Teachers' beliefs are directly connected to their practices and have an impact on students' educational experiences and results. The aim of this study was to describe and examine the relationship between beliefs and practices linked to teaching students to write in the first four years of primary school. A total of 255 Portuguese primary school teachers participated in the study. A 52-item questionnaire was used to evaluate their beliefs, preferred activities and classroom organisation procedures in relation to writing instruction. Beliefs and classroom organisation procedures were subjected to factor analysis, whereas activities were considered individually. The analysis of teachers' beliefs revealed two different factors: (1) code-based beliefs and (2) meaning-based beliefs. The analysis of teachers' classroom organisation revealed three different factors: (1) pairs or small groups; (2) individual; and (3) whole classroom. Most of the participating teachers emphasised both explicit teaching and informal learning methods. There were significant associations between beliefs and activities and beliefs and classroom organisation procedures supported by code vs. meaning beliefs. However, the different associations revealed in the study showed that teachers combine multidimensional aspects in their writing instruction theory and practice.Keywords: beliefs; practices; teaching; written language; primary school Introduction According to several authors (Clark and Peterson 1986;Pajares 1992;Poulson et al. 2001;Van Driel and Verloop 2002;Pederson and Liu 2003;Woolley, Benjamin, and Woolley 2004;Shin and Koh 2007), teachers' beliefs influence teaching practices and have an impact on students' educational experiences and results. However, the relation between beliefs and practices is referred by Fang (1996) and Vaughn, Moody, and Shumm (1998) as a relation governed by consistency and inconsistency patterns as there often exists contextual constraints as school/national policies or external evaluations that inhibit teachers' actions (Valencia and Wixson 2000;Lam and Kember 2006).One set of beliefs that appear to have important implications for the teaching of written language is the assumptions and beliefs that teachers make and hold about teaching and learning (Bruner 1996;Gipps, Mccallum, and Brown 1999). More specifically, Fitzgerald (1999) and Cunningham and Fitzgerald (1996) argue that teachers' decisions are shaped by their beliefs about literacy and literacy instruction.