E-mail practice improves students' writing and reading skills

New Jersey state standardized test results for a 4th grade class in a Newark public school show strong evidence of significant improvement in reading and writing skills through the use of electronic peer-to-peer correspondence with Italy.

The Roseville Avenue Elementary School class uses a secure, multilingual inter-school messaging solution and a global class exchange network - ePALS Classroom Exchange. Students write an e-mail letter twice a week, and exchange with a similar ePALS class in Bologna, Italy.

At the end of last year, these students scored 72.4% on the New Jersey State Language Arts Literacy test, 30 percent higher than the previous year's class, taught by the same teacher with the same objectives and curriculum.

Tim DiScipio, co-founder of ePALS Classroom Exchange states:

"We're seeing growing evidence in schools worldwide that email exchange between students and teachers and their peers in other schools offers a communication and project-sharing tool that strongly motivates students to write and improves their writing and reading skills."

Illustration: tanushka9954 - DepositPhotos

Further reference:

Efficient Ways to Improve Student Writing - University of Wisconsin - Strategies, Ideas, and Recommendations from the faculty Development Literature
https://www.uww.edu/learn/restiptool/improve-student-writing