| Summary: |
Writing is arguably one of the most effective tools for fostering the mental wealth of a nation. Mental wealth refers to the mental capital and mental well-being of citizens and is a key asset for enabling the economic and social prosperity of nations[1]. Today's democratic governments need not only to manage nations' material capital, but must also take care of the cognitive and emotional resources of their populations. Mental wealth is crucial for nurturing the direction societies are heading, and as underlined by the authors just cited, a way to capitalize these mental resources is to promote early interventions in key skills such as literacy. Present day literate societies rely heavily on writing and connected literacy skills. Writing has played a crucial role in each and every society it has been invented or introduced to. Moreover, writing also pays off for each citizen that has learnt and uses it effectively. It is an invaluable skill for adaptive success in modern societies, First, because writing promotes full engagement and active role in civic life, by allowing the construction and sharing of permanent knowledge objects[2]. Second, because more prestigious, better paid positions usually demand skilled expertise with writing. Indeed, writing has become a gateway for employment and promotion[3]. Acknowledging this crucial role of writing in society, the European Union is currently supporting a research network on learning to write effectively[2]. The problem with writing is that many children find it difficult, give-up, and do not improve it to the point it takes for active functioning in society. As noted by Graham and Harris[4] a possible reason for this state of affairs is that writing instruction is not what it should be. What is, in a sense, regrettable since a body of evidence-based writing practices is available today[3, 4]. Without illuminated interventionism, as the problem with writing in schools is far larger, and contextual, than  |
Summary
Writing is arguably one of the most effective tools for fostering the mental wealth of a nation. Mental wealth refers to the mental capital and mental well-being of citizens and is a key asset for enabling the economic and social prosperity of nations[1]. Today's democratic governments need not only to manage nations' material capital, but must also take care of the cognitive and emotional resources of their populations. Mental wealth is crucial for nurturing the direction societies are heading, and as underlined by the authors just cited, a way to capitalize these mental resources is to promote early interventions in key skills such as literacy. Present day literate societies rely heavily on writing and connected literacy skills. Writing has played a crucial role in each and every society it has been invented or introduced to. Moreover, writing also pays off for each citizen that has learnt and uses it effectively. It is an invaluable skill for adaptive success in modern societies, First, because writing promotes full engagement and active role in civic life, by allowing the construction and sharing of permanent knowledge objects[2]. Second, because more prestigious, better paid positions usually demand skilled expertise with writing. Indeed, writing has become a gateway for employment and promotion[3]. Acknowledging this crucial role of writing in society, the European Union is currently supporting a research network on learning to write effectively[2]. The problem with writing is that many children find it difficult, give-up, and do not improve it to the point it takes for active functioning in society. As noted by Graham and Harris[4] a possible reason for this state of affairs is that writing instruction is not what it should be. What is, in a sense, regrettable since a body of evidence-based writing practices is available today[3, 4]. Without illuminated interventionism, as the problem with writing in schools is far larger, and contextual, than the realm of pedagogical practices, it is our felling that, nevertheless, more can be done, and we are facing a critical moment for doing it. The new Portuguese Language curricula will be introduced in the academic year of 2010/11[5]. Regarding writing, the new curricula introduce, for the first time, a processes view of writing. This will be an important pedagogical change, one that follows more than thirty years of cognitive oriented research on writing. The research project we propose here has an applied side. One of our goals is to develop, and empirically test two interventions, delivered by teachers, for children in the elementary grades. There is a proper time to target each of the cognitive processes involved in writing[6]. Thus, we will promote transcription skills to 1st graders and self-regulation skills to 4th graders. There is sound empirical evidence[7-11] and theoretical rationale[12-15] for selecting transcription and self-regulation as critical ingredients for effective writing. We might even synthesize what is currently known by stating that the secret for effective writing lies in automatizing transcription and self-regulating high-level cognitive processes involved in writing. One strength of this project is that it will allow studying both in a group of children for which they are most crucial, the elementary grades. As a result of this project, we will make freely available the empirically validated intervention manuals and materials. Also the training of teachers with the practices will be offered as a teachers training course. On the basic research side, we'll be using logging techniques, directed retrospection, questionnaires and randomization to address several research questions. Along with the two intervention studies, we planned an initial study with children from 1st to 6th grade. For some time now, we have been interested in studying what we call execution periods (time of overt writing behavior in between two consecutive pauses). We have found, in experiments with adults, that automatizing transcription leads to increased execution periods, and this allow writers to work with increased chunks of information [16, 17]. The initial years of schooling are a naturally occurring context of transcription automatization, thus a similar increase in execution periods is expected to happen. Moreover, if transcription plays this role, then an early intervention targeting it should also be evident in execution periods. Furthermore, there is some suggestion that better self-regulation might well reflect on longer execution periods[18, 19]. This is a timely research project that will foster the scientific understanding of the online dynamics of writing, of writing development, and of how effective writing interventions operate and influence writing processes. This at the same time that it will contribute to establish evidence based practices, that will eventually increase the mental wealth of those it spreads to. |