The teachability and effectiveness of cognitive self-regulation in sixth-grade writers

Seventy-one normally functioning Spanish sixth-grade students participated in classroom-based training in cognitive strategies for preplanning and substantive revision of expository text. Short essays completed by these students pre-intervention, post-intervention, and after a 12 week delay were compared with those of an ordinary-curriculum control (n = 24). Online, self-report process measures suggested that training resulted in a substantial and sustained increase in preplanning as a result of the intervention, but little increase in the extent to which students revised their text. Product measures indicated a substantial and sustained increase in text quality and improved use of coherence ties.