Teaching writing is hard. To be able to write, you have to be able to accomplish multiple tasks at a time including motor skills, planning, modifying thoughts on the fly, and applying a lot of learned skills. This can be challenging for typically developing students but I find that most of my students with special needs are very resistive to writing, especially at any length.
My love for teaching writing has grown each year. When I was teaching Early Childhood Special Education, I made it my mission to catch kids early and help them see the joy of writing and creating their own little masterpiece with words. I started with my students as young as 3 years old to build that confidence mostly through guided writing of names and colors. Moving from tracing to copying to free writing. The progress was amazing and made my teacher heart so happy. Now that I teacher a wider range of students including upper elementary, it is much more of challenge to create that positive experience. I have 3 keys to writing success in my resource room.
The biggest hurdle to successful writing for students with special needs can be believing that they can write and write well. I start small and try to show my students they can be good writers. This involves constant positive reinforcement for making correct letters or writing longer sentences. This also includes a lot of writing practice. I use cut and paste activities a lot in my classroom to be able to check for student understanding, but I always make sure that they follow that up with an opportunity to write the answers as well. This can also be giving my students a chance to practice a task as well before they do the "real deal." This can build their confidence and ensure that they know what is expected of them.
A big piece to the writing instruction in my classroom is planning. This can include a quick review and writing about the sequence of a topic and brainstorming, reviewing words to add detail or that might just be needed to complete the topic, and making sure their thoughts are organized and make sense to others. This is all done a planning sheet that the students can reference while completing their main writing page. The planning time is also a great time for pep talks. Encouraging my students that their ideas are good and way to expand them and make their writing better is a huge part of this process. So many of my students with special needs think writing is a "right or wrong" process and I'm trying to change that mindset that your ideas aren't wrong but you may need to work on the structure of the writing.
Not all of my students are ready to take on long or detailed writing tasks. This may be because of cognitive levels or writing difficulties. This is when I get creative! Some of my students use adapted journals where they match the picture and then either match, trace, or copy words from a model. Another great strategy to increase writing confidence and proficiency in writing about a topic is having students build sentences and then write them in their journal. I have a target sentence idea in my mind, but make sure their are plenty of words that the student can use if their idea is different. Lastly, I give my students opportunities to eliminate the physical act of putting pencil to paper. Some of the ways I do this is through using a computer, stamps, stickers or a scribe. The stress of not having to make letters physically can really improve a students production in creating sentences and written pieces.
Writing truly is one of my favorite subjects to teach these days. This summer I hope to read "The Writing Strategies Book" by Jennifer Serravallo to further increase my knowledge and give me more ideas on how to better support the students in my resource room! Head over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking the link below to check out all of my writing resources.
Today I'm linking up with some other Special Education Bloggers. Make sure to check out everyones posts!
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About MeHi! My name is Kelsey & I am a Special Education Teacher in WI. I love what I do & love sharing new ideas & awesome materials. When I'm not teaching, I'm enjoying being a Mommy, cooking, & being outdoors. Archives
March 2018
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