This thesis comprises a three-part longitudinal study of a one-to-one literacy intervention programme for children having difficulty reading and writing after one year at school. The programme, named Reading Recovery and founded by Marie Clay, consists of daily half-hour lessons taught by a teacher trained to diagnose and support children's problem-solving approaches to reading and writing. Children's writing development in Reading Recovery is the main focus of this thesis. The first two sections of the thesis review writing development, the Reading Recovery programme, and scaffolding. The third section presents a year long comparison of Reading Recovery children's writing with the writing from a comparison group of children who scored equally low on a battery of tests but who did not receive tutoring. Writing samples from classroom activities were collected from children in both groups, divided into four phases through the year and were scored on a scale by two raters. Statistical analyses showed improved performance by children in Reading Recovery on five dimensions of writing criteria with six levels of attainment. This development emerged in the latter part of the year and indicates that Reading Recovery children successfully transfer their increasing ability and independence to other writing events where the Reading Recovery teacher is not present to provide intensive support. This section also includes the second empirical study, an investigation into children's views on literacy. An interview on writing and reading was conducted with children in both groups at the end of the longitudinal studies. Findings indicated a greater metalinguistic awareness and level of sophistication of word awareness and analysis in the Reading Recovery children's approach to print. The fourth section of the thesis explores the interactive structure of Reading Recovery lessons. Clay claims the programme is consistent with the principles ofVygotsky's theory on the acquisition of cultural tools. More specifically Clay and Cazden (1990) have shown how the features of Reading Recovery lessons exemplify the scaffolding of learning based on assessment of each child's current reading strategies and techniques for moving the child towards independence in writing and reading. In this year-long observation, Reading Recovery lessons were studied using a sample of 17 children taught by seven trained teachers. The writing episodes of the lessons were qualitatively analysed. Teacher utterances were categorised and text-generation topics and styles, talk-cycles and rehearsal routines were identified. These are discussed in the light of the scaffolding literature. Although the writing episodes conformed to many aspects of scaffolding, some reconceptualisation is necessary to take account of the dynamic nature of literacy learning in contrast with scaffolding within brief, experimental tasks. In the light of the findings from the three studies and drawing them together, teaching and learning strategies are discussed, the importance of the process of learning to write is emphasised and recommendations for further research are made.