Dr Sally Clendon's research on writing

Explain why you judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year

Recently Sally presented to Sommerville teachers. From her research, here are some key points to support emergent writers .

 • Children explore and experiment with writing. In the process, they develop understandings about the functions and form of print. These understandings become increasingly sophisticated. Hanser (2006)

Writing Involves … 

• The student’s own ideas and attempts
• Cognitive engagement
• Independent attempts with a complete alphabet
• Needs to be in a real context and for real reasons
Clendon, Van Rensburg, & Mackwood (2015)

We should be teaching:

• Writing for Real Reasons 
• Signing In - in the morning
• Writing their name on work/drawings
• Personal Connections/ recounts
• Related to guided reading purposes 
• Letters / emails to parents/other family members
• Note to home/school
• Thanks you notes 
• Book report 
• Writing to/about favorites / their weekend
• Shopping lists
• Blogging

What Writing is Not ... 

• Copying – this is a fine motor task that does not facilitate the process of writing – Copying is about forming letters – 

Copying does NOT :
• Teach that print has meaning 

• Teach WHY people write 

• Teach what it means to be a writer 

• Teach a student how to think like a writer, Roy (2010) 

• Tracing – this is another fine motor task that does not facilitate the process of writing 

• Chunked messages – using a name stamp is a matching task, pressing a button to reveal a pre-stored message is a starting place not a product of writing. 

• Dictation – this removes the motor barrier but does not allow the student to independently engage with print. 

• Hand over Hand 

• Worksheets! Roy (2010) 

Description of students

Description of my students

2.Describe how and why you have selected this challenge of student learning. Locate your inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall.

The target group of students I am focusing on, are at all different levels. They have different challenges that I am going to look at. I will use the developmental writing scale to see how my students progress.

Meet my target students  

• Student 1 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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- 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. My hunch is that if I focus on extending their 'on-task' behavior with strategies to manage themselves then they will improve their writing. Over the course of the term I will share the strategies I am using to increase their on task behavior. 

Using the developmental writing scale (see previous post for scale), this is the current level that my students are working at. (Beginning of year)
Student 1	Level 1 - drawing
Student 4	Level 5- One  intelligible word
Student 5	Level 6- Two or three intelligible words
Student 2	Level 7- Three or more intelligible words
Student 3	Level 7- Three or more intelligible words

Research about development writing scale

Developmental writing scale

All my students are ORS funded and are working within level one of the curriculum.

To assess where my students are now, I am going to use the development writing scale below.
This writing scale has been really helpful. Dr Sally Clendon and Jane Farrall recommends this writing scale for students with complex needs. The scale has 14 levels and overall gives us information about how to help a student move to the next level.

Why a writing inquiry?

Why I chose a writing inquiry?

1. Summarise the challenge of student learning you plan to focus on in this inquiry. Be as clear and specific as you can about the evidence you have about this to date.

I have been in special education for almost 20 years.  I have spent many years implementing routines and research based strategies and I have seen the dfference that this has made to my students.

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 have noticed a difference in my students writing skills. 

My students need to learn how to manage themselves as a prerequisite to becoming engaged in learning. They also need to be able to relate to others in order to participate in group work and social situations and of course participating and contributing is reliant on all of these. 

My inquiry will be focusing on improving these Key Competencies to see a shift in my students writing. 

Jane Farrall describes writing as 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.  

Due to its complexities, many students find writing challenging and many teachers struggle to find methods to effectively teach the skill. I am going to use a of range strategies to show how students managing self and relating to others and if this will help them improve their writing.