A program evaluation that explores the effectiveness of The Six Traits of Writing on the lower school students at Merritt Island Christian School

The purpose of this program evaluation was to examine the effectiveness of The Six Traits of Writing program as a means of improving writing of the K--6 students at a small private, Christian school. To this end, the study measured the students' level of proficiency at the beginning and end of the 2009--2010 school year.;The data for the study compared samples of student writing from the first quarter with samples from the fourth quarter. Surveys based on a five-point Likert Scale were given to parents, students, and teachers and responses from teachers to an open-ended questionnaire. In each of the two quarters 236 samples of student writing were evaluated. In all, 119 parents, 137 students, and 13 teachers returned completed surveys.;According to the analysis of the data the first, second, third, and sixth grades all exceeded the goal that the private school had set, namely that 80% of students' scores would fall into the 4(effective)--5(strong) range for skill development on The Six Traits scoring guide. The writing skills of the K-6 students as a whole improved by slightly over 70% from the first quarter to the fourth quarter. The majority of the parents surveyed agreed that their children's writing had shown marked improvement. The majority of the students in the sample agreed they, too, had noticed a marked improvement in their own writing. Finally, more than 50% of the teachers surveyed agreed they had received adequate training in the implementation of The Six Traits of Writing.;From these results it was concluded that the teachers of this private school must continue to receive training in the implementation of The Six Traits of Writing program as well as ongoing professional development to further refine their skills. The elementary school is now focusing its efforts on the three grades, kindergarten, fourth and fifth grade, that did not meet the target that the faculty established. Nevertheless, the elementary school will continue to teach parents of all of the K--6 students how to interpret both The Six Traits of Writing rubric and their children's rubric scores. In addition, all parents of students in the elementary school will continue to receive samples of their children's writing at the end of each quarter.