Strategies for Reluctant Writers

Reluctant writers, aren't born. They are often casualties of our classroom instruction. How? Possible reasons include the following:

• Remembering how to hold the writing the pencil correctly, form the letters correctly, space between words, generate thought and remember how to write a sentence with correct punctuation while making sense is too challenging for some kids.
• Due to handwriting issues, we've assigned a scribe for them, so they never have the opportunity to practice the art of writing on their own. Then the risks become too great.
• Poor spelling inhibits thought expressed on paper. Red pen corrections anyone?

So what can you do to help overcome the writing barriers? Give students opportunities to feel successful, offering engaging alternatives to paper based options. Oftentimes, the paper is the disability. Instead, explore these tools to get kids excited about writing again. Using computer based tools removes the obstacles of legible letter formation and spacing, what to write about and where to begin. A few ideas to get you started:

• Characters - this tool offers the ability to generate a character, while changing hair, clothing, skin tone and facial features. Students can use this tool to then generate descriptive writing about something they created. Take a screen shot to save the created text and character.
• Wacky Web Tales - an online MadLibs. Kids add single words by category (clothing, adjective, word ending in -ing, etc) so best for grade 3 and above.
• Online Story Starters from Scholastic - Spin the levers to generate various writing prompts in various formats. I just spun this starter - "Describe a vacation with a silly kangaroo who goes to summer camp" (a second grade prompt) and can type in a notebook, letter, newspaper or postcard format. Includes a drawing tool. Great for grades K-6.
• Fractured Fairy Tales - Create your own fairy tale based upon three popular stories. from the Student Interactive Resources at readwritethink.org.
• Bio-Cube - create a three dimensional character cube describing six traits about a character they have read about or adapt it to be autobiographical.

Add any ideas that work for your students.

Sharing the Knowledge

As a lifelong learner, I continue to learn about new tools and strategies which help improve my professional practice as an educator (and read articles that challenge my thinking). Here are some that I learned this week from my PLN:

1. Speaking Fox - Unfortunately, Click, Speak doesn't seem to work easily on the Mac OS. SpeakingFox takes care of that and allows free online text-to-speech (TTS). Add it to your school toolbar and show all students how to use this tool. Some students may need to hear one word; for other students, this free tool makes the text accessible.
2. Audio Pal - Add audio to your blog, wiki or website. Can record your own voice or add TTS. Free and cool possibilities
3. Signed Stories - Many signed picture books with audio attached for hearing viewers.
4. Try Different - Seth Godin always makes him points, concisely. "If it's not working, harder might not be the answer." Think of the applications in your daily work as an educator.
5. Good Riddance to Print - NYT article. As eText becomes more mainstream, this has implications for our students who have print disabilities.
   

Please share anything new you learned this week or articles that challenged you.