Ready to write?: Investigating the writing experiences of pre-service teachers and their readiness to teach writing

For over a decade, there has been growing concern about declining 'standards' of school students' writing (Gardner, 2018; Wyatt-Smith and Jackson, 2020). Teachers' own writing experiences and writer identities are important considerations in developing teacher preparedness and skill in the teaching of writing. It cannot be assumed that pre-service teachers entering university have the pre-requisite skills and experience to effectively teach writing. This study investigated the pre-entry writing practices of first year Primary and Early Childhood Education (ECE) BEd students at one Australian university. Findings show they most frequently wrote informal, digital texts. It is suggested a lack of experience of writing extended texts, required in the primary English curriculum, may contribute to the decline in school students' achievement in writing, when assessed against national standard benchmarks (Gardner, 2018; Wyatt-Smith and Jackson, 2020). International studies suggest the teaching of writing has not been addressed well in initial teacher education (ITE) courses (Brindle et al., 2016; Rietdijk, Janssen, Van Weijen, Van Den Bergh and Rijlaarsdam, 2017; Wyatt-Smith and Jackson, 2020). This study supports Wyatt-Smith and Jackson's (2020) view that greater attention should be given to the teaching of writing in teacher education courses in order to produce the next generation of 'teacher-writers' capable of improving the quality of writing in primary schools.