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Writing conventions, also referred as grammar, was 
defined as “the set of rules that describes how words 
and groups of words can be arranged to form sentences 
in a particular language” (Cowan, 2008, p. 3). Cowan 
stressed that the ability to teach written conventions 
requires much more than fluency with the English 
language. Rather, teachers of written conventions 
require “conscious knowledge of the grammatical rules 
of the language” (p. 2).

Several researchers have shown the importance of 
teachers possessing a thorough understanding of 

written conventions in order to develop their students’ 
knowledge and skills related to the proper use of written 
conventions (e.g., Hadjioannou & Hutchinson, 2010; 
Meyer, 2003), especially when teaching struggling 
learners (Moats, 1994). Borg (2001) asserted that 
teacher education programs must include multiple 
learning experiences aimed to advance and sustain 
preservice teachers’ awareness of their knowledge of 
written conventions, as well as how this knowledge will 
affect their ability to teach written conventions. In this 
same manner, Myhill and Watson (2013) purported that 
knowledge about written conventions is not sufficient 
by itself. Preservice teachers must also possess 
pedagogical understandings regarding the instruction 
of written conventions.

The impetus for this study derived from a shared 
concern among faculty within a teacher education 
program: preservice teachers’ lack of proficiency with 
use of conventions in their writings. Undergraduate 
students enrolled in this university’s teacher education 
program complete 12 hours of English courses and 
nine hours of courses identified as writing intensive as 
part of their prescribed degree plan. These courses, 
in addition to the learning experiences within all other 

The Effect of Explicit Instruction with Writing 
Conventions Among Preservice Teachers

by Laurie a. Sharp

Abstract
Preservice teachers require both personal knowledge 
and pedagogical understandings with written 
conventions. Concern with preservice teachers’ inability 
to demonstrate proficiency with written conventions 
prompted this study. This study utilized a pretest/
posttest design, and participants’ were preservice 
teachers enrolled in a teacher education program. 
Participants completed five professor-created lessons 
aimed to develop personal knowledge with written 
conventions. Findings showed statistical significance 
regarding participants’ personal knowledge after 
receiving explicit instruction with written conventions.



GEORGIA JOURNAL OF READING 19 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1   2014

required courses, should ideally build preservice 
teachers’ proficiency with concepts related to proper 
use of written conventions. Of greater concern is the 
fact that these preservice teachers seek certification 
at the elementary level, as well as certification to work 
with English language learners. Therefore, these 
preservice teachers will eventually be teachers of 
written conventions to young students and nonnative 
English speakers.

Clearly, effective teachers of written conventions 
require both personal knowledge and pedagogical 
understandings related to instruction (Mather, Bos, & 
Babur, 2001; Moats, 1994; Myhill & Watson, 2013). 
Based on the aforementioned assertions of Borg (2001) 
and Myhill and Watson (2013), the researcher posited 
that learning written conventions through meaningful 
and relevant learning experiences was an important 
piece for preservice teachers enrolled in this teacher 
education program. With this in mind, this study sought 
to determine the effect of explicit instruction with written 
conventions embedded within the context of a language 
arts methods course on preservice teachers’ personal 
knowledge.

Methodology
Participants of this study consisted of 71 undergraduate 
students enrolled in a teacher education program at a 
public state university. All participants were classified 
as seniors and seeking elementary-level teaching 
certification, as well as certification for teaching English 
language learners. Participants were enrolled in their 
final semester of university coursework.

At the time of this study, all participants had successfully 
completed a minimum of 99 hours of undergraduate 
coursework, of which 12 hours were English courses 
(two freshman-level English courses and two 
sophomore-level English courses) and six hours were 
courses identified as writing intensive. Writing intensive 
courses were selected courses within a program of study 
at the university aimed to achieve two purposes: (1) to 
improve the personal writing ability of students, and (2) 
to improve the professional writing ability of students 
within their program of study. At the time of this study, 
all participants were enrolled in a third writing intensive 
course, which was related to the implementation of 
language arts instruction at the elementary and middle 
grade levels. The content of this course seemed highly 
appropriate to achieve the purpose of this study.

This study utilized a pretest/posttest design, with which 
data would be measured with a t Test to determine if 
statistical significance was present. The pretest was 
administered at the beginning of the semester, before 
any formal instruction took place. The posttest was 
administered during finals at the end of the semester. 

Throughout the semester, participants completed five 
lessons, which were developed as learning modules 
and delivered through Blackboard, a Web-based 
learning management system. Each participant had 
individual access to the professor-created learning 
modules, and each learning module was accessible 
during a specified two-week window. Participants’ 
activity within each learning module was accessed 
and tracked through administrative reports available in 
Blackboard.

The content of each learning module focused on a 
specific writing convention identified as part of the 
state-mandated English language arts curriculum 
for the elementary grades. The rationale behind this 
methodology was to ensure that participants were 
developing personal knowledge about specific writing 
conventions they would be expected to teach. The 
content of the five learning modules was as follows:

Lesson 1 – Punctuation
This learning module focused on the use of 
ending punctuation marks for sentences, commas, 
apostrophes, quotations marks, colon, and 
semicolon use.

Lesson 2 – Spelling
This learning module focused on common and 
advanced orthographic spelling patterns in English.

Lesson 3 – Commonly Confused Words
This learning module focused on proper use of 
commonly confused words, such as affect/effect.

Lesson 4 – Parts of Speech and  
Sentence Structures
This learning module focused on the various parts 
of speech and sentence structures (e.g., run-on 
sentences, sentence fragments).

Lesson 5 – Capitalization
This learning module focused on the written 
conventions associated with capitalization.

Each of the five learning modules followed a pattern 
aligned with the lesson cycle (shown in Figure 1), a 
lesson planning framework based upon best practices 
in teaching (McGregor, n.d.). As participants accessed 
a learning module, they were guided through the 
following sequential steps:

1. State Purpose and Focus: Participants were 
provided the objective for the learning module and 
interacted with a hook for engagement, such as a 
brief YouTube video clip.

2. Explanation of Content: Participants completed 



GEORGIA JOURNAL OF READING 20 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1   2014

a professor-created task sheet and viewed a 
professor-created presentation. Task sheets and 
presentations focused on building participants’ 
personal knowledge of the learning modules’ 
content. While completing a task sheet, participants 
used valid and reliable references to gather 
information pertaining to the written conventions 
associated with the learning module, such as 
definitions and grammatical rules.

3. Guided Practice: Participants practiced applying 
knowledge and skills related to the content of the 
learning module through interactive games and 
quizzes accessible via the Internet.

4. Independent Practice: Participants completed a 
quiz within each learning module to demonstrate 
mastery of personal knowledge. Quizzes consisted 
of 20 questions in varied formats, including 
matching, multiple-choice, and fill-in-the-blank. 
Some of the quiz questions contained multiple 

responses; therefore, partial credit could be earned. 
Quizzes were timed, and participants were given a 
30-minute window to complete the quiz associated 
with each learning module.

The format of the pretest and posttest was similar to 
the quizzes. The only difference was the pretest and 
posttest randomized questions related to all content: 
punctuation, spelling, commonly confused words, parts 
of speech and sentence structures, and capitalization. 
  
Results
Data for participants’ performance on the quizzes, 
pretest, and posttest were entered into SPSS. 
Descriptive statistics were first analyzed to check for a 
normal distribution of data. One outlier was identified, 
and this datum was removed from further analyses. 
After removal of this outlier, the remaining data met 
all assumptions, and a Shapiro-Wilks test confirmed 
normality of data (p > .05).

Figure 1. Flowchart showing the instructional design of a lesson using the lesson cycle (McGregor, n.d.). The 
lesson cycle is highly structured and adapted from Madeline Hunter’s (1994) Instructional Theory into Practice 
(ITIP) model. The ITIP model is a linear framework that involves teacher decision-making throughout the 
process. As shown in Figure 1, the lesson cycle shows the recursive process of instructional design.



GEORGIA JOURNAL OF READING 21 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1   2014

An initial analysis of data revealed high mean scores 
for each of the learning modules’ quizzes (see Table 
1). Further analyses were conducted using a paired 
samples t test to compare participants’ performance 
with the pretest and posttest (see Table 2). The mean 
of the posttest (M = 70.21, SD = 11.95) was higher than 
the mean of the pretest (M = 58.77, SD = 12.85), t(69) = 
-7.05, p = .00, d = .92. The 95% confidence interval for 
the mean difference between the pretest and posttest 
was -2.23 to -1.14. Therefore, the t test revealed 
a highly statistically significant difference between 
participants’ pretest and posttest scores. Hence, the 
explicit instruction with written conventions had a 
significant effect on participants’ personal knowledge 
with written conventions.

Discussion
Faculty within a teacher education program shared 
a concern regarding preservice teachers’ lack of 
proficiency with written conventions. The need for 
teachers to possess both personal knowledge and 
pedagogical understandings of written conventions is 
documented (Mather, Bos, & Babur, 2001; Moats, 1994; 
Myhill & Watson, 2013). Being that preservice teachers 
enrolled in this specific teacher education program 
were required to complete several courses that involve 
a great deal of writing, it seems reasonable to conclude 
that personal knowledge of written conventions 
was being developed. However, faculty noted that 
preservice teachers within this specific program were 
not able to consistently demonstrate application of 
personal knowledge with written conventions.

Although research exists that reported no statistically 
significant findings between explicit instruction with 

written conventions and students’ writing (Petrosky, 
1977), there is a body of research that showed instruction 
focused upon the improvement of students’ writing was 
more effective than isolated skill-based instruction 
(e.g., Hillocks & Smith, 2003; Weaver, McNally, & 
Moerman, 2001). According to Feng and Powers 
(2005), the most optimal approach for instruction with 
written conventions involves crafting minilessons that 
are based upon errors present in students’ writing. 
While error-based instruction with writing conventions 
is a meaningful and authentic instructional approach, 
Berger (2001) also emphasized the importance of a 
“scope and sequence that addresses many grammar 
conventions” and provides students with a “steady diet” 
of explicit instruction (p. 49).

Preservice teachers admitted to this teacher education 
program will eventually be certified to teach at the 
elementary level, as well as certified to teach English 
language learners. Consequently, it was imperative 
that preparation of these preservice teachers included 
development of both personal knowledge and 
pedagogical understandings of written conventions. 
At the time of this study, preservice teachers were 
enrolled in a course that covers content related to 
implementation of language arts instruction. Thus, 
with instruction already taking place that focused 
on pedagogical understandings, learning modules 
were created to focus upon development of personal 
knowledge simultaneously. As Patterson (2001) 
contended, instruction related to written conventions 
must be “a means through which students learn more 
about themselves, their texts, and the world around 
them” (p. 55).
 
Analyses of data showed that the explicit instruction with 
written conventions had a statistically significant effect 
on preservice teachers’ personal knowledge of written 
conventions. This finding implies that a more concerted 
effort was needed to develop personal knowledge 
with written conventions among preservice teachers. 
However, this study took place in a senior-level 
course taken the semester before student teaching. 
Would preservice teachers be better served if this 
effort took place earlier in their educational program? 
Perhaps it would be more beneficial for preservice 
teachers to have time to sustain personal knowledge 
of written conventions while under the direction of 
faculty within the teacher education program. On the 
other hand, timing explicit instruction aimed towards 
personal development with written conventions to align 
with the delivery of content related to pedagogical 
understandings might be more meaningful. Further 
research would be needed to determine when delivery 
of explicit instruction with written conventions should 
take place with preservice teachers.

Summary of Quiz Performance
Measure N M SD
Lesson 1 70 90.45 17.96
Lesson 2 70 90.35 10.26
Lesson 3 70 90.92   9.95
Lesson 4 70 93.94   9.33
Lesson 5 70 91.00 20.38

Table 1

Summary of Pretest and Posttest 
Performance
Measure N M SD
Pretest 70 58.77 12.85
Posttest 70 70.21 11.95

Table 2



GEORGIA JOURNAL OF READING 22 VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1   2014

It should also be noted that much of the university 
coursework, such as the freshman and sophomore 
level English courses, preservice teachers completed 
are courses offered outside of the teacher education 
program. Therefore, university students from all other 
programs of study also enroll in these courses. It raises 
the question of concern with preservice teachers’ use of 
written conventions unique to students enrolled in the 
teacher education program, or is the concern university-
wide? With this in mind, the content of courses aimed at 
developing students’ use of written conventions might 
also need to be examined and adapted to better meet 
students’ needs. 

References
Aminy, M., & Karathanos, K. (2011). Benefiting the 

educator and student alike: Effective strategies for 
supporting the academic language development of 
English learner (EL) teacher candidates. Issues in 
Teacher Education, 20(2), 95-109.

Belk, J., & Thompson, R. (1999). Are preservice 
teachers literate in grammar and usage? ERIC Report

Berger, J. (2001). A systematic approach to grammar 
instruction. Voices from the Middle, 8(3), 43-49.

Borg, S. (2001). Self-perception and practice in teaching 
grammar. ELT Journal: English Language Teachers 
Journal, 55(1), 21.

Cowan, R. (2008). The teacher’s grammar of English. 
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Feng, S., & Powers, K. (2005). The short- And long-
term effect of explicit grammar instruction on fifth 
graders’ writing. Reading Improvement, 42(2), 67-72.

Hadjioannou, X., & Hutchinson, M. C. (2010). Putting the 
“G” back in English: Preparing pre-service teachers 
to teach grammar. English Teaching: Practice and 
Critique, 9(3), 90-105.

Hillocks, G. Jr., & Smith, M. W. (2003). Grammar and 
literacy learning. In J. Flood, J. M. Jensen, D. Lapp, 
& J. R. Squire (Eds.), Handbook on teaching the 
language arts (2nd ed., pp. 721- 737). New York: 
Macmillan.

Mather, N., Bos, C., & Babur, N. (2001). Perceptions 
and knowledge of preservice and inservice teachers 
about early literacy instruction. Journal of Learning 
Disabilities, 34(5), 472-482.

Meyer, J. (2003). Living with competing goals: State 
frameworks vs. understanding of linguistics. English 
Journal, 92(3), 38-42.

Moats, L. (1994). The missing foundation in teacher 
education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and 
written language. Annals of Dyslexia, 44(1), 81-104.

McGregor, K. (n.d.). Unit/lesson plans & the lesson cycle. 
Retrieved from www.tarleton.edu/~mcgregor/A%20
ED%20590%20F2F/Module%204/lesson%20cycle.
ppt

Myhill, D., Jones, S., & Watson, A. (2013). Grammar 
matters: How teachers’ grammatical knowledge 
impacts on the teaching of writing. Teaching & Teacher 
Education, 36, 77-91. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2013.07.005

Patterson, N. G. (2001). Just the facts: Research and 
theory about grammar instruction. Voices From The 
Middle, 8(3), 50-55.

Petrosky, A. R. (1977). Research Roundup: Grammar 
Instruction: What We Know. The English Journal, 
66(9), 86-88. doi: 10.2307/815294

Weaver, C., McNally, C., & Moerman, S. (2001). To 
grammar or not to grammar: That is not the question! 
Voices from the Middle, 8, 17-33.

FOCUS NEWSLETTER News from members of the GRA 
Focus is a format that shares information from and about members and councils across 
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exciting happenings about a local council member. What a wonderful way to support the 
active people in our organization. This is a spot to publish interesting stories or poetry that a 
talented member or student has written. Deadlines for Focus are September 30, December 
15, March 15 and June 15.
 

Send articles, thoughts, poems, etc. to: 
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