The Skills framework for 3 to 19-year-olds in Wales (Welsh Assembly Government, 2008) makes it clear that teachers need to respond to learners where they currently are in their learning, not where they think they ought to be according, for example, to their age. Effective assessment procedures (formative, diagnostic and summative) will provide teachers with the necessary evidence for them to tailor the specific teaching of writing skills to meet individual needs within the class. This teaching should take place, however, as a support for the writing of whole texts rather than as discrete lessons out of any context. Learners need to be encouraged to see writing as a process.
