How consistent writing practice can boost achievement

One of the best moments of my career was watching a student score 43 in English after writing 17 practice papers in the first term of Year 12. Having taught the student in Year 11, he'd always had very good ideas and could structure his essays well, but he found it difficult to put everything together under timed conditions. By the end of Year 12, he had written in excess of 40 practice pieces, and walked into the English exam more confident than ever before. 

The phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ is overused, but the correlation between frequency and results is clear. 

Richard (2012) found that parent engagement in writing practice can improve student writing achievement by over 60%, whilst Sarah (2018) discovered that writing practice was the single biggest reason for writing development in her study.

Despite these truths, encouraging students to engage in this practice is another thing entirely. 

Over the parent-teacher interview desk, we are in giddy agreement about the importance of frequency of writing. But in reality, it can be very difficult for teachers and parents alike to create a setting whereby students feel compelled to sit down with a pen in hand.

One of the most effective approaches that I have seen schools adopt is a weekly timed-write. This is where, at a set time every week, students know that there will be a supervised room within which they can practise their writing. 

When we ran this at the same time every week, we saw a significant uptick in attendance – the students knew that if they arrived at school at that particular time, then a practice paper, some lined paper, and a supervisor would be waiting there for them. 

However, when we moved it around and changed the time of the writing session from week to week, attendance dropped. To me, this was a clear sign that students want to be there, provided the barrier to entry is mitigated. It has to be easy. Frictionless. Sessions need to be held at the same time and in the same space. It must be inviting and distraction-free and equipped with notebooks, pens and access to lined paper. 

We must make practice a habit.

If we want students to practice writing skills consistently, the aim is to lower the level of friction and ensure that it becomes an easy and worthwhile habit that students are prepared to adopt. 

The rationale behind why you want your students to write for an hour before school should be pitched to your students. They should understand that turning up at 7:30am every Thursday to write an essay under timed conditions will have an impact on their score.

If you can, let them hear from students who have done this in the past and for whom such an approach has actually worked. As a student, there is nothing like hearing it from your peers in the years above who have actually done well. 

Make consistent writing practice a known ‘thing’ at your school. 

Let the place be visible – for us, it was in the library. You could see the students doing their timed-write from the library, from the basketball courts, from a range of different spaces.

And, when the Year 12s were doing their timed writes, they were a protected species – nobody was allowed to make noise or distract them. The space was theirs. 

When students do participate in the timed-write activities, they should be celebrated. This celebration should be public, and should be designed to create a culture that praises effort and spreads awareness to younger year levels. We need to positively reinforce students who are participating, and entice those who are not. You can do this through canteen vouchers, certificates, and emails across the school. The entire school community should understand the link between practice and success. 

Take it one step further: substantiate your claims with quantitative data. It can be incredibly useful to request a report from Mark My Words on the progress of the students who are consistently attending timed-writes so that you can show members of the school community just how useful such an approach can be. 

The documentation around the impact of parent engagement is immense.

So while we need to encourage parent involvement, this does not necessarily mean that parents must sit down next to their kid to help them write or provide them with feedback. 

Indeed, sending a basic email to parents to let them know that you will be running a timed-write session and when you will be running it can do the world of good. Bring them in on it – let them play a role in reducing the barriers to entry by encouraging attendance and supporting the logistics. 

For many parents, it won’t be practical to get their child to school on time. But you never know. And one thing is for sure, parents will be less able to help and support if they do not know when and where it is happening – or that it is happening at all. 

Ideally, creating a space for students to write would start much earlier than Year 12. 

It never hurts to create a space, at a set time each week, for all students to come and put pen to paper. The guidelines outlined above will certainly work in the earlier years, and may help students build positive habits earlier in their schooling.

But at the very least, establishing this environment for Year 12s should be a priority – at this age, students are ready to come to the party, and will draw huge value from sitting down to write, write and write.

Of course, writing practice will be more effective when goals for the session are defined. 

Richard (2016) points this out specifically in his research, but having clarity around our objectives is important in pretty much everything we set out to do. If you are using Mark My Words, ensure that the student seeks to address their three key missions and the feedback that you have given them in the previous weeks.

This takes us back to feedback – for timed-writes to have maximum impact, students need to be able to gauge how they are performing over time. 

This is completely impractical if you have a class of 20 students who are doing an essay a week; though there are ways to deal with it – comment banks, marking just one paragraph, peer review assessments, or self-reviews. There are many approaches. 

Nevertheless, it is undoubted that the best approach is to provide students with timely and detailed feedback after every assessment – especially when students can interact with this feedback and track their progress over time.