Abstract

The present paper aims to discuss the findings of research on the literacy skills of Greek elementary school sixth grade pupils, so as to compare their performance in narrative, descriptive, and argumentative genres at three points in time: before the introduction of the current language teaching material and relevant practices in Greece in 2006–07, one year after the implementation, and six years after the implementation. The study also explored whether the pupils’ skills were influenced by social background and teachers’ practices in terms of written discourse production. The participants came from ten public elementary schools, located in areas of different social backgrounds. The research findings already indicate a marked improvement in the pupils’ literacy skills after the first year of the new practice and further increased after six years. This improvement is differentiated for each genre. The findings also suggest that the pupils’ skills relate to both their social background and the teachers’ practices, with higher performance attributed to high-social background and more time allocated to the production and self-reviewing of written discourse in the classroom.