Teaching Written Expression to Students With Learning Disabilities
This paper examines instructional approaches for developing written expression skills in students with learning disabilities. Drawing on several research articles, it discusses the importance of writing across academic and professional contexts, the limitations of traditional error-marking methods, and the value of process-oriented instruction. The paper reviews specific strategies including reflective portfolios, rubric-based evaluation, classroom newspapers, concept mapping, and clustering techniques. It also addresses common pitfalls such as lowered expectations and reduced writing opportunities for students with learning disabilities, emphasizing interactive teacher-student relationships and student self-monitoring as keys to meaningful progress.
- The Importance of Written Expression for Students With Learning Disabilities: Why writing skills matter across life contexts
- Using Portfolios to Guide Instruction and Track Progress: Portfolios as baseline and instructional guide
- Research-Based Approaches to Teaching Writing: Caution against unvalidated instructional methods
- Process-Oriented Instruction and Student-Teacher Interaction: Interactive teaching versus traditional error-marking
- Practical Classroom Strategies for Supporting Writers: Concept maps, clustering, newspapers, and visualization
- Evaluating Progress Through Rubrics and Authentic Assessment: Rubrics and portfolios as authentic evaluation tools
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What makes this paper effective
- Integrates multiple sources coherently, moving from broad rationale to specific classroom strategies without losing a unifying thread.
- Grounds every instructional recommendation in a cited source, giving the review credibility and allowing readers to trace claims back to the original literature.
- Balances theoretical concerns (best practices, research validity) with concrete, classroom-ready techniques (hamburger model, word boxes, classroom newspaper).
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis across sources: rather than summarizing each article in isolation, it groups findings thematically — portfolio use, process versus product, student motivation, visualization strategies — so that the sources speak to one another and build a cumulative argument about best practice.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing why written expression matters for students with learning disabilities, then moves through assessment (portfolios, rubrics), instructional philosophy (process over product, interactive relationships), specific classroom applications (classroom newspaper, concept maps, clustering), and closes with a brief synthesis. Each section is anchored to one or more sources, and the progression from rationale to strategy gives the paper a logical, readable arc.
The Importance of Written Expression for Students With Learning Disabilities
Written expression is one of the three academic areas under which a student can be classified as learning disabled under special education law. While reading, and to a lesser extent math, generally receive more attention, the development of written expression skills is crucial to all students' eventual success. Students will have to write essays and research papers in high school, write essays on college applications, and produce more advanced papers in college. Even for those who do not pursue higher education, there is a distinct advantage in being able to communicate well through writing, as many businesses make increasing use of e-mail for communication among employees (Hansen, 1998).
In addition, writing can be a tool for accessing one's emotions and exploring one's feelings and attitudes through activities such as keeping a personal journal (Karge, 1988). Despite the importance of acquiring writing skills, difficulties with writing continue into adulthood in persons with learning disabilities (Karge, 1988).
Using Portfolios to Guide Instruction and Track Progress
Karge (1988) recommends the use of student portfolios to establish a baseline of abilities against which later progress can be compared. She suggests that the portfolio include not only the students' work, but also teacher comments about the instructional techniques used. The portfolio should include the kinds of prompts used by the student — whether a picture or illustration, an idea map, or a web made from brainstorming. In this way, student portfolios can guide both student and teacher: the student will see his or her progress, and the teacher can compare that progress to the instructional strategies used to determine what worked most effectively for that student. The process of choosing instructional approaches can thus be systematically analyzed.
Another pattern the teacher should look for is avoidance behavior. If a student consistently avoids certain kinds of writing tasks, this information has clear instructional implications (Karge, 1988).
Karge (1988) also recognizes that finding ways to streamline the portfolio process can be helpful. Her article includes a simple chart for noting the types of writing errors a student makes — a far preferable approach to marking up a student's hard work with a red pencil. This chart can also be used to track progress over time, alongside rubrics that evaluate language complexity, sentence structure, organization of ideas, and other important elements of writing.
Research-Based Approaches to Teaching Writing
Newcomer et al. (1988) point out one of the key pitfalls in choosing instructional methods for students with learning disabilities. Curriculum ideas and teaching approaches are often presented to teachers quite persuasively but without accompanying research to demonstrate that the approach actually results in student learning. This is a serious concern as education increasingly looks to "best practices" to guide what and how teachers teach. These authors also make the important point that examining how highly skilled writers write may not translate into a sound approach for those just learning, and that what constitutes best practice for a typical learner may not be effective when the student has a learning disability affecting written expression.
Newcomer et al. (1988) examine the teaching of writing from the standpoint of two roles: teacher and learner. They suggest that the teacher's role is to provide instruction in planning and revising, as well as in the development of self-monitoring skills. They report that an interactive relationship between student and teacher will be more effective than the older method of marking errors on a student's work with the hope that the student will learn from having those errors pointed out.
References
Alber, Sheila R. 1999. "I don't like to write, but I love to get published: Using a classroom newspaper to motivate reluctant writers." Reading & Writing Quarterly 15:4, 6p.
Hansen, C. Bobbi. 1998. "Using reflective portfolios as a tool to teach writing to students with learning disabilities." Reading & Writing Quarterly 14:3, 11p.
Karge, Belinda. 1988. "Knowing what to teach: Using authentic assessment to improve classroom instruction." Reading & Writing Quarterly 14:3, 13p.
Newcomer, Phyllis, Barbara Nodine, and Edna Barenbaum. 1988. "Teaching writing to exceptional children: Reaction and recommendations." Exceptional Children 54:6 (April), 6p.
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