Primary School Teachers Adaptations for Struggling Writers in Australia: A National Survey

Theoretical and empirical research indicates that tailoring educational practices to meet students’ individual differences and needs has a positive impact on students’ performance. Putting in place adaptations for struggling writers in primary education is critical since these have the potential to prevent later writing problems that lead children into needing special educational support services. Despite the critical role of instructional adaptations for students experiencing difficulties in learning to write, research investigating specific instructional adaptations that teachers typically implement for struggling writers in primary classrooms is scarce. In the current study, 298 primary teachers (88% female) from across all Australian states and territories reported on the frequency with which they implemented instructional adaptations for struggling writers in their classrooms. They also rated their preparation and self-efficacy for teaching writing. The majority of participating teachers indicated they provided additional instruction on spelling, capitalization and punctuation, and sentence construction at least once a week or more often. Teachers further reported implementing additional minilessons and reteaching strategies and skills, as well as extra instruction on grammar, handwriting, text structure, revising and planning monthly or more often. Most teachers reported never or only once a year using adaptations to support digital writing. The frequency with which teachers provided extra instruction on spelling, handwriting, text structure, revising, and computer use differed by grade. Only teachers’ perceived efficacy to teach writing made a unique and statistically significant contribution to predicting the use of instructional adaptations for writing and adaptations to support digital writing after controlling for teacher and classroom variables. Findings from this study reinforce the need of offering teachers high quality education programs and professional development opportunities for writing instruction to support them in tailoring their teaching to students who find writing particularly challenging.