Teaching writing in the primary grades in Norway: a national survey

Abstract

A sample of 1049 Norwegian teachers in grades 1–3 were surveyed about how they taught writing as well as their preparation and efficacy to do so. Although there was moderate variability in their response to survey items, most teachers provided students with a multi-faceted writing program. Teachers indicated students typically spent 20 min a day writing, and they were assigned various types of writing over the course of the school year. The average teacher applied numerous instructional practices frequently to teach writing skills, support students’ writing, provide students with feedback, and conference with them about writing. Less commonly, teachers taught planning and revising, promoted students’ motivation for writing, and applied evaluation data to adjust writing instruction. While teachers were not generally positive about their preservice preparation to teach writing, they believed that their inservice preparation was adequate. They were slightly to moderately positive about their efficacy to teach writing. Teachers’ beliefs about preparation and efficacy as well as their use of data-driven practices each uniquely predicted teachers’ reported writing practices. Recommendations for future research were offered.