Elementary Methods in Teaching Writing in Special Education

1. Elementary Methods in Teaching Writing in Special Education

2. Some statistics… • 28% of 4th grade students scored at or above proficiency • 31% of 8th grade students scored at or above proficiency • 24% of 12th grade students scored at or above proficiency Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2002

3. Challenges to writing for children with disabilities • Composing text is complex • Disability factors infer with the writing process • Quality of writing instruction

4. Relationship between decoding and encoding(Mather & Goldstein, 2005) Learning to decode: Visual Auditory Learning to encode: Auditory Motor Visual

5. Some Areas of Difficulty for Students with Writing Problems • Knowledge difficulties • Skill difficulties • Motivation difficulties

6. Some Areas of Difficulty for Students with Writing Problems • Knowledge difficulties • Less awareness of what constitutes good writing & how to produce it • Poor strategy knowledge • Limited vocabulary • Underdeveloped knowledge of word & sentence structure • Impoverished, fragments, & poorly organized topic knowledge

7. Some Areas of Difficulty for Students with Writing Problems • Skill difficulties: • Little or no planning before or during writing • Poor text transcription (spelling, handwriting, punctuation) • Do not analyze or reflect on writing • Poor attention and concentration • Visual motor integrations weaknesses and/or fine motor difficulties

8. Some Areas of Difficulty for Students with Writing Problems • Motivation difficulties: • Negative self efficacy (competency) beliefs • Lack persistence • Poor motivation due to repeated failure

9. The Core Components of Effective Writing Instruction (www.k8accesscenter.org)

10. Six Additional Attributes of a Top-Notch Classroom Writing Program • Procedural supports (conferences, planning forms & charts, checklists for revision/editing, computer tools for removing transcription barriers ) • A sense of community in which risks are supported, children and teachers are viewed as writers, personal ownership is expected, and collaboration is a cornerstone of the program • Integration of writing instruction with reading instruction and content area instruction (themes across the curriculum, maintaining learning notebooks in math and science classes) • A cadre of trained volunteers who respond to, encourage, coach, and celebrate children’s writing, and who help classroom teachers give more feedback and potentially individualize their instruction • Resident writers and guest authors who share their expertise, struggles, and successes so that children and teachers have positive role models and develop a broader sense of writing as craft • Opportunities for teachers to upgrade and expand their own conceptions of writing, the writing process, and how children learn to write, primarily through professional development activities but also through being an active member of a writing community (e.g., National Writing Project)

11. What do teachers do to support struggling writers? • 20% of primary grade teachers make no adaptations for struggling writers • 24% make only one or two adaptations Source: National teachers survey (2003)

12. Accommodations & Modifications for Writing (handout) • Accommodations in • the learning environment • Instructional materials • Teaching strategies • Modifications to • Task demands • Learning tasks

13. Prewriting Activities (Mather & Goldstein, 2008) • Producing scribbles • Drawing horizontal lines • Drawing circles • Drawing a cross, square, and rectangle • Drawing lines that slant to the left and right

14. Letter Formation Activities (Mather & Goldstein, 2008) • Multisenory instruction (p. 295-296) • Self-guided symbol formation strategy (p. 297-298) • Persistent reversals (p. 298)

15. Written Language Activities in Mather & Goldstein text: • Writing as a Process (p. 360-363) • POWER (p. 363) • Self-regulated strategy development (p. 364-365) • Cognitive strategy in writing program (p. 364-365) • Kerrigan’s method (p. 367-370)