HELP! STUDY STRATEGIES NEEDED!

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

Hi there,

I am an 18 year old student iwth a learning disability in written expression. I just entered college and am taking an engish class. I am struggling because I do not know how to organize my thoughts well or get out what I want to say. I went to the writing center and they couldn’t help me much.

Does anyone have any strategues for me that tyhey have devekoped and had worked?

Thanks!
Barbra

Submitted by keb on Fri, 11/14/2003 - 9:55 PM

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Here are some of the strategies that work for my middle school students at a school for students with LD/ADHD.

For narratives, or writing that follows a linear timeline, it helps to use a T-chart. Draw a line down the middle of your paper, and to the left of the line list the main events you want to address in your writing. Leave space between each event, and don’t have more than two or three events listed on each page. After you have listed all of the events you want/need to include in your paper, go back and add all of the related details you may include when you draft your paper. It’s better to have too many details listed than too few. My students really struggled with T-charts at first, but are surprised at how easy it is to write their papers if they put sufficient time and effort into preplanning.

Another strategy that may help you would be to purchase the Inspiration software (www.inspiration.com). This software can be used for brainstorming and catagorizing your ideas. It creates a web-type graphic organizer that, with the push of a button, can be transformed into an outline. It’s easy to use, and fun for most students.

For research papers, I have my students take their notes on colored notecards. One color is used for the introduction/conclusion, and one for each of the main topics to be covered in the research paper. After they are done with their notetaking, they have a quick visual check to make sure they have covered all of their major topics somewhat evenly. Then they lay the cards out, one section at a time, to organize their paper. As they write the paper, they just use the cards in the order they have decided makes the most sense.

Good luck! I hope this is helpful,

Karyn

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 11/15/2003 - 3:07 PM

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Do you have a small tape recorder? You could speak your ideas and thoughts into it and then play back and type out what you said. Kind of low tech, but it works. Inspiration is also very good, if you are a visual person. Another, more expensive, bit of helpful software is draft builder by Don Johnston.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 11/15/2003 - 3:33 PM

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Barbra,
I just saw a great software product that may be beneficial to you called Writer’s Companion 2.0. It takes you through the writing process and allows you to easily organize/reorganize your main ideas, and supporting statements/details. You easily move from Brainstorming, Organizing, Sequencing, Editing and Publishing and since it’s done on the computer, you have complete flexibility.
So use the strategies mentioned by Krb above combined with this software which I think fits your needs better than Inspiration or Draft:Builder. I know both of those programs very well and like this program better for the issues that you are describing.
I think the website is www.writerscomp.net.

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