This document discusses strategies and tools to help students with reading and writing challenges. It recommends teaching specific writing strategies like planning, revising and editing. It also suggests using word processing tools, pre-writing activities, sentence combining, and process writing. Technology can help with individualization, repetition, and providing data to improve literacy. Teaching writing improves both writing and reading abilities.

1. Literacy
Strategies and Tools to help students with high
incidence reading and writing challenges become more
successful and independent.

2. “…the instinct to write down everything from mundane
commercial transactions to routine daily occurrences to the
most transcendent ideas - and then have others read them, as
well as to read what others have written - is not simply a way
of transferring information from one person to another, one
generation to the next. It is a process of learning and hence,
education.”
- Vartan Gregorian
President, Carnegie Corporation of New
York
Forward in Writing Next

3. According to Graham and
Hebert in Writing to Re a d ,
and Graham and Perin in
Writing N x t, “Teaching
e
writing not only improves how
well students write; it also
enhances students’ ability to
read a text accurately,
fluently, and with
comprehension.”
Have students write about the texts they read
Write personal reaction
Write summaries
Write Notes
Answer questions about a text in writing
Teach students the writing skills and processes
that go into creating text
Teach the process of writing, text structures, paragraphs
Teach spelling and sentence construction
Increase how much a student writes

4. Why is Reading and Writing so
Important?
• Somewhere between one half
to two thirds of new jobs in
the future will require a
college education and higher
level literacy skills (Carnevale and • Forty percent of high school
Derochers, 2004; Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto, graduates lack the literacy
and Sum, 2007)
skills employer seek (National
Governors Association, 2005)

5. What are some strategies and tools
that can help with reading and
writing?

6. Teach Specific Writing
Strategies
Planning Revising Editing
Clicker 6
Write online
Read Write Gold
Inspiration
Spell Checker
Co-Writer 6

7. Word Processing
Use computers and
word processors as
instructional supports for
writing assignments
Built in spell checkers
Word prediction
Text to speech
Speech to text
Dictionary

8. Pre-Writing
Engage students in
activities designed to Draft Builder
help generate or Inspiration
organize ideas
Kurzweil
Read, Write, Think
(on-line)

9. Sentence Combining
Teaching students to
construct more complex and
sophisticated sentences and
paragraphs = improved quality
of writing.
Grammar is
Co-Writer learned
better when
Write out Loud taught
Clicker 6 using
sentence
Paper Rater (on-line) combining.
Teach
Grammarly (on-line) grammar
within the
context of
writing.

10. Process Writing
 Create extended opportunities for
opportunities for
writing
 Emphasize writing for real audiences
for real audiences
 Encourage cycles of planning,
translating, reviewing
 Self-reflection
 Personalized instruction and goals

11. Use technology for teaching
reading because it….
 Allows for individualization • Lexia
 Can be customized
• Start-to-finish
 Allows for repetition
 Computers are forgiving
books
and non-judgmental • Thinking reader
 Provides data
• Solo: Read aloud
• Read Out Loud

12. “Learning to write
teaches skills and
processes of writing
such as handwriting,
spelling, vocabulary,
punctuation,
capitalization, word
usage, and grammar”
(Needels and Knapp 1994)
“Writing to Learn uses
writing as a means to
extend and deepen
students knowledge”
(Keys, 2000; Shanahan, 2004; Sperling
and Freedman, 2000)

13. SPND 456
• Strategies and Tools to help students with
high incidence reading and writing
challenges become more successful and
independent
Staci Darragh
October 12, 2012