To what extent does grammar teaching help children learn to write?

The teaching of grammar in primary schools in England (a key feature of England's national curriculum) does not appear to help children's narrative writing, although it may help them generate sentences, according to new UCL-led research. The study, which is funded by the Nuffield Foundation and co-authored by researchers from UCL and the University of York, is the first randomised controlled trial worldwide to examine how Year 2 pupils' writing (six to seven-year-olds) might benefit from grammar teaching. The research assessed the impact of a new grammar teaching intervention called Englicious . Year 2 teachers in 70 primary schools, and 1,736 pupils, were recruited to the study. The teachers and their pupils were allocated at random to either receive the Englicious intervention programme or to have their usual grammar teaching. The results showed that while children who followed the programme had encouraging results when it came to generating sentences, there was no statistically significant improvement in their narrative writing. Children's writing was tested by a narrative writing test and a sentence generation test before and after the end of the grammar intervention.