Action Research

1. Title -What happens to a third grader's writing when they participate in a letter writing program? Research Question/Definition of Problem.

2. Problem - Third grade writers struggle with language development, such as letter formation, spacing of words, use of punctuation, and capitalization. The problem found in this teacher's third grade class is students struggle with all components of letter writing, dialouge, organization, sentence structure, flow, text-connections, vocabulary, mechanics, support from the reading, and making references about themselves.

3. Instructional Intervention - Implications of the writing process was a link to classroom pen pals. Pen pal activities to reinforce vocabulary and mechanics.

4. Strategy - Reforcing Effort

5. Evidence - Reinforce effort. Students who are recognized for effort will make the connection between effort and improvement. Students should be helped to internalize the value of effort to make a strong connection between effort and the desired outcome. Making connections.

7. Analysis of data - All randomly selected students demonstrated growth in the letter writing process.

8. Results - Their occurrence of errors decreased and their level of writing increased. However, the majority of them continued to struggle with vocabulary and mechanics.