Explore the evidence
10 of 88 decisions · clear everything
Teaching handwriting works and transfers: freeing the hand frees composition, with gains still present at six months — even taught in groups of three.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: mediumDoes handwriting and transcription instruction matter, and should young children type instead? · writing · ages 5–12
Sentence combining improves writing where grammar teaching fails — the same meta-analyses score them +0.50 and −0.32.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDoes sentence combining improve writing? · writing · ages 5–18
Strategy instruction is writing's best-supported method — at roughly a fifth of its advertised size once measures are independent (d≈0.8 → ~0.15).
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDoes strategy instruction (SRSD, the writing process) improve writing? · writing · ages 5–18
Formal spelling instruction works (ES 0.54) and more formal beats less formal — explicit wins again, and it transfers beyond spelling itself.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDoes teaching spelling work, and what does it transfer to? · writing · ages 5–18
Capitalisation and punctuation move when directly taught and directly measured, and don't move when embedded in writing programmes. A teachable subject, not a writing lever.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumCan capitalisation, punctuation and usage be taught directly as their own subject? · writing · ages 5–18
Near-zero in primary and almost entirely correlational in secondary. The causal base is three small trials; what the homework IS beats how much of it there is.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumHomework — effects by age and by dosage · homework · ages 5–18 · structure
What parents are asked to DO is the whole effect: tutoring a skill d≈1.15, listening to reading 0.51, reading aloud ~0.18 — same parent, same child. All deflate under better designs.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumThe parent as instructor — what survives when the person teaching is the person who raised the child · homeschool · ages 4–18 · method
Teaching grammar does not improve writing at any age tested — and it displaces the things that do.
negativeconf: mediumgc: lowDoes teaching grammar improve children's writing? · writing · ages 5–18
No study of homeschooling has a counterfactual — the famous percentile claims are selection all the way down. The honest answer: nobody knows.
insufficientconf: lowgc: highDoes homeschooling raise achievement and attainment, or does it select the children who would have done well anyway? · homeschool · ages 5–18 · structure
Homeschoolers get plenty of social contact but measurably fewer, closer peer ties; whether that helps or harms has never been causally tested.
insufficientconf: lowgc: highHomeschool socialisation — the most-asked question, and the least answerable one · homeschool · ages 6–18 · structure
The URL is the state — any view you build here is a permalink you can hand to someone mid-argument.