Facilitating Children’s Translation of Ideas Into Written Language Through Combining Art Activities and Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction for Writing

T he results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007) indi-catedthatabout40%offourth-gradestudentsinU.S.publicschoolshaddif£cultydemonstratingpro£ciencywithwritingatabasiclevel.State assessmentsforwritingalsore¶ectthisnationalpro£le(e.g.,WashingtonState’s AssessmentofStudentLearning,2009).Theunderlyingquestioniswhywriting would pose more dif£culty for children than other literacy domains such as reading.Aplausiblereasonisthatwritingisamorecomplexactivityinthatitrequires otherskillsinadditiontowritingthathavetobeintegratedwithwriting.Forexample,writingmayrequirereadingsourcematerialandwritinga£naldraftrequires notonlygeneratingatextbutalsoreadingittomakeeditsforapublishablecopy (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007). Even with pro£cient reading skills, writing can pose additional challenges.