Slideshow by Anna Chaffin

Make Writing Meaningful

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:16:31 UTC

Asking students what is important and reinforcing will help them to answer in an easier way, like asking them whom or what they would like to write about. It gives them a sense of creativity and freedom for writing. We should encourage them to request what they desire to give them control over their environment. Another very important aspect to making their writing meaningful is to give them reinforcement immediately. Any kind of praise for their attempts will keep them motivated and eventually improve their writing skills.

Encourage Imitation

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:16:52 UTC

Teaching students how to copy words from logos, labels, and books can help them increase their engagement in academic activities. Their print awareness will also improve as well with the help of imitation. For students who have trouble writing or verbally communicating, there are many types of assistive technology to help them communicate, such as an assistive keyboard or a LAMP device.

Teach Spelling Skills

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:17:06 UTC

Four major strategies to help teach spelling skills are the Backward Chaining strategy, which presents the spoken word and is modeled for the student to trace, Computer-assisted Instruction, which shows the students word/picture combinations and asks them to select letters from the word shown on the screen, CCC Technique, which stands for Cover, Copy, and Compare, in which the student will look at the word in one column, write it themselves in the next column, then fold the word up and try to write it by memory in the next column. The last effective strategy for teaching spelling skills is Video Models. You can use this strategy to create or find a video with verbal instruction and modeling to allow your students to watch and imitate, and also gives you the chance to pause the video to give them more time if needed.

Encourage Sentence Construction

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:17:41 UTC

Sentences can be hard to write for some students. Giving them a template or a sentence starter can help them get used to how a sentence should be structured and formed. Over time, students may get better at writing complete sentences and you can go from giving them sentence starters to a sentence with blanks and have them finish the sentence until they can eventually write their own sentence independently.

Teach Narrative Writing

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:17:59 UTC

When students have began to write well formed paragraphs, it is important to introduce them to narrative writing. Ways to help with this is to show a graphic organizer for ideas, asking them to think of a character in their mind, or even showing them pictures of things to help them brainstorm story ideas of what to incorporate into their writing.

Provide Editing and Revision Instruction

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-28 20:18:28 UTC

Editing and Revision is a fancy way of saying to check your work. Teaching students to go back and look at their writing can help them find mistakes or even something they may want to change after they have finished. To show them how to start editing, ask them to first make sure they have correct punctuation in each paragraph. Then you can show them how to make a graph or just write down a list of things they should have and let them mark them off paragraph by paragraph or sentence by sentence to help them get used to what they should be looking for when revising and editing their work.

Assess Students' Current Repertoire

annachaffin7 — 2024-06-30 18:57:16 UTC

It is important to assess students' work and identify skills they already have. Most of the time these are formal assessments and standardized testing. When the skills are identified and some weaknesses are revealed, then it is time to create an education plan for them and teach them speaker and listener skills for writing. These skills will help them in their writing, conversation, and social interactions.