Writing Accommodations

A Deeper Look At Written Communication

Low Tech Writing

Who? Students with poor handwriting, slow

processing and writing speed, poor spelling, and mechanical problems

Students who have used word processing before with considerable success

Purpose? Write more legibly, faster, or to use

space more accurately on paper

Low Tech Writing Tools Specialized Pencils

Triangular pencils, pencils with grips, shorter pencils, mechanical pencils, pencils with/without erasers, pencils with different types of lead

Grips Textures, soft, hard, rubber, shaped,

gummy Help with pencil hold (too tight/lightls);

those whose fingers slide; correct grip

Assistive Pens Ergonomically shaped pens (help with

fatigue, grip), pens with grips, different colored ink, pens with lights that shine down on the paper to help hold the student’s visual attention

Raised line paper Strong visuals and kinesthetic feedback

to help keep letters between the lines

Colored papers Color coding and organizing

Color coded papers Serve as a visual aide or as a reminder to

student; color coded lines (green for grass line/blue for sky line; color in lower half of line to help focus on where the main part of the letter should go)

Structured papers Provide student with horizontal and vertical

boundaries to help with letter and word spacing (graph paper for numbers)

Writing guides Usually made of plastic to help students keep

their writing within the space Slant Boards

Commercial or 3”-5” binders Offers students a better way to see what they

are writing

Fonts and Spacing

Serif vs. Non-Serif Fonts Serifs are the horizontal lines at the

bottom and top of this style of letters Majority prefer non-serif fonts, but

studies indicate that people take writing down in serif fonts more seriously

This is a serif font. (32 pt.) This is a non-serif font. (24 pt.)

X-Height and Counter Width X-Height-the height of a letter in relation to

the height of a short letter (e.g. l vs. a). Research indicates that younger children read

and write more easily with fonts that have tall x-heights.

Counter Width The width of lower case letters Research indicates that younger children read

and write more easily with fonts that have wide counters.

This font has a short x-height. This font has a tall x-height.

(visuallyimpaired)

This font has a wide counter. (visually impaired)

This font has a narrow counter.

Colored Fonts

Colored fonts and backgrounds is a visual-perceptual tool that is important for rough drafts and editing

Spacing Too many spaces between words

Taught to put a certain amount of space between words

Maybe they don’t see the spaces on the lines

No space between words Most likely watching keyboards when

typing Encourage them to say “space” between

words or to check screen after each word

Development of Sentence Discourse Early development

Programs like PixWriter, Clicker 5, and Writing with Symbols Less is more-work with less choices so you don’t

overwhelm student Group choices left to right-put subjects to left,

verbs to right; supports reading and writing direction

Pre-teaching-make sure pictures tied to words are understood by the student

Use color-differentiate parts of speech Make the switch to words-change picture to

words only as soon as the student can “read/recognize” the word

A Development of Framework of Lessons Teach step-by-step sentence development Software for teaching sentence construction

Cloze Pro Great for teaching noun and verb groups or

elaborating simple sentences Clicker 5

Word order lessons

Who, What, Where, When and Why

Answering WH questions in sentences Students must know what these words

mean before they can write narrative accounts of story elements Teachers should introduce and teach WH

words Brief and simple Color code

Who--These questions are answered with a person or animal. (red) Picture cue could be a person.

What--These questions are answered with a type or amount of something. The answer could also be what someone said. (green) The picture cue could be any object.

Where--These questions are answered with a place. (blue) Picture cue could be a landscape.

When--These questions are answered with a time. (pink) The picture cue could be a clock.

Why--These questions are answered with reasons or cause. (purple) The picture cue could be a xx.

Computer-generated lessons Can reduce the language load by provided picture

choices rather than words as students begin to understand the differences.

Considerations when using pictures: Pictures must only include the answer to one WH

question. (who may be an picture of a fire fighter, but should not include the truck.)

Pictures should be easily recognizable to students For younger students, you may want to provide the

story so they can find the pictures/words Replace pictures with words as the progress Do not use a story for older students-simply ask the

WH questions and provide different kinds of picture and /or word answers.

Who is in the picture?

What did he ride?

He rode a bike.

Narrative Writing Ideas Photos and high quality clip art pictures have

incredible power when working with students who seem to struggle with ideas and elaboration

Use the internet (www.images.google.com) to collect and gather pictures

If necessary, remove the background from the pictures so that the background doesn’t tell a story different from what the student wants to do. (Adobe Photoshop Elements)

Aim to have 15 pictures per category Students then write about the 4 variables in story

form.

Who Pictures

The younger the child, the closer the person in the photo has to be to the student’s experiences

Remove the background Different ages, both genders,

different races/cultures, old/new

What Pictures Find pictures of objects that the main

character will find, use, and/or interact with and that are common enough to recognize but can be used in various ways Objects common to the student’s favorite

“things” New vocabulary words or objects from science or

social studies lessons Objects that could contain ‘mysteries’ inside of

them (treasure box, safe, etc.)

Where Pictures Choose location pictures that will help the

students develop a visual setting and add to the story they are telling (plot)

Use familiar settings (home, school, stores, etc.)

Habitations (castles, house, etc.) Landscapes (without buildings) Different countries that are recognizable Maps Fantasy or outer space locales

When Pictures

Choose time periods that will help the student develop a visual setting and add to the story.

Time of day-sunset, sunrise, noon (lunch at school)

Time of year-snow picture, seasons Clocks

Improving Vocabulary Use Word’s Right Click Help

Spelling suggestions, synonyms Virtual Thesaurus

Simple words surrounded by a wide variety of synonyms Grouping them together Good for visual learners Shorter meanings

Hand-held Dictionaries Franklin-spell checkers

Words you need to Use Word banks, rubrics

PocketMod for Personalized Vocabulary Lists Free creation software for making vocabulary lists and turning

them into mini-books that are easy to carry and use Need Windows

Computerizing Brainstorming and Organization

Scan graphic organizers and use on Smart Boards-at grade level

Draft Builder, Inspiration, Kidspiration

Speech and Word Processing The addition of speech to writing is important for

auditory students Can help all students when it comes to editing and

sentence punctuation Making it Talk

Macintosh-use the built in speech feature Go to Systems Preferences, choose Speech. Choose the

Text to Speech tab. Check the Speak Selected text…choice. Then click on the Choose Key…button and set the key combination that will read selected text

Windows-go to www.wordtalk.uk.org Download and then install this program into your

version of Word. It will add a toolbar to Word and allow you to have full speech control while using Word.

Choosing Voices Choose the best quality voice

Speech and Sentence Punctuation Teach students to listen to natural

pauses Have them listen to the word processor

read back what they have written Have them read their work into a digital

recorder and listen to it being read back.

Google Docs Digital tool for composing and editing text Allows student to write on-line and share

his or her work through email sharing Students can share documents,

presentations, spreadsheets Automatically saves changes Student can decide whom they share the

file with Other teachers/students can add comments You must create a free Google account to

use the program