Strong Writing Skills May Enhance Students'

Chances for Success

"Writing isn't easy--let me just make that perfectly clear. Anyone who
tells you that writing is easy is either lying to you or doesn't
understand what quality writing entails. Writing requires careful
thought, a great deal of planning, constant review of your work-inprogress, and a great deal of skill, which can only be gained through
experience and practice."
Mike Alexander in Good Writing Leads to Good Testing
By Barnabas Emenogu
It is well established that reading is an instrumental part of learning. When a student does not
understand a question he or she would not be able to provide the right answer to the question.
Comprehension therefore is very important for doing well on examinations.
There is evidence that reading helps comprehension. It is through reading and listening that students
acquire vocabulary. A large repertoire of vocabulary will have positive effect on both comprehension
and writing. That said, the influence of writing on student learning and achievement has received far
less attention. The report of the National Commission on Writing in America's Families, Schools, and
Colleges, titled The Neglected "R": The Need for a Writing Revolution argues that despite the best
efforts of many educators, writing has not received the full attention it deserves. In fact, the report
states: "most fourth-grade students spend less than three hours a week writing, which is
approximately 15 percent of the time they spend watching television".
In discussing the importance of writing to learning, Suleiman (2000) asserts that "writing is a central
element of language. Any reading and language arts program must consider the multidimensional
nature of writing in instructional practices, assessment procedures, and language development."
Examining this multidimensional nature of the writing process helps understanding of
writing fundamentals.
As the National Commission on Writing stressed, writing allows students to "connect the dots" in their
knowledge, is central to self-expression and civic participation and is essential to educational and
career success. The report recommended that the amount of time and money devoted to student
writing should increase and writing should become an important focus in schools at all grade levels.
Increased writing skills helps students express their thoughts and provide deeper and more
meaningful answers to examination questions.
As Cunningham argues, knowledge may be power, but the ability to communicate knowledge is the
primary material for learning within society. Writing skills are the primary tools for communicating

knowledge. The ability to communicate precisely may prove to be an advantage in life chances.
According to Jetton, "You can have the greatest technical skills in the world, but without solid
communication skills, who will know and who can understand?" This raises a concern about the
progression of ESL instructions from oral conversations to written prose.
In a recent study, Hand, Hohenshell, and Prain (2007) found that using multimultiple forms of writing
significantly supported effective student learning. Similarly, Poock, Burke, Greenbowe and Hand
(2007) found that explicit instruction in science writing was very effective in improving the students'
learning process and achievement in science. This tends to support the attention that the Literacy
and Numeracy Secretariat is giving to non-fiction writing.
Equally, there may be a strong relationship between writing frequency and intellectual capacities. Gay
(2002) contended that organizational, critical thinking, logic and reasoning skills are fostered in
writing exercises and these skills tend to pour over into other areas of problem solving or creativity.
Writing has also been linked with critical thinking, particularly journal writing has been associated
with promoting students' critical thinking and learning skills.
Writing in their journals helps students apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate information beyond
just knowing it. Therefore, one effective way of making students write seems to be asking them to
write in a daily journal. Journals can be used across subject areas to develop writing skills in different
content areas. A student might have a journal for science, math, art, physical education, music and
social studies thereby learning to use the language and thinking associated with these subjects.
In using board and school level data of the EQAO Assessments of reading, writing and mathematics I
found that there is a very strong relationship between writing scores and scores in other assessment
areas. Interestingly the relationship between writing scores and mathematics scores in Grade 6
assessment is much stronger than the relationship between reading and mathematics or writing
and reading.
In addition, writing had very strong relationship with other subjects across grades. For example,
success in Grade 3 writing had very strong relationship with success in Grade 6 mathematics
(stronger relationship than between Grade 3 reading and Grade 6 reading or between Grade 3
mathematics and Grade 6 mathematics). These findings hold true for both 2005-06 and 200607 results.
In looking at the school and board performance over three years, I found that school and board
success in Grade 3 writing in 2002-03 was the strongest predictor of success in Grade 6 reading
writing and mathematics in 2005-06. Similarly, school and board success in Grade 3 writing in 200304 was the strongest predictor of success in Grade 6 reading writing and mathematics in 2006-07.
Amongst other things, I have suggested that a key benefit of getting elementary students to start
writing early is that the amount of writing they do during their school years has a strong impact on

the way they think, the amount they read, and the quality of their writing as adults. Motivating
students to write in many forms for many reasons will enhance not only their achievement but quite
possibly their life chances. In this sense, writing early moves from an issue that is solely pedagogic
and curricular to an issue that is also moral.

References
Alexander, M. Good Writing Leads to Good Testing.
Gay, G. (2002). Developing Dimensions of Written Language. Adaptive Technology Resource Centre.
Retrieved March 26, 2008
Hand, B., Hohenshell, L., & Prain, V. (2007). Examining the effect of multiple writing tasks on Year 10
biology students' understandings of cell and molecular biology concepts. Instructional Science, 35, 4.
343(31).
National Commission on Writing in America's Families, Schools, and Colleges (2003) The Neglected
"R": The Need for a Writing Revolution. Report. Retrieved March 26
Poock, J. R., Burke, K.A., Greenbowe, T. J. & Hand, B. M. (2007). Using the science writing heuristic
in the general chemistry laboratory to improve students' academic performance. Journal of Chemical
Education 84.8 (August 2007): 1371(9).
Suleiman, M.F. (2000). The process and product of writing: Implications for elementary school
teachers. ERIC Digest, ERIC Identifier ED 442299.

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