> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://on.dystinct.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Issue 32: Supporting Writing K-5: Grounded in Research, Applied Practically | Lisa Klein - URL: https://on.dystinct.org/supporting-writing-k-5-grounded-in-research-applied-practically-lisa-klein/ - Published: 2026-10-29T14:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-30T12:53:25.000Z - Description: Lisa Klein draws on her experience as an educator and parent to explore why writing can feel overwhelming and shares practical, research-informed strategies to help children organise their thoughts, build writing skills and express their ideas with confidence. - Author: Lisa Klein - Tags: #table-of-content, Evidence Matters, #issue 00032 👉 This article was published in [Dystinct Magazine Issue 32 October 2026](https://on.dystinct.org/issue-32-october-2026/). **Lisa Klein is the Vice President of Keys To Literacy \[*[**keystoliteracy.com*](https://keystoliteracy.com/?ref=on.dystinct.org)**\]* ![Supporting Writing for K5 Grounded in Research & Applied Practically by Lisa Klein](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2026/10/Supporting-Writing-K5-Grounded-in-Research-Applied-Practically-Lisa-Klein.jpg) Supporting Writing K5 Grounded in Research Applied Practically | Lisa Klein > "What if we talk about it instead of writing it down?" > "I can't do it, Miss! It's too hard, and I don't know where to start." > "I hate writing!" ❣️ Love what we do at dystinct.org? [**Subscribe here!*](https://on.dystinct.org/#/portal/signup/) As a teacher, I heard frustration from many of my students when it was time to write. I began my career at a school for students with language-based learning differences and continued teaching in the public school setting. In both, many of my students were reluctant writers and had often not experienced success with their own writing. In the public school setting, there was a disconnect between the time needed for direct, explicit writing instruction to teach writing well and the time actually built into the daily and weekly schedules. Years later, I heard that same frustration from my own son, who was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia. Writing was his Achilles heel. He struggled with basic transcription skills such as handwriting and spelling, which often hindered his ability to compose his thoughts. Although he had an excellent vocabulary, he often spent time thinking of synonyms that were easier to spell. His working memory was taxed by questions such as "How do I form that letter?" or "How do I spell that word?" rather than by the larger idea he was trying to convey. The IES Report, "***Teaching Elementary Students to be Effective Writers,***" an excellent resource, recommends that we "provide daily time for students to write." In fact, students in grades 1 and up should have 60 minutes of their day dedicated to writing. Teachers, don't panic! This does not mean that elementary-aged students should be sitting at their desks and quietly writing for one uninterrupted hour. Rather, the 60 minutes should be spent on a variety of writing activities throughout the day. In fact, the recommendation is to devote 30 minutes to writing strategies and skill development, and to spread the other 30 minutes across the day, writing in science, social studies, and math. It is through the frequent opportunities to write that students will gain proficiency and automaticity in writing. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2026/10/Teaching-Elementary-School-Students-to-Be-Effective-Writers.png)](https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/17?ref=on.dystinct.org) **Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.* [ies.ed.gov ](https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/17?ref=on.dystinct.org) Writing is a complex activity that requires multiple processes to happen at the same time. In ***The Writing Rope*** model by Keys to Literacy Founder, Joan Sedita, there are five strands: critical thinking, syntax, text structure, writing craft, and transcription, which are woven together to represent everything that goes into skilled writing (Sedita, 2019, 2023). This visual model provides teachers and parents with a construct illustrating the integration of the necessary skills for each strand, including generating and organizing ideas, forming sentences, developing well-constructed paragraphs, using transitions, spelling, and handwriting. Teachers often face a dilemma when asked to assess their students' writing to identify which component(s) are causing difficulty. It is hard to know where to begin in assessing and which indicators to use to do so accurately. Sedita highlights the importance of assessment in the blog post ***The Writing Rope: A Diagnostic Framework for Formative Writing Assessment***. > *“Assessment of student writing is an essential component of developing students' writing abilities. Although writing assessment can serve a variety of purposes, an important primary goal should be to inform instruction and improve students' writing skills." (Sedita, 2026)* The post goes on to provide helpful suggestions for using the Writing Rope framework to support frequent formative (ongoing, informal) assessment, helping teachers determine what writing instruction their students need. Formative assessments are best used to give meaningful student feedback and inform instructional decisions on an ongoing basis; they also help teachers reflect on their own practice. The formative assessment results indicate several key things: where students may need reteaching or more opportunities for practice, where scaffolding is needed, and, importantly, what refinements may be needed in instruction to best meet students' writing needs. A second model,the ***Not So Simple View of Writing*** (Berninger and Winn, 2006), helps explain why that struggle happens. In this theoretical model, we see that working memory and executive functions are central to proficient writing. The ability to get started on and attend to writing tasks is connected to executive functioning. Taken together with transcription and composing, this illustrates the complexity of writing. Students often struggle with organizing their thoughts, getting started on writing, and maintaining the stamina to complete writing tasks. In addition, for many students with dyslexia like my son, transcription, particularly spelling and handwriting, consumes so much mental energy that there is little left over for the ideas themselves. We can support students by providing scaffolding. A scaffold is a temporary support we can put into place that helps students to be successful with a given task. We can scaffold in several ways depending on what a student needs. Some examples of helpful writing scaffolds include graphic organizers for prewriting, sentence stems, and word banks. Here is what it might look like in practice: Imagine you are sitting at the kitchen table helping your child with their second-grade science homework, and they are struggling to get started on the assignment: *Explain how a plant's parts work together to help it grow.* This prompt requires attention to both text structure and syntax, describing the parts and how they function. This is different from when a prompt asks the child to name or list something ("what are the parts of a plant"). In that case, the child only needs to pull facts from memory. But when a prompt asks to explain how things work together ("how do a plant's parts work together to help it grow"), the child also has to synthesize and organize those facts into a logical sequence and connect them with transitions (first, then, because, as a result). That second part, the organizing and connecting, is often where kids who struggle with writing get stuck, even when they know the facts. Finally, when a child writes without support, their brain is juggling several tasks at once: remembering what they know about the topic, finding the right words, spelling them correctly, and putting them into a sentence that makes sense. For a child who struggles with writing, all of that competes for the same limited mental "workspace," so something usually gets dropped. Often it is the content itself. The child may know that roots soak up water, but by the time they got the spelling and sentence structure sorted out, that idea slipped away. ***So, how might you, as a parent, provide some scaffolding?*** - **Oral Rehearsal and Visuals: Talk it out before writing anything.** Provide children with a visual support and multiple opportunities for oral rehearsal prior to writing. Simply put, give them the chance to put together (compose) their thoughts aloud (orally) before writing. Verbally articulating their thoughts takes the pressure off spelling and handwriting (transcription) so they can focus on the ideas first (composing their thoughts). The picture may help with word and content retrieval. Show your child a picture of a plant and ask them to tell you, out loud, how a plant grows, pointing to one part at a time to help prompt their explanation. - **Sentence Stems and Word Bank: Give them a simple structure to hang the ideas on.** Provide students with stems that include transitions to help structure their response. A word bank takes one job off a child's plate - finding and spelling the right word. So their brain has more room left for organizing ideas into a full sentence. It is about freeing up the mental space they need for the part of writing focused on composing ideas and synthesizing information. **Word Bank**: part of a plant, grow, underground, soak up water and nutrients, carry that water, a straw, they use sunlight, parts of the plant, a team **How a Plant's Parts Work Together** \- Each ( ) has a job that helps it ( ). \- The roots grow () , and their job is to ( ) from the soil. \- The stem's job is to ( ) up to the rest of the plant, like ( ). \- The leaves are important because ( ) to make food for the plant. \- Together, the ( ) work as ( ). ![Illustration by Abby Grace for Dystinct Magazine](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2026/10/Illustration-by-Abby-Grace-for-Dystinct-Magazine.jpg) Illustration by Abby Grace for Dystinct Magazine - **Write using a Template: Let them write it down last, using what they already said out loud.** By the time they're writing, they're not generating and, organizing and spelling all at once; they're mostly just transcribing something they've already figured out. A template is a scaffold that holds the space for students to get their ideas down in a structured way. ***For parents and teachers supporting young and adolescent writers, here are a few more practical tips that support writing without making it feel like additional schoolwork:*** - **Find opportunities for students to write more, especially in short timeframes.** Oftentimes, writing feels long and arduous. Finding additional times throughout the day for children to write in short bursts may help them build writing proficiency without exhausting them. At home, consider things like a grocery list, birthday message to a friend, or thank you card. - **Writing Matters!** Have conversations about all of the ways that you use writing in your own life. Be sure to mention how often you revise as you write. Students may have a misconception that because you are an adult, writing is easy for you. It’s important to note that it is challenging but ultimately worth it, as it allows their voices to reach audiences larger than those they can speak to directly. Find opportunities for students to write to people or organizations that are meaningful to them. Although they may not always receive a response, there is value in sharing their thoughts and ideas. ***Although writing is a complex task, it is an important way for people, young and old, to have their voice heard. It allows their reach to extend beyond those they can talk to, and writing holds permanence. All children can learn to be stronger writers with the appropriate instructional time, scaffolding, and opportunities for practice.*** ## Recommended Resources ## Recommended Resources **Helpful blog posts** - **Main Idea and Note Taking Tips for Parents** Literacy Lines blog post \[[keystoliteracy.com](https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/tips-for-parents/?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] - **Accommodations, Modifications and Assistive Technology for Students with Dyslexia** Literacy Lines blogpost \[[keystoliteracy.com](https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/accommodations-modifications-and-assistive-technology-for-students-with-dyslexia/?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] **Free KTL Resources** - **Essentials of Writing Instruction:** An excellent resource with more information about writing, connections to research, and practical suggestions for teaching writing across grade levels and content areas. \[[flipsnack.com](https://www.flipsnack.com/CBA6EAF7C6F/the-essentials-of-effective-writing-a-guide?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] - **Accommodations, Modifications and Assistive Technology for Students with Dyslexia** (Expanded PDF version of the blog post above). This five-page article explores the educational supports that help students with dyslexia succeed academically, focusing on accommodations, modifications, and assistive technology (AT). \[[keystoliteracy.com](https://keystoliteracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Accommodations-for-Students-with-Dyslexia.pdf?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] - Visit the **IDA website** for more information and resources designed for families. \[[dyslexiaida.org](https://dyslexiaida.org/?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] ## References ## References - Berninger, V. W., and Winn, W. D. (2006). Implications of Advancements in Brain Research and Technology for Writing Development, Writing Instruction, and Educational Evolution. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, and J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of Writing Research (pp. 96-114). New York: The Guilford Press. - Sedita, J. (2019). The Writing Rope: The Strands That Are Woven Into Skilled Writing. Keys to Literacy. - Sedita, J. (2023). The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. - Sedita, J. (2026, May 5). The Writing Rope: A Diagnostic Framework for Formative Writing Assessment. Literacy Lines. \[[keystoliteracy.com](https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/the-writing-rope-a-diagnostic-framework-for-formative-writing-assessment/?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] - U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, What Works Clearinghouse. Teaching Elementary Students to be Effective Writers. \[[ies.ed.gov](https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/17?ref=on.dystinct.org)\] ## Lisa Klein, M.Ed. ### Vice President | [keystoliteracy.com](https://keystoliteracy.com/team/lisa-klein/?ref=on.dystinct.org) | [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/keys2literacy) | [X](https://x.com/keystoliteracy?ref=on.dystinct.org) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/keystoliteracy/?ref=on.dystinct.org) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/user/KeystoLiteracy?ref=on.dystinct.org) | [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/keystoliteracy/?ref=on.dystinct.org) ## Lisa Klein, M.Ed. ![Lisa Klein Vice President of Keys to Literacy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2026/10/Keys-to-Literacy-Lisa-Klein-Quote-for-DYSTINCT-Magazine.jpg) Lisa Klein | Vice President of Keys to Literacy Lisa Klein is Vice President and Director of Relationship Management at Keys to Literacy, a national organization providing literacy professional learning and coaching to teachers, educational leaders, and institutions of higher education. She co-edited Keys to Early Writing and Keys to Content Writing, leads strategic partnerships with state education agencies and higher education institutions, and regularly presents at state and national literacy conferences. Outside of work, she is a mom of three and brings that lived experience, alongside her professional expertise, to her work on literacy. ## Buy Printed Copies of Dystinct Magazine ## Buy Printed Copies on Amazon ### **Select the Amazon Store based on your region** [ Buy on Amazon.com (USA) ](https://link.amazon/B06Fw1fmQ?ref=on.dystinct.org) [ Buy on Amazon.com.au (AU) ](https://link.amazon/B01znxuw6?ref=on.dystinct.org) [ Buy on Amazon.co.uk (UK) ](https://link.amazon/B00QuC4nA?ref=on.dystinct.org) [ Buy on Amazon.ca (Canada) ](https://link.amazon/B066If2Tg?ref=on.dystinct.org) ****\#** ***AffiliateLinks:** *As an Amazon Associate, Dystinct earns a commission from qualifying purchases made by readers on the affiliate links we share. The product details such as product image, description, price, stock, etc are accurate as of the time of publication of this article.* ## Extracts from Dystinct Magazine ## Extracts from Dystinct Magazine ![Supporting Writing K5 Grounded in Research Applied Practically by Lisa Klein from Keys To Literacy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2026/10/Supporting-Writing-K5-Grounded-in-Research-Applied-Practically-by-Lisa-Klein-from-Keys-To-Literacy-for-Dystinct-Magazine.png) Supporting Writing K5 Grounded in Research Applied Practically by Lisa Klein from Keys To Literacy ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/a5/2ea50a0c-f4a8-4de6-9555-dcc016acb40e/content/images/2025/07/AdPages_Page_03.jpg) ❣️ Love what we do at dystinct.org? [**Subscribe here!*](https://on.dystinct.org/#/portal/signup/)