Writing is a central component of literacy. Effective writing not only successfully communicates ideas, using appropriate vocabulary and grammatically correct sentences, it also can be used to enhance reading comprehension and to assist in retention of concepts being taught in other subjects. This post provides an overview of Collins and Ciullo’s (2026) article which focuses on the Self-regulated Strategic Development Strategy.
Helping students become strategic writers:
- Data from national writing assessments reveal that many students require additional support to become effective writers.
- Observable difficulties include idea generation, text organisation, sentence construction and transcription skills.
- Signs of difficulties include avoidance behaviours, writing a list of facts, little development of ideas, and a lack of a strategic approach to planning and composing.
Core components of Self-regulated Strategic Development (SRSD):
SRSD comprises six integrated strategies that span a continuum of activities from building foundational knowledge to the gradual release of responsibility.
- Develop background knowledge: Introduce why writing is important and emphasise the usefulness and purpose of different genres. This stage introduces students to a range of different mnemonic strategies and graphic organisers (e.g., TREE=Topic sentence, Reasons, Explanations, Ending).
- Memorise it: This stage is interwoven throughout all the stages beginning with stage 1.
- Model it: Teachers demonstrate the strategy for planning and drafting an essay. An important component of this stage is ‘thinking aloud’ to make cognitive processes overt.
- Support it: This stage consists of scaffolded practice whereby teachers gradually move students towards independent writing. Most of the instruction time is spent in this stage.
- Independent performance: This stage involves fading overt self-regulation and transitioning to internal cognitive processes that students are able to use automatically and fluently.
- Booster lessons: Lessons that target specific skills that students have not fully mastered.
Practical tips for implementation:
- Build shared knowledge and capacity: Work collaboratively with other educators.
- Start with a manageable approach and trust the process: Start with one strategy and one genre.
- Differentiate scaffolded supports based on individual student’s needs: Different students will progress at different rates and different students will need different types of supports.
- Reinforce growth and continually build confidence: Provide specific feedback that focuses on what a particular student has achieved and the next step in the process.
Check out the Cracking the ABC Code writing resources
Reference
Collins, A. & Ciullo, S. (2026). Helping students become strategic writers: A guide to self-regulated strategy development. The Reading League Journal. 7(2), 14-22.