Just got back from an IEP meeting with my son where all agreed he is not making adequate progress in writing. He is in third grade. His reading, after much remediation, is catching up. He doesn’t seem to have a basic sense of a sentence though and cannot get the hang of using very basic punctuation. I remember reading on this board about structured writing programs which take parts of sentences and teach kids to put them together. The intuitive approach is not going to cut it with my son.
The school has Inspiration but, as I understand it, it teaches kids to organize their thoughts. He isn’t that far yet.
I need something, if possible, that doesn’t require specialized training.
Thanks.
Beth
the writing express
William Spivey’s Strengthening a Students Writing through focus. It is known as the Writing Express on the Web. This program is user friendly and uses some games and cards to help a child develop his sentences and writing skills. It really helped my daughter with her writing. Before we did Spivey’s program she was wriitng at a 1st grade level and she was in 5th grade. She is now writing above grade level, her spelling is still a bug a boo but hey she can write!
Re: When They Can't Write
Sue,
I looked at this. The description says for secondary students. My son is only in third grade. Would this be appropriate?
Beth
Re: the writing express
Pattim,
I remember you talking about this program. Would it be appropriate for a third grader who is working on a first grade level? Is it difficult to teach?
I couldn’t find it on the web. Would you know the site?
Beth
Re: structured writing programs--Pattim and others
Hi Beth, Inspiration is a prewriting program and results with both a web and an outline. The program helps them organize their thoughts and there is a kids inspiration for elementary school kids. The writing program that I have had wonderful results is Step Up to Writing by Sopris West. The whole program costs about $150. This includes everything that you would need even posters. One thing that you have to remember and is a constant debate at my high school and I also mentioned it in another post. Grammar, punctuation and capitalization is not taught in isolation in most of the schools. This goes for writing structure and spelling as well. Writing also fell to the whole language craze. They don’t want to ‘stifle’ the creativity of the children. We just had a school cluster meeting and grammar and poor writing of high school kids was the hot topic. My question was, If these kids haven’t been taught grammar, structured writing, capitalization, punctuation and spelling, how is it that they are ‘disabled’ in something that they weren’t taught? They were truly stumped about that question! They didn’t know what to say. The department chair said that the ‘latest’ research showed that teaching grammar through the child’s writing was the best way. I told him that that was whole language inhouse research and it was proven ‘dirty’. By dirty I mean that the WL research didn’t put in all of the students in it’s research, only the ones that did well. Just like it did with the Reading Recovery research. It was a really wild meeting and I was Shay ‘unplugged’. At the end of the meeting, the department chair asked if we thought that grammar should be taught in all grades along with structured writing? We said yes and I said ‘what a novel thought! ‘Step’ is an excellent program and you don’t need any training. It is multisensory in nature and walks the kids through the process one step at a time. Hope this helps.
Re: the writing express
http://writingexpress.net/ This is the URL. It would be easy to use with your son. there are workbooks and fill in the blank worksheets to help them get the sentence structure down then they use expanders. He has several card games to help the students with learning sentences and how to expand the sentences. Plus he is really helpful on the phone and e-mail.
Patti
Re: When They Can't Write
I am pretty sure it would work for him. It’s used in secondary becuase it doesn’t have cute pictures, etc — but it starts with what nouns are…. lots of practice and examples… what verbs are… lots of practice and examples… now put ‘em together … now add some adjectives, some clauses… I know a fourth grader who liked it a lot.
Re: structured writing programs--Pattim and others
Oh, my daughter was taught with the whole language approach. Now she is actally a marvelous writer but still weak in mechanics. The only good outcome I have seen come out of testing is more attention to the mechanics of writing. IN my son’s case, he doesn’t seem to “get” even the simplest rules like capitalized the first letter of a sentence and put a period at the end. I have convinced them that he just isn’t going to learn to write the way they are teaching him. It wasn’t hard when you see his work!!!
Will this approach work with a third grader? I was actually asked to give the ESE director information on programs that might work.
Beth
Re: the writing express
I found it!! I saw there were seminars (with none being offerred currently). Do you think that a teacher could do this program well without training?
Beth
Re: the writing express
Yes, the training however is good. My daughter’s teacher at the learning center had been to his training and said that she got lots of ideas for application and how to make it fun. I haven’t been trained and I can use it. I did get some explanations for application from the learning center where I worked when we were remediating our daughter.
www.yorkpress.com — by CHarlotte MOrgan.
Starts at the *beginning* :)