Teaching Written Communication

Notes from the class:


Written communication involves combining language, spelling and reading skills. Students with special needs frequently have problems in these areas due to their deficits in reading, spelling, or language.

Research has shown to promote better writing students must use the follow strategies: planning, revising, and rewriting.


Teach students to plan for writing- Before students start any writing task, be sure they understand the purpose of the writing assignment. They should develop a plan using careful thinking about the purpose, including the topic, how it will be developed, what information will be shared, and how the paper will be structured. Discuss what the student plans to do and provide feedback before they begin writing.

Promote thinking about writing- Teach students to use action words (verbs: ran, drove, slept), action helper words (adverbs: ran fast, drove slowly, slept soundly), and describing words (adjectives: beautiful scene, delicious meal, enthusiastic teacher) as they write. You can use pictures and have students describe the action they see taking place in the pictures.

Choose effective composition strategies- Use strategies to help organize writing. For example:

You can use the five-finger method for brainstorming events: who, what, when, where, why

Use the 3-W, 2-What, 2-How strategy for story writing.

• Who is in the story?
• When does the story take place?
• Where does the story take place?
• What happens in the story?
• What do the characters in the story do?
• How do the characters feel?
• How does the story end?


The SPACE strategy is to help students think about more details that need to be included in their narrative stories.

• Note SETTING
• Note PURPOSE
• Note ACTION
• Note CONCLUSION
• Note EMOTIONS


A three-step strategy (THINK-STOP-DARE) for writing persuasive essays.

1. THINK- Who will read this? Why am I writing this?

2. STOP- Suspend judgment, Take a side or position, Organize ideas, Plan more as you write.

3. DARE- Develop your topic sentence, Add supporting ideas, Reject opposing arguments, and End with a conclusion.



*When teaching students these strategies, include models, demonstrations, and guided practice to promote independent and easy strategy usage.

Remember to discuss when the strategy is useful and how to use all the steps. Provide examples of how the strategy will help students in a variety of situations.

After modeling all the steps for self-regulation, have students practice the steps in the strategy with partners. By practicing it will enable students to master both the strategy and the self-regulatory components.



Adapt instruction to overcome mechanical obstacles to writing- Many students become frustrated with writing assignments because they are overwhelmed with handwriting, spelling, and punctuations. Here are some methods to help students overcome those obstacles:

1. Allow dictation instead of writing. Allow students the flexibility of thinking without any writing impediments. You can use a scribe or have the student dictate on a tape recorder.

2. Precue spelling of difficult words. Write difficult words on the board or display chart cards.

3. Teach a word book strategy. Have students keep word books containing their own dictionaries of hard words so they can refer to anytime to check their spelling.

4. Ask for help. Encourage students to ask others (teachers, aides, other students) for help and let them know that someone is available to help them.

5. Encourage invented spelling. Sometimes students are reluctant to use interesting words because they do not know how to spell them. Encourage students to write the “best guess” of a word’s spelling, to encourage creativity and writing fluency. However, at some point students must learn to identify and correct any misspellings.

6. Encourage peer collaboration. This is helpful during brainstorming, preplanning, and revising stages.

7. Encourage self-checking. Teach students self-check strategies. Some strategies include rereading to make sure sentences make logical sense, that capital letters, punctuation and spelling are used correctly.

8. Use technology. Computer-assisted writing may prove to be a positive alternative for students with writing problems.



Use specialized curriculum materials and software- There are some commercially available materials that help students with disabilities with writing.

Reasoning and Writing (SRA/McGraw-Hill) uses a direct instruction format to provide practice in learning how to think and write from beginning levels to more advanced levels.

Expressive Writing (SRA/McGraw-Hill) uses the direction instruction approach which contains 50 lessons for students who can read at the third-grade level or above and teaches writing and editing skills.

Basic Writing Skills (SRA/McGraw-Hill) addresses common writing problems for students in grades 6 through 12.


There are many computerized programs available as well:

ACHIEVE! Writing & Language Arts (Broderbund) promotes grammar, spelling, and creative writing with gamelike activities.

WordQ Writing Software (Quillsoft) uses word prediction, spoken feedback, and proofreading assistance.

Paragraph Punch (Merit Software) is intended to help older students with learning disabilities (grades 5 – 10) develop their paragraph writing skills. It also includes prewriting, writing, organizing, revising, rewriting, and publishing steps.

Storybook Weaver Deluxe (Riverdeep) is a multimedia program that contains story-starters, story ideas, and multicultural images to help improve student’s writing skills.

StoryCraftPro story development software from Writers Supercenter walks older writers through the steps of the story-writing process.


*Be sure to carefully examine whether the programs’ features are appropriate and to determine whether your students have the necessary skills to benefit from the software. Some programs also teach keyboarding skills.