Self-regulated strategies for writing engagement with Intermediate Phase learners

Ethical clearance: EFEC 6-11/2015  

A self-regulation strategy development (SRSD) programme to encourage learners who struggle to self-regulate their creative writing skills. This study was conducted at a primary school in Gr 6 English medium classroom. The previous teachers of the learner participants (LPs) in this study highlighted their observations and personal experiences encountered with the learner participants (LPs).

A six-month intervention programme was conducted in an attempt to improve the LPs creative writing skills. The SRSD programe taught learners self-regulation skills, to self-regulate their own learning by following the SRSD 6 stages.The SRSD stages were implemented during this 6 month period for the learners. In order to collect data an observation trial was conducted at the start of the programme followed by an interview session with three Intermediate Phase teachers, who reported on the LPs past and present creative writing progress. To monitor the efficacy that the SRSD intervention programme had on LPs creative  writing skills pre-tests and post-tests were conducted. Comparative analyses were conducted at the end of the study where pre-test and post-test results were compared in a  bid to ascertain whether the SRSD programme had an impact on learners creative writing skills.

Results from the post-test indicated that there was an improvement in learners creative writing skills, with an increase in word count, use of adjectives, and adverbs in 

LPs creative writing work. 

LPs structured their stories better at the end of the intervention programme, LPs wrote better introductions, detailed middle parts and concluded their stories more effectively,  but most important was the attitude and behaviour learners projected towards wanting to complete the work on their own. The 6 stages of the SRSD programme taught learners how to motivate themselves and stay focused on a task in order to self-regulate their learning in order to achieve creative writing independence.