The Science of Writing Meets the Science of Learning: A Case for SRSD

You’re not alone if you’re a teacher caught in the crossfire between phonics mandates and comprehension goals. The current landscape of literacy instruction is being shaped by two powerful movements: the Science of Reading and the Science of Learning, both of which rely heavily on research. While each contributes essential insights, they often focus on what we teach before students can read or write fluently. But what comes after? What helps students apply their foundational skills in real-world reading and writing tasks? Enter the Science of Writing, specifically, Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD).

This blog explores how SRSD, an evidence-based writing framework, seamlessly aligns with the cognitive principles underpinning the Science of Learning and helps solve one of literacy education’s most pressing problems: transfer, by drawing on extensive research in the field. We’ll also draw on a compelling essay by Harriett Janetos, “The Science of Reading Meets the Science of Learning: Fast-Tracking Phonics,” which underscores the risks of over-teaching foundational skills at the expense of meaningful literacy experiences.

The Problem: Over-teaching the Foundations, Underpreparing for Application

Harriett Janetos, a seasoned reading specialist, argues that we often spend too much time on foundational skills, especially phonics, and not enough on applying those skills and the knowledge gained in authentic contexts. In her words, “We over-teach foundational skills at our peril. It eats up precious classroom time that could have been focused on other goals, including time reading text representing a range of topics and genres, or providing explicit writing instruction.”

Her piece draws on cognitive scientists like Mark Seidenberg, who advises that phonics instruction should be short, focused, and sufficient to give students “escape velocity.” In other words, they just need enough decoding skills to be able to read real texts. Beyond that, foundational overkill can harm students by delaying exposure to reading, writing, and thinking that build comprehension, vocabulary, and long-term literacy.

So what’s missing? A way to move children from knowing how to read to knowing how to think through text. And that’s where the Science of Writing enters the equation.

The Science of Writing: What It Offers

The Science of Writing focuses on the strategies, scaffolds, and self-regulation tools students need to produce and comprehend written text. It’s not a separate silo. It’s the logical next step after phonics. Writing helps reinforce decoding, builds vocabulary, deepens understanding of syntax, enriches knowledge, and encourages students to make meaning.

Unfortunately, writing instruction often gets sidelined despite the importance of integrating effective communication strategies to enhance student learning. In many elementary classrooms, teachers may spend hours teaching students to decode, but precious little time is allocated to learning how to compose. When writing is taught, it’s often in the form of prompts and products, not process.

Yet writing is a cognitively demanding task that often requires explicit instruction to master effectively. It draws on students’ knowledge to enhance their skills. It also draws on executive functioning, attention, planning, and goal-setting. The act of writing makes students more aware of the structures and purposes of text, which can, in turn, improve reading comprehension. It’s a reciprocal relationship—and it needs structure.

Where SRSD Fits In: A Bridge Between Reading and Thinking

Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), developed by Dr. Karen Harris and Dr. Steve Graham, is an evidence-based instructional approach rooted in both the Science of Writing and Learning. It’s been tested in dozens of randomized controlled trials and is particularly effective for many learners, including students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and those performing below grade level.

SRSD is built on six recursive stages, each providing clear instructions to guide students through the writing process:

1. Develop Background Knowledge
2. Discuss It
3. Model It
4. Memorize It
5. Support It
6. Independent Performance

Each stage is designed to help students internalize genre knowledge (e.g., opinion, narrative, informative writing) and self-regulation strategies (e.g., goal setting, self-talk, and reflection).

This structure aligns with Carl Hendrick’s principles from How Learning Happens, particularly around transfer. Hendrick warns that activities that create the illusion of learning (like rote practice) can fail to prepare students for unfamiliar tasks. In contrast, SRSD builds toward transfer by teaching students what to do in their writing and how to monitor and adapt what they do.

Connecting the Dots: SRSD and the Science of Learning

Let’s take a few of Hendrick’s seven core principles of learning and show how SRSD embodies each one, particularly focusing on the role of writing in this approach:

1. Achievement Leads to Motivation

SRSD helps students experience success early and often. Mnemonics like TREE (Topic, Reason, Explanation, Ending) and TIDE (Topic, Important ideas, Details, Ending) simplify genre structures so students don’t feel lost, enhancing their understanding and expression in different writing genres. Seeing their writing improve through the creative process and creativity motivates them to keep going.

2. Learning Requires Effort and Retrieval

SRSD emphasizes repeated practice, active recall, and constant reading and writing to ensure students engage deeply with the material. Students don’t just hear about strategies; they memorize them, practice them with feedback, and apply them in varied contexts.

3. Novices vs. Experts Learn Differently

SRSD provides scaffolds (graphic organizers, sentence starters, modeled think-alouds) to support novices through explicit writing instruction. As students gain expertise, support fades, allowing for continuous assessment of their growing abilities.

4. Metacognition and Self-Regulation Matter

This is SRSD’s sweet spot. Students are taught to monitor their progress, use self-talk to stay focused, and reflect on their goals. These habits improve not only writing but learning across subjects.

5. Transfer Requires Varied Practice

SRSD explicitly teaches students to generalize strategies to other types of writing, enhancing their composition skills. It’s not locked into a single genre or prompt, allowing flexibility in applying various writing techniques.

In short, SRSD is not just a writing framework; it’s an evidence-based delivery system for the Science of Learning, supported by extensive research.

Why This Matters Right Now

We’re in a moment where schools are under pressure to “fix” reading, and rightly so. But in the rush to double down on phonics, we risk overlooking writing as the missing link.

Janetos’s blog offers a cautionary tale: if we spend all our time on foundational drills, we delay students’ ability to engage with meaningful writing and texts. She calls for a balanced approach that values decodable texts and knowledge-building. Her goal? Escape velocity.

SRSD helps students achieve this by reading more and writing with purpose, structure, and reflection. When students learn to craft an argument, tell a story, or explain a process, they gain knowledge and do more than hit standards. They’re becoming literate thinkers.

What This Looks Like in the Classroom

Imagine a third-grade classroom filled with children. The teacher has already taught basic decoding and spelling patterns, providing instruction that lays the foundation for more complex writing tasks. Now she shifts into opinion writing, integrating it seamlessly into the curriculum. Instead of jumping into a prompt cold, she introduces TREE: Topic sentence, Reasons, Explanations, Ending.

Students memorize TREE using hand gestures and chant it together. They read model essays and identify each part, building their knowledge of effective writing structures. Then, the teacher models writing an opinion essay out loud, pausing to say what she’s thinking: “I’m not sure this reason is strong enough. Let me go back and think of a better one.”

Students then plan their own essays using a graphic organizer. They talk with peers, write drafts, and set small goals (“Today I want to add stronger explanations”). Over time, they internalize not just how to write, but how to think while writing.

This isn’t just writing instruction. It’s a cognitive apprenticeship. And it reflects the very best of what we know from research.

What About Older Students?

Though this blog highlights elementary classrooms, SRSD is not just for younger learners. Its benefits are even more pronounced for middle and high school students who may have learned to decode but never mastered the art of writing.

In secondary classrooms, teachers can use SRSD and incorporate research to enhance writing instruction and:

• Teach content-area writing in science and social studies
• Improve performance on writing essays and constructed responses
• Support multilingual learners with explicit language structures in writing.
• Help students with IEPs organize their thinking and writing

The structure stays the same; the content and expectations adjust.

Conclusion: Toward a More Balanced, Transfer-Oriented Literacy Model

The Science of Reading has given us essential tools to build foundational skills. The Science of Learning reminds us that authentic learning requires retrieval, feedback, metacognition, and transfer. As delivered through SRSD, the Science of Writing ties it all together.

Harriett Janetos put it best: We don’t have a minute to spare teaching things that derail students from real reading and writing. SRSD is an instructional approach that honors both the science and the art of teaching. It equips students not just with skills but also with the confidence and cognitive flexibility to use those skills across disciplines.

If we want students to reach escape velocity, we must teach them to think, not just decode. When taught strategically through SRSD, writing can be the rocket that gets them there.

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