Explore the evidence
6 of 88 decisions · clear everything
Survives the gold standardIndependent, durable, rigorousThe debunked shelfCheap winsFor parents at homeFamous numbers, deflatedWhere we admit ignoranceThe terrain
Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”
who's delivering
group / setting
outcome class
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: medium8/818/48connected:Does teaching grammar improve chilDoes teaching movement transfer toDoes sentence combining improve wrDoes teaching spelling work, and w+1
Does 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: low8/89/48connected:Does teaching grammar improve chilDoes teaching movement transfer toDoes handwriting and transcriptionDoes teaching spelling work, and w
Does 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: low8/89/48connected:Does teaching spelling work, and wDoes teaching grammar improve chilDoes handwriting and transcription
Does 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: low7/79/48connected:Does teaching grammar improve chilDoes sentence combining improve wrSystematic/explicit phonics vs whoExplicit instruction vs discovery/+3
Does teaching spelling work, and what does it transfer to? · writing · ages 5–18
Diagnose what a child already knows: teachers cut 40–50% of curriculum for high-ability children and achievement ROSE. The payoff is skipping, not monitoring.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: medium16/1625/48connected:Does educational technology raise Feedback and formative assessmentMastery learning (teach → test → r
Placement and mastery diagnosis — deciding what to teach next from evidence of current skill · assessment · ages 5–18 · structure
Teaching grammar does not improve writing at any age tested — and it displaces the things that do.
negativeconf: mediumgc: low12/1227/48connected:Comprehensible input or explicit gDoes sentence combining improve wrDoes teaching spelling work, and wDoes handwriting and transcription+4
Does teaching grammar improve children's writing? · writing · ages 5–18
Not yet assessed for this question · 14
- Acceleration and gifted programs — the label vs the content
- Background knowledge and vocabulary as drivers of reading comprehension
- Explicit instruction vs discovery/inquiry — how much guidance?
- Explicit vs reform/constructivist math instruction
- Ability grouping and tracking — four practices, four verdicts
- Interleaving (mixing problem types vs blocking)
- Does matching instruction to a child's "learning style" improve learning?
- Manipulatives and concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequences
- Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, and the smaller classroom brain fads
- Phonemic awareness training (and whether it needs letters)
- Reading fluency — guided repeated oral reading, and whether repetition matters
- Vision — outdoor time against myopia, and screening and correction for achievement
- Word problems, schema instruction, and the conceptual-vs-procedural question
- Worked examples (studying solutions vs solving problems)
The URL is the state — any view you build here is a permalink you can hand to someone mid-argument.