ResearchBased Strategies for Supporting Writing in Children

1

• Research-Based Strategies for Supporting Writing
  in Children
• Donna Boudreau, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
• Jennifer Larsen, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
• ASHA 2009

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Todays Conversation

• Written language and children with LLD/LI
• SLPs and written language
• Myths and realities of written language
  instruction
• Research-based strategies
• Narrative writing
• Paragraph writing
• Text structure

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Writing Sample

• Birds has backbone. Birds live underground. Birds
  see ten times better than humans. Birds migrate
  humans dont. they are warm blooded like us. they
  have skin. some birds run. Birds hatch in six
  weeks or more. some birds swim.

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Why is writing hard for children?

• Requires integration of a number of skills
• Draws upon world knowledge to generate ideas
• Includes both a process and a product component
• Requires revisiting the product-editing
• Requires awareness of what constitutes good
  writing-metacognition
• Requires that child receive and benefit from
  direct instruction

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Writing and Children with LLD

• Write less
• Less cohesive
• Less syntactically complex
• Less semantically rich
• Poor mechanics (e.g. punctuation, capitalization)
• Difficulty generating ideas
• Difficulty considering audience
• Less time planning
• Less detail or elaboration
• Emphasize form over content
• Poor self-regulation

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Why should SLPs care?

• Writing is a language-based task
• Children with LD perform significantly lower on
  state writing assessments
• Writing allows children to display their
  knowledge
• Writing is an aspect of functional communication
• Writing intervention aligns with general
  education and state standards

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How does the SLP support classroom/resource room
writing instruction?

• By providing clinical intervention that is
• Individualized
• Systematic
• Includes scaffolding, modeling
• Promotes self-confidence and self-efficacy by
  providing a safe place to practice and master
  skills
• By offering support to teachers regarding
  effective classroom instruction

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Myths Realities(Graham Harris 1997)

• Good writing cannot be taught. It depends in
  talent.
• Research tells us that specific skills CAN be
  taught
• Knowledge of writing and writing topics
• Text production
• Directing thoughts and actions
• Metacognitive strategies
• Instructional recommendations
• 45-60 minutes/day writing
• Self choice for topics
• Authentic writing tasks
• Peer to peer support/work groups
• Allow children to respond personally to
  assignments

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Myths Realities

• Writing develops naturally. If children read good
  writing, they will become good writers.
• Many children need explicit instruction
• Instructional recommendations
• When reading, comment specifically on good
  writing
• Direct, explicit instruction
• Attend to spelling and handwriting
• Support self-regulation for writing

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When do we work on what?

• Early elementary grades
• Narrative writing
• Story structure
• Planning and self monitoring
• Beginning stages of self regulating
• Later elementary/middle school
• Expository Texts
• Paragraph writing
• Different text structures
• Strategy instruction
• Self regulation

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What do we mean by strategy?(Ellis Lenz,1987)

• Cues to implement metacognitive strategies and
  take overt action
• Series of steps leading to specific outcome
• Task-specific skills, not situation-specific
  skills
• Facilitate generalization to different situations
• Brief and simple steps
• Remembering system

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Key components of strategy instruction for
writing-what is a good strategy?

• Teacher description
• Modeling of target strategies with think alouds
• Scaffold individually and move towards
  independence with strategies
• Explanations about how strategies work and
  impact on performance-why do we use them
• Clarification of when, where and how strategies
  could work
• Homework to extend strategy use to different
  settings and tasks
• Feedback on effects of strategy use

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Narrative Writing

• Younger children with LLD experience difficulty
  with
• Including all story parts
• Older children with LD have basic story
  structure, but struggle with
• Difficulty with organization
• Fewer episodes and story elements
• Appear less fluent than peers
• TD students more internal response and plans
• Difficulty with developing text structure

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Strategies for Narrative Writing

• Focus on specific components of story grammar
• Character development (Montague Leavell, 1994)
• Discussed motivation of characters and what
  specific attributes help reader get to know
  characters (physical appearance, speech
  characteristics and actions, how character
  thinks, acts, feels, how characters interact with
  each other) (Montague Leavell, 1994)

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• A writer makes characters come alive by including
  emotions such as
•  
• Happiness Hate Agony Panic Jolly
• Satisfied Nervous Sadness Anger Worry
• Amazement Tension Bored Love Fear
• Excitement Surprise Baffled Glad
  Anxious
• Depression Joy Jealousy Frustration Lonely
•  
• Thoughts and ideas such as
• She wanted.. She realized She thought..
• He wished.. He noticed. Her reasoned..
• She hoped.. She felt. She knew..
• He needs.. He wondered He believed.
• She understood.. She remembered. She
  pondered..

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Narrative Strategies (continued)

• Use of drama and drawing to generate story plan
  (Moore Caldwell, 1993)
• Story boards to represent characters, setting,
  main ideas
• Practice activities drawing characters, imaginary
  places, interior spaces, personal experiences,
  action scenes
• Use of discussion, role play, and paired
  improvisation of main scenes

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Story mapping and planning

• Teaching story grammar components
• Identifying missing story parts
• Identifying structure of own stories
• Teaching visual cues to represent different story
  parts
• Story mapping
• Representing events from story visually
• Using maps to plan stories

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Story planning forms
My Web for Story Writing by ______________Date____
___

• Zipprich, 1995

• Problem
• _________________
• _________________
• __________________
• Goal
• __________________
• __________________
• __________________

• The setting
• Characters
• ________________
• _________________
• _________________
• Time Past
• Present
• Future
• Place
• __________________
• __________________

• Title
• _____________

• Outcome
• __________________________
• __________________________
• __________________________
• ___________________________
• ___________________________

4.Action _____________________________ __________
___________________ _____________________________
_____________________________
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• Story Map
• (Vallecorsa deBettencourt, 1997)

Setting___________________________________________
_ Characters______________________________________
____ Time_______________________ Place____________
_____
The Problem_______________________________________
___________ ______________________________________
_______________________ __________________________
___________________________________
The goal__________________________________________
___________ ______________________________________
______________________ ___________________________
_________________________________
Reactions_________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
___________
Starter Event_____________________ _______________
_________________________________________________
Actions/Episodes_________________________________
_________________________________________________
Outcome/Ending____________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________
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Self-regulated strategy development

• WWW What-2, How-2
• Who are the main characters?
• When does the story take place?
• Where does the story take place?
• What do the main characters want to do?
• What happens when the main characters try to do
  it?
• How does the story end?
• How do the main characters feel?

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Components of strategy instruction for narrative
writing

• Description - Introduce idea of story parts
• Discuss how knowledge can be used for story
  comprehension and production
• Modeling Read story and identify story parts
• Guided practice - read story(s) and help children
  identify parts
• Independent practice - Read story(s) and ask
  children to identify parts

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Paragraph Writing Strategies

• Expository
• Templates or list of ideas, purpose for writing,
  audience
• Structure of paragraphs
• Topic sentence
• Supporting sentences
• Concluding sentence
• Evaluation and editing

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PLEASE

• Pick a topic
• List your ideas
• Evaluate your list-are they all related to topic?
• Activate the paragraph (topic sentence)
• Supply supporting sentences
• End with concluding sentence
• and Evaluate your work

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P-L-E steps

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A-S-E steps
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• Independent

• Using PLEASE

• I like McDonalds. It has good food. I like there
  milk shakes and their cokes they have.

• Come to McDonalds. It has great food. Second you
  dont need to pay much and you can play on the
  playground. Finally it has great service. These
  are great reasons to go to McDonalds.

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Example of Teaching PLEASE
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Paragraph Editing (E Step)

• C Are first words and proper nouns Capitalized?
• O How is the Overall appearance?
• P Have I used ending Punctuation (etc.)
  correctly?
• S Are the words Spelled correctly?

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Persuasive Writing

• STOP (De La Paz, 1997)
• S Suspend judgment- consider each side with
  think sheet
• T Take a side which side has more arguments?
• O Organize ideas using cue cards
• Put a start next to ideas on both side you
  want to use
• Number your ideas in order you will use them
• P- Plan as you write using cue card DARE
• D Develop your topic sentence
• A Add supporting ideas
• R Reject at least one argument
• E End with a conclusion

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Are spelling and handwriting part of written
language?

• lower level skills may significantly impact
  written language
• Resource allocation
• Appropriate to address spelling/consider its
  impact
• Look to team for handwriting support or
  alternative strategies-keyboarding, dictation,
  other technologies

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Additional suggestions for successful writing
instruction

• Can be used in classroom, resource room or in our
  own intervention
• Daily writing, for range of audience and purpose
• Work to make writing motivating
• Regular conferences with student, including goal
  setting
• Predictable routine with think, reflect, revise
• Teacher modeling of writing process
• Peer cooperation around all aspects of writing
  process
• Group or individual sharing for feedback
• Instruction in a broad range of skill
• Work for mastery
• Integrate writing instruction across the
  curriculum

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Conclusions

• Explicit writing instruction is critical for
  children with LLD
• Intervention is best facilitated by
• Explicit, systematic instruction
• Teaching specific text structures
• Focus on strategy instruction
• Movement from supported to independent practice

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• THANK YOU!!
• Contact information
• Donna Boudreau- Donna.Boudreau_at_unco.edu
• Jenny Larsen- Jennyl_at_artzcenter.org

39
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