Burst and Bubbles

 

Burst and bubbles presentation

All of the students I work with have Neurodevelopmental
disorders, some of whom have complex communication
needs and limited experiences of generating language, 

My inquiry was to  focus on How can we use the Key
Competencies to help motivate students with complex
needs and see a shift in their writing. 

Writing presents many challenges to my students with
complex needs. To develop writing skills they need to learn
to generate an idea, to think about language, think about the
words, spelling and controlling their writing tool ,etc. and
eventually students need to be able to do all of these, within
the one task, to become writers.  

At Sommerville we have been fortunate enough to have
Dr Sally Clendon take professional development over the last
few years. As a result of Sally Clendon's guidance as well as
strong routines and behavior support, I was able to implement a
range of strategies and have noticed a difference in my student’s
writing skills. 

All my students are ORS funded and are working within level one

of the curriculum.

(If I used the traditional NZ  writing assessments they would be well
below their curriculum level for writing)

 

To assess my students, I  used the developmental writing scale

for beginner writers developed (Sturm, cali, Nelson and

Staskowski, 2012) adapted by Jane Farrall to see how my

students progressed.

 

 The scale has 14 levels and overall gives us information about

how to help a student move to the next level.

I used three different interventions for my students and was able
to see an overall improvement in their writing

One of the interventions was the use positive behaviour support

Due to writing being so complex, Motivating my students to write was
very challenging. I found that beginning a task and getting students to
stay focused is an ongoing issue. Students require lots of support
and motivation to just get started. I used a range of visuals.
All my students responded well to the FIRST-THEN visual Eg,
First writing -then choosing, This strategy worked well and
helped motivate them, as they knew they would get a reward as
soon as they completed their writing

Another intervention was-  Writing for real reasons

My students are not motivated to write, they need to know why they
must write, the purpose of writing and how is it going to help them.
(Eg talking about their weekend)

After looking at the research by Dr Sally Clendon, I encouraged
whanau to be involved. Each week they sent in a range of photos
from the weekend. These were events that the student could relate to,
they have had the experience and were more eager to share. 

It is authentic and students are more motivated. 

I noticed that the more involvement we had from whanua, the better
the outcomes.

For those whanua that were not involved we used Photos from daily
school activities.

The other intervention that was really useful, was 

Colourful semantics

The approach is used in stages and helps children develop
language and vocabulary in addition to grammatical structure.

Colourful semantics is an approach created by Alison Bryan. It is
aimed at helping children to develop their grammar but it is rooted in
the meaning of words (semantics).

It encourages students to use wider vocabulary and make longer
sentences

By using these three different interventions with my students I
could see the difference in their writing. They were wanting to
write more and were more motivated.

Students needed explicit teaching, the use of a device for writing
was not a motivator.

Out of my six target students Two students moved up three level,
Two moved up two levels and two moved up one level.

For the students and their whanau this was massive as
previously most of them made no attempt to write at all.

Summary evidence of key shifts

Evaluation of student shifts

Just to recap

The target group of students I am focused on, are at all different levels. They have many different challenges that I considered. I will used the developmental writing scale for beginner writers developed (Sturm, cali, Nelson and Staskowski, 2012) adapted by Jane Farrall (see previous blog post) to see how my students progressed.

Meet my target students  

• Student 1 (DH) - Is six years old and has Down Syndrome. He has also been diagnosed with moderate ASD, Global developmental delay, conductive hearing loss, hearing aid in both ears, Hypermetropia-wears glasses and dysphasia. Student1 is in a Year one class and has significant language delays.  He is mostly non verbal, in a one on one sessions he may share an experience about his weekend. He is not motivated to write due to his delayed language and  poor fine motor skills. He is just beginning to learn how to use a device. 

• Student 2 (SH) - Is eight years old. He also has Down Syndrome and moderate ASD. He has hearing loss in one ear, he has one hearing aid and wear glasses. He is in a Year 4 class and has significant language delays. He will sometimes attempt to write a recount about his weekend. He requires lots of prompting and motivation to get started with his writing. A reward system and a range of targeted resources is needed in order for him to complete a writing task. His lacks of motivation is due to his poor fine motor control and his language delays.

• Student 3 (RY)- Is eight years old and he has Autism, English is second language and he has Global developmental delays. He is in a Year four class. He has significant language delays and is not motivated to write. With support and targeted resources he will attempt a simple sentence about an experience he had. He still misses out the little words and always starts his sentence with 'His name'. He is confident on a device, but due to language delays, he needs constant reassurance before he can record a word.

• Student 4 (EP)- Is 11 years old and has Down Syndrome, Global developmental delay, conductive hearing loss,  and dysphasia. She has significant language delays and is in a Year six class. She needs lots of  motivated to write and she will only write if she had an experience. Due to her poor motor control and language delays, she finds writing difficult. She is only starting to learn how to write on a device.

• Student 5 (LL)- Is in a year eight class and has intellectual disability. She has extremely low adaptive functioning, serious Receptive and Expressive Language disorder and probable Neurological Disorder. Due to poor motor control and language delays, she finds writing difficult and is not motivated to write. She is aware of the fact the she is working at a much lower level than her peers. Even though she is very confident on a device, she requires a range of prompts and supports in order to construct a simple sentence.

My students struggle to focus for extended periods of time. They are not very motivated to write and require lots of motivation to get started and stay on task. 

Kindly click on the title link below to view my summary

Click here- Evaluation of interventions

Expanding sentences

Due to the complex needs of the students I work with, mastering a skill takes longer than other neuro typical students. We have been working on forming simple sentences for most of the year. It is great to see that the students are finally beginning to achieve this.
This student is able to form simple sentence and I am now working on expanding his sentence by adding adjectives . This is some of the work he produced. He felt very proud of his work.

Using Visual supports for writing

Last Friday we held a workshop here at Sommerville and invited SENCO's teacher's and teacher aides to participate.  My colleague Donna and I presented on teaching reading and writing to Children with Special Educational needs. This was well received by all who attended.

As part of my presentation I reiterated to importance of using visuals with our students.  I also demonstrated  how to use Colourful Semantics and showed the progress students have made using this programme. In my previous blog posts, I shared more information on Colourful Semantics, so please have a look.

In this post, I would like to share a WOW moment we had with one of my students who would not engage in writing. We have been using 'Who, doing what , where". Here are some visuals that we used.

This student , who has very complex needs, was not engaging is any form of writing, but after many attempts at using 'Draw and talk', as explained in my previous blogs and engaging the student with real experiences, the students attempted to write ' I want to go to the beach hotel". This was a huge moment for the student and celebrated by all.

He had gone on holiday and we used the 'real life experience' to encourage him to write about his holiday. He was not motivated to write independently, so we used the photos from his holiday and asked him what was happening in each photo. We also used , 'Who, doing what" This is what he said. I added it to clicker sentences and the student was able to put the sentence in the correct order. He felt really proud of his work and wanted to share it with his teachers and family.

Draw and talk

Draw and Talk

Uses drawing to ‘Sketching’ enhances the meaning as children draw.

Drawing is a complex sensory motor action requiring the selection, organisation and communication of visual material.

Drawing establishes a relationship between the child and the world.

‘My drawing is about______, because______’

This student has Down Syndrome and significant language delays. He is at the drawing stage, sometimes he attempts to write individual letters. Currently he is not motivated to use a device. 

He has some amazing ideas and even though his language is very delayed, he uses a combination of NZ sign language  and speech to convey his message. in the pictures below, the class was asked to create an invention. He decided to invent a self cleaning food bowl for his cat. He wanted to call it 'Doolalee machine'. He did all the designing and I recorded what he said. Due to the complexities of writing, this student wouldn't attempt it. He has the ideas.....by using draw and talk, the adult is able to record what he say.

Thereafter he made his invention. He often requires lots of motivation to get started with his writing, but because this was of interest, he got started immediately with the drawing. I wrote what he said. he was able to then make the invention. He was so excited to show everyone what he drew and made.

Real reasons for writing

Student's work

This student is also more motivated to write when he has had an experience. He needs to know why he is writing, in this case it is to share his holiday experience. 

During the holidays he visited the sky tower. Using visual supports this is what he wrote.

After explicit teaching of sentence construction, he is able to form a simple sentence. He is also adding more information to his writing.
More importantly, he is wants to share his writing with others at school and his whanau.
Beginning a task and staying focused is an ongoing issue. He requires lots of support and motivation to get started. He has a reward system in place to help him stay focused. 

Even though he responds well to this system most times, we had a few incidents regarding this students behavior. He finds it difficult to manage himself. We have used a range of social scripts to help him make good choices. Recently he hurt another student, We used this opportunity to write a letter to the people involved also showing him real reasons for writing.

Evidence Sharing

Students writing sample.

In my previous blogs post , I began testing my hypothesis around writing for authentic/real reasons. I found that some students were more motivated to write and stayed on task for longer periods if they had an experience to write about. They could relate to their experience. I got the whanau involved and they are sharing photos. As student are not always able to give the details of what took place, whanau are providing the details. 

This student is usually not motivated to write. She will take a long time before getting started and would need lots of motivation. 

She went to Fiji for the school holidays. she really enjoyed the trip with her family and was very exited to write about it. Even though her sentences are not grammatically correct, I am able to get the gist of what took place. I have then modeled the sentence back to her.

Even though we have done explicit teaching using Who, doing what, this student still has difficulties in constructing a sentence. 

She is very excited to share her story with her class mates and whanau and wants to use this for her speech as well. 

Monitoring change

Achievement Challenge 5	Theory of action/ chain of events	Implementation of change	Monitoring the effects
Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts	If students are able to manage themselves, will this help them improve their writing outcomes? The areas of focus has been: Will students be motivated to write and manage themselves if They are asked to write for real/authentic reasons and if They have the correct writing tool.	After looking at the research by Dr Sally Clendon, I encouraged whanau to be involved. Each week they sent in a range of photos from the weekend. These are the events that the student can relate to, they have had the experience and are more eager to share some information.  It is authentic and students are more motivated.  Photos are also used from daily school activities. I also used the research that Jane farrall did on finding the correct writing tool. I investigated  a range of alternative writing tools and trialled it with students. Once they had a tool that they were successful using, students were more motivated to write.  Daily opportunities to write and explicit teaching had to occur.	I have noticed improved attitudes in students. Students have a better understanding of what writing means. They are more motivated to write. Students are working on a task for longer periods and not giving up. They are wanting to share their work both at school and at home. They feel more confident in attempting writing. The evidence is in the writing sample.

Inclusive Education

Inclusive teaching and learning

On Thursday and Friday last week my colleague Donna and I attended the Inclusive Education symposium at Kohia. We took away a few gems from the day and I would like to share some of that learning.

Vonnie Jones from MoE shared  information about the Inclusive education website and here are some of her key messages.

• Our schools and classrooms are places where we have rich diversity and sometimes complex challenges.
• Teachers don't always feel confident they have the skills and knowledge to respond to the unique strengths and needs of all learners in their classrooms.
• Sometimes teachers worry that in order to meet all the learning and well-being needs of learners they will need to plan many separate programmes. 
• The Inclusive education website has information and strategies that will help teachers plan for and meet the needs of all learners and what works for some, can work for all.

Here is the link to the website- https://www.inclusive.tki.org.nz/

Investigating writing tools

Using clicker sentences as 'A' writing tool 

“Students can start exploring and experimenting with alternate pencils/ writing tools 
BEFORE they know letter names or sounds,and well before they have control of 
the choice making required to choose specific letters.
Over time, you begin to see evidence that students are learning letters.”
–The Center for Literacy and Disability Studies

What is an alternative pencil/writing tool?
In order to develop literacy skills, all students need a way to write using the full alphabet no
 matter what level of understanding they appear to have about print.
(In my previous blog posts, I discussed a range of alternative writing tools).
Developed by Hanser (2009) at the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies (CLDS), 
an alternative pencil is defined as anything that provides a student with access to all 
26 letters of the alphabet.

How can students benefit from using an alternative pencil/writing tool?

Writing is an essential component of literacy instruction for students without disabilities and a part of their daily instruction. In order for students with significant disabilities to develop as readers and writers, daily writing is equally, if not, more important. However, this becomes a challenge when most students with significant disabilities are unable to hold a pencil.

Which students would benefit from using an alternative pencil/writing tool?

For students with physical, cognitive or linguistic challenges, an alternative pencil can offer a way to write and/or explore the alphabet while focusing the majority of their cognitive energy on text production.

Alternative “pencils” /writing tools were created for students unable to hold a traditional pencil or physically manipulate a standard keyboard. As well, if a student can hold a pen or a pencil but struggles to form letters with it, especially if they have already been practicing for years, then we need to look at an alternative pencil for the majority of their writing.

Alternative pencils can be used with writers of varying abilities and ages including students who are emerging writers and those who are able to write more conventionally (Browder & Spooner, 2011).

This student is unable to form any letters independently and is at the scribbling stage.
Even though his language is limited, when something of interest happens, he does have ideas and attempts to say what is happening. Here I introduced him to clicker sentences. The student gave the sentence. I added the words and he was able to put that in a sentence. He was really exited when it read back to him. This was definitely a good motivator.

This student is able to string a few words together, she is very keen on adding her thoughts and wants to attempt spelling the words, she is still learning to use the predictive text. This is her independent work.

This student has had a few opportunities to work on clicker sentences and is able to form a simple sentence. He is very motivated to use this as his writing tool as he is successful and feels a sense of accomplishment. This student has autism and will only write for real reasons. He has to experience something to write about it. 

Students using Colourful Semantics

Testing my hypotheses using Colourful Semantics.

I have continued to use Colourful Semantics with a few of my students.
The picture is a motivator. Also using the ‘Who, doing, what , where” visual
helps the student structure their sentences better.
This student was able to add more details to his writing. He said 'I like this writing".
He will recites the 'Who , doing, what ' out loud as he writes.

This student is using nouns and verbs, but is still missing the little words.
The sentence is then modeled to her by the teacher and she is able to copy.
She was more motivated and wrote her sentence immediately.

This example is of a student who is only beginning to write.
He knows what he wants to say and tells his sentence to the teacher, he attempts the ‘THE’.
There is no pressure for him to write, we are looking for ideas. He enjoys having the Pictures as visual
supports and he is also following, ‘who, doing what.’

Questions we can ask about writing

As teachers , here are some questions we can ask about the way we teach writing.

Writing is a complex task, involving ideas, language, words, spelling and transcribing or selecting letters. We need to teach all of these skills – and eventually students need to be able to do all of these, within the one task, to become writers.

Overall guidelines

• Do you have time scheduled for an independent writing block every day?
• Are your students using a pencil or alternative writing tool that allows them to focus on the cognitive aspects of writing e.g. alphabet board, flip chart, keyboard, eye gaze system, iPad and app, computer, pen or pencil?
• Does their writing tool include access to all 26 letters of the alphabet?
• Do your students have real reasons for writing? (and remember – writing never involves copying and tracing; writing involves thinking of ideas, language, words AND transcribing)
• Do you model writing to your classroom each time before you ask them to write?
• Do you have a time for writer’s chair so that students can share their writing with others?

• For emergent students
• Are you giving your students lot of opportunities to learn the function of writing without focusing on the form e.g. following through on notes handed to you, writing yourself reminders and then using them, writing a morning message?
• Do they have daily opportunities to write without standards using a writing tool with access to all 26 letters?
• When they have finished writing do you say “now let me show you how I would write it” and model writing rather than interrupting them during the writing task or putting demands on their writing?
• Are you offering them a range of writing tasks, such as writing about personal experiences, high interest topics, classroom topics, letter writing, signing in?
• Are you following through on writing tasks e.g. posting letters?
• Do you have a daily or weekly shared writing activity, such as predictable chart writing?

Writing (with an alphabet chart, teacher scribes)

💚Student signing in→

For conventional students

• Do you focus your modelling of writing on different aspects of the writing task each day e.g. using the word wall, using capitals, using punctuation, thinking of ideas, thinking of your audience in planning writing, using different sorts of vocabulary, etc.?
• Are you modelling aspects of writing for a while before you expect your students to start using them?
• Are you including free writing so that students learn to self-select in this block?
• Have you done a chart of topics “we all know about” with your class as ideas for free writing?
• Are you using the prompt “tell me more about that” to get students to extend their writing?
• Are you teaching students to edit writing, starting with teaching them to edit your writing and then transitioning to their own?
• Are you using editing checklists as students start self-editing e.g. “do my sentences have capitals and punctuation, do all my sentences relate to the topic”?
• Are you encouraging your students to publish?