Writing is an important issue in the UK today. While children’s and young people’s writing standards steadily improved until 2006, levels have not increased in recent years. Writing is much more than just an educational issue – it is an essential skill that allows people to participate fully in today’s society and to contribute to the economy.
Previous research into the teaching of writing and effective writing strategies has mainly focused on the formal types of writing taught in schools. However, today’s society writing takes many forms, including texting, instant messaging, blogging and emailing. The research evidence about these new forms of writing in the UK is fragmented and inconclusive. In particular, there is a lack of research looking at how much young people write, the different forms of writing that they engage in and their confidence in using these different forms of writing.
Since relatively little is known about young people’s views about writing in the UK, the key objectives of this survey were: to explore how much young people enjoy writing, what type of writing they engage in, how good at writing they think they are and what they think about writing.