assessed the outcomes of interventions aimed at improving math achievement in elementary children. Forty-five randomized controlled trials were included along with thirty-five quasi-experimental studies. The studies were published between 2000 and 2017, and were mostly conducted in the U.S. and Europe.

The results of the review suggest that:

• There are effective strategies teachers can use to help with learning math and being fluent with mathematical facts.
• It also found there are many different ways teachers can support children to have a wide bank of strategies to complete mathematical problems, and for children to know when is best to apply them.
• Technology in the classroom can also be helpful as long as these tools have been developed with a clear understanding of how children learn. 

The report concludes that the evidence base on mathematical interventions is weak, and recommends that researchers develop this evidence base by testing how effective mathematical interventions are in order to help teachers make evidence-based decisions to support children's learning. 

Source (Open Access): Simms, V., McKeaveney, C., Sloan, S. & Gilmore, C. (2019). Interventions to improve mathematical achievement in primary school-aged children: A systematic review. London, England: Nuffield Foundation… Read the rest

The Institute of Education Sciences has released a What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Educator’s Practice Guide. The guide, Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively, provides evidence-based recommendations for improving the writing skills of middle and high school students.

The WWC and a panel chaired by Steve Graham at Arizona State University synthesized existing research on the topic and combined it with insight from the panel to identify the following recommendations, which include a rating of the strength of the research evidence supporting each recommendation:

• Explicitly teach appropriate writing strategies using a Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle (strong evidence)
• Integrate writing and reading to emphasize key writing features (moderate evidence)
• Use assessments of student writing to inform instruction and feedback (minimal evidence)

To help teachers put the recommendations into practice, the guide describes over 30 specific strategies for the classroom, including sample writing prompts, activities that incorporate both writing and reading, and ways to use formative assessment to inform writing instruction.

Source (Open Access) : Graham, S., Bruch, J., Fitzgerald, J., Friedrich, L., Furgeson, J., Greene, K. ,… Wulsin, C.S. (2016). Teaching secondary students to write effectively (NCEE 2017-4002). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. … Read the rest

A practice guide from the What Works Clearinghouse, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers , offers four strategies for improving elementary students’ writing:

• Provide daily time for students to write
• Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes
• Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing
• Create an engaged community of writers

For each recommendation, the guide provides implementation ideas and examples, summaries of supporting research, and solutions to common roadblocks.  It is geared toward teachers, and other educators who want to improve the writing of their elementary students.

Source (Open Access) :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. … Read the rest

A Research published by Cambridge Assessment shows how 16-year-old students’ writing in exams has changed since 1980.

Aspects of Writing has been published by Cambridge Assessment approximately every 10 years, initially using a sample from 1980. This latest phase of the study focuses on writing samples from 2014. Key findings include:

• The percentage of spelling errors at the lowest level of achievement is higher in 2014 than in most years. The incidence of spelling errors has changed very little among the mid- and higher-achieving students.
• There is some evidence that use of “other” punctuation marks such as semi-colons has increased among higher-achieving students but decreased sharply among the lowest-achieving students.
• There is a cautious indication of a general improvement in the use of commas.
• There is an increase in the use of simple sentences among higher-achieving students. The researchers observe that these students tended to use simple sentences for literary effect.
• Students of all abilities are using less-complex sentence structures.
• Students at most levels of achievement are using more paragraphs than their predecessors.
• There was almost no evidence of candidates using “text-speak “abbreviations in their work.

It recommended future studies in this topic to focus on social media, non-standard English, informal language, as well as spelling and gender.

Source (Open Access): Elliott, G., Green, S., Constantinou, F., Vitello, S., Chambers, L., Rushton, N.,… Beauchamp, D. (2016). Variations in aspects of writing in 16+ English examinations between 1980 and 2014. Research Matters: A Cambridge Assessment publication, Special Issue 4.… Read the rest

An article in Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal presents a meta-analysis on the effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension. A total of 19 studies involving students in grades 1-12 met inclusion criteria, resulting in four comparisons between different writing activities: summary writing versus answering questions, summary writing versus note taking, answering questions versus note taking, and answering questions versus extended writing activities.

Results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences for any of the comparisons when effects were averaged over all reading comprehension measures, excluding treatment-inherent measures. However, statistically significant differences were found for two of the comparisons on specific measures:

• Extended writing enhanced reading comprehension better than question answering on measures where comprehension was assessed via an extended writing activity.
• Also, summary writing enhanced reading comprehension better than question answering on a free recall measure.

According to the authors, these results “provide limited support for the theoretical viewpoint that writing activities are differentially effective in improving reading comprehension based on how closely the writing activities are aligned with a particular measure.”

Source: Hebert, M., Simpson, A., & Graham, S. (2013). Comparing effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension: A meta-analysis. Reading and Writing, 26(1), 111–138. … Read the rest