I have two questions for folks: first does anyone know of any good, and moderately inexpensive, writing program, for elementary ld students? Most of my students of ld/low IQ kids, and writing is a struggle. It’s not the easiest subject for me to teach, which doesn’t help. Any suggestions?
Next, one of the reading programs our sped. and remedial department is using is Focus. We have found in effective for certain students, and we like it’s structured, consistent approach to teaching phonics and comprehension skills. It works for kids who aren’t strong phonetically. However, it’s becoming harder to find all the materials as much of it is out of print. Does anyone know of any reading program that is similar in design to Focus, but is newer and easier to find? Thaks for any advice!
Re: 2 questions: reading and writing
I’m looking for structured programs that teach narrative and expository writing for elementary students who are LD or have low-average abilities across the board, appropriate for students in grades 4-6 (I don’t want something designed for grades 1+2, most of my students are able to tell the difference between what’s too young, age-wise for them and what’s age-appropriate.) Thanks!
"When They Can't WRite"
http://www.yorkpress.com/
Look along the right-hand column.
This is my favorite writing program — totally structured and systematic and from the ground up, but with enough room for creativity so that even gifted kids don’t go nuts. Charlotte Morgan developed it in the LD high school where I taught — but it starts with nouns and verbs and *very* simple sentences and builds from there. I highly recommend it.
Re: 2 questions: reading and writing
I use Expressive Writing by SRA for my 6th graders but they have another program for younger kids called Reasoning and Writing. These are very sequential programs like all sra programs. My students last year could not write a complete sentence and by the end of the year they wrote biographies, complete with research, note cards, outlines etc.
When you ask about writing programs, are you primarily concerned with orthography or penmenship whether manuscript or cursive, or are you mainly concerned with composition, with getting facts and feelings organized and written down? (Spelling may or may not be included in the latter.)