Teaching Writing to Students with Learning Disabilities

What is a Learning Disability?

A learning disability is when a person has extreme difficulty learning in a typical manner. This can be caused by one factor, or many. People who are learning disabled are clinically diagnosed by a professional, be it a pediatrician or a psychologist, and there are many different types of learning disabilities, or LDs.  This blog post will discuss different strategies that teachers can use to help struggling students with writing. There will be three different articles from three different scholars who discuss writing strategies for students with disabilities. The different strategies discussed are for all teachers, not just special education teachers. Teachers need to make their classes inclusive for all students, even if they do not teach special education classes. Also, the strategies discussed in this blog can be used for all students with learning disabilities, not just those with writing disabilities.

“Differentiating Writing, Reading, and How We Respond to Writing” by Patricia A. Dunn

Dr. Patricia A. Dunn, from Stony Brook’s own English Department, has composed many articles on the teaching of writing. One article Dr. Dunn wrote was entitled “Differentiating Writing, Reading, and How We Respond to Writing.” While this article discusses students who have both writing and reading disabilities, the article contains an important section: “Writing by Voice.” Dr. Dunn believes that every student (not just learning disabled students) should have access to voice-to-text software.

Voice-to-text software has so many advantages that not only help learning disabled students, but also help general education students. Dr. Dunn writes that with today’s technological advances, one can talk into a phone, tablet, laptop, etc., and it will interpret that speech into written prose. While there is some tweaking to be done for unusual words or names (like Hauppauge, for example), the translation is pretty close to what was spoken (Dunn 118). By using this technological marvel, it not only helps students who are learning disabled, but also general education students who struggle with spelling and grammar.

For example, voice-to-text eliminates the “there/their/they’re” issue, the “too/to/two” issue, spelling errors, etc. Dr. Dunn agrees that some problems may arise with the voice-to-text including auto-correct issues and the program’s inability to understand some of the words spoken. However, spelling and homonym issues can be fixed with programs on newer phones and/or computer applications. Yet, these tools are expensive; and, of course, there are students who prefer handwriting or conservative word processing (Dunn 118). Dr. Dunn claims that “there are still some occasions when people need to be able to hand-write prose correctly. Some students, like all of us writers, may prefer handwriting or conventional word processing” (Dunn 118). However, Dr. Dunn truly believes that for students who have a learning disability, the voice-to-text “technologies may free them from soul-crushing spelling drills or embarrassing word mix-ups that are painfully obvious in their handwritten or word-processed papers” (Dunn 118). Voice-to-text can even extend to those who write well: it can ease back pain from sitting on a computer chair all day and lessen the probability of getting carpal tunnel injuries from typing. Dr. Dunn finishes off by saying that if schools do not already have voice-to-text technologies, they should make it available to all students, especially students with learning disabilities (Dunn 118).

“Drawing Students into Writing: A Faculty Development Workshop” by Eric H. Hobson

Eric H. Hobson in Chapter 8, “Drawing Students into Writing: A Faculty Development
Workshop,” of the book ARTiculating: Teaching Writing in a Visual World discusses how drawing is yet another way to teach students how to write. It is essential to note that Hobson writes this article for all teachers of writing, not just special education teachers. Thus, he writes that his strategies can be used for all students, not just students with learning disabilities.

Hobson believes that drawing is more productive than prewriting techniques that are found in textbooks. He experimented with this in a series of two meetings on writing-across-the-curriculum. During the first meeting, he sketched out his notes through drawing, and in the second meeting, he wrote down his notes using words. After the meetings had concluded, he and another colleague figured out that the first meeting was coherent and developed fairly well, but the second meeting was vague and not defined well at all (Hobson 137). Thus, Hobson comes to the conclusion that:

Drawing, not writing, had led us to a crucial insight about the structural shortcomings of the text we were developing; the drawing illustrated the incomplete relationship, in the second workshop, between ideas that seemed adequately linked when recorded in words. Nonverbal forms of communication and representation like drawing offer writers tools for discovery, planning, revision, and problem-solving. (Hobson 137-138)

Therefore, drawing is not only well-suited for students with learning disabilities, but any writer as well. Drawing can help students with learning disabilities communicate effectively, and express meaning through drawing instead of words, especially for students who suffer from dysgraphia.

Drawing also can be used to come up with an idea (Hobson 140). Hobson writes that drawing is essential for “playing with initial ideas, discovering what one already knows, identifying gaps in one’s knowledge, developing solutions to problems, retaining and retrieving images” (Hobson 141). Thus, drawing can also help students overcome writer’s block.

 

Finally, drawing can help students write, organize, and revise their papers. Many students, especially students with learning disabilities, struggle with the traditional writing activities in a writing course and with understanding comments from their teachers (i.e. the “how did you get here” comment) (Hobson 143). Hobson writes that sketching allows struggling students to “deal more effectively with chronological time, make the abstract concrete, pin down fleeting images and memories for further reflection and development. In addition, sketching provides composition teachers a convenient and inclusive forum for discussing and modeling abstract revision strategies” (Hobson 143). For students who are learning disabled, writing is a complex task. Even when these students compose something, revision poses a much greater problem. They had just struggled composing something that they may either believe is perfect or unfixable. Thus, revising that piece is going to be a challenge for them.

“Smartpen Applications for Meeting the Needs of Students with Learning Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms” by Angela L. Patti and Krista Vince Garland 

Angela L. Patti and Krista Vince Garland, in their article “Smartpen Applications for Meeting the Needs of Students with Learning Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms,” have conducted research on the use of smartpens for students with learning disabilities. Like, voice-to-text as seen in Dr. Dunn’s article, this is yet another technological strategy to help students with learning disabilities write. Digital pens look like regular ballpoint pens and have the same functionality, except they digitize the pen strokes and transfer data to digital pages. Everything written with the pen (words, notes, diagrams, etc.) is translated to digital files, which can be viewed easily and shared. Other features may be available for certain pens. For example, some pens may include a feature that turns written words into typed words. Smartpens are the only digital pen that has audio recording, and it links written words to spoken words before it is translated to digital files. This helps students with learning disabilities because it can be used as an assistive technology (AT) to meet the literacy needs of students who have learning disabilities in terms of both reading and writing. The smartpen provides a method of accommodation and instructional support for students with learning disabilities in three areas: study skills, independent work, and assessment (Patti and Garland 239).

Smartpens can be used to help students organize and access their notes, as well as understand information. As the smartpen links both audio and written words, it can be used as an AT for students who find it difficult to access information through reading. It can also be used for students who have a hard time keeping up during the lessons. Students can also benefit from the input while they are studying. As such, the smartpen helps with notetaking: students can record the lecture, which allows them to abbreviate or create a bulleted list of the main ideas in class. After class is over, students then can listen to the lecture and add any extra details to the written notes they took in class. This can help students who find it difficult to keep pace with the lesson. Another benefit would be that instead of taking notes in class, students can simply record the lecture, and just listen to the teacher. After class, students can listen to the lecture at their own pace and copy down notes. This will help students with learning disabilities who struggle to take down notes because they get stuck spelling a word, organizing their thoughts, or writing something the teacher said properly. Poor grammar, spelling, and handwriting in students’ notes may prevent them from understanding it later when they are studying. One of the most important features of the pen is its ability to link the audio lecture from the class to what the student has written down. This allows students to be able to follow what they have written down with what the teacher was going over during the lecture. Patti and Garland cite Belson, Hartmann, and Sherman in their article who write that they noticed an increase in students’ note-taking skills when the smartpen was being used. By linking the audio to what the student has written, the smartpen can also benefit students who have difficulty remembering and understanding what went on in class that day when it comes time to do homework or take an exam (Patti and Garland 240).

Conclusion:

Two of the strategies discussed above require the use of technology, but they can pose problems for teachers, school districts, and students who cannot afford such technologies. Thankfully, there are strategies that do not require the use of technology that work just as well (such as Hobson’s drawing strategy). While some of these strategies may not work for every student, there will always be one that will work. Teachers just need to keep experimenting. And, not just special education teachers who have students with IEPs in their classes, but all teachers as well. Classes need to be more inclusive for students because there may be students who do not need to be in special education classes, but are learning disabled. There also may be students who have not been properly diagnosed with a learning disability. As time moves forward, new strategies will be developed, each making the life of a learning-disabled student a little easier.

Works Cited

• Childers, Pamela B., Eric H. Hobson, and Joan A. Mullin. ARTiculating: Teaching Writing in a Visual World. Heinemann, 1998.
• Dunn, P. A. “Differentiating Writing, Reading, and How We Respond to Writing.” ENGLISH JOURNAL, vol. 104, no 2, NCTE, 2014, pp. 118–120. http://www.ncte.org/journals/ej/issues/v104-2
• Patti, Angela L., and Krista Vince Garland. “Smartpen Applications for Meeting the Needs of Students With Learning Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms.” Journal of Special Education Technology, vol. 30, no.4, 2015, pp. 238–244. EBSCOhost.