In this article, we outline common challenges students with LD have with writing and then provide an overview of the evidence-based Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) instructional model in writing. Next, we provide detailed descriptions of SRSD instruction for students with LD in elementary and middle school classrooms, noting important…

In this essay, I reflect on over 15 years of experience in the field of special education to explore diverse ways of engaging students in opinion and argument writing. I outline, according to the Common Core standards, the progression of writing in the early years with an emphasis on opinion writing through the later elementary, middle, and high…

"Self-Regulated Strategy Development" ("SRSD") is an intervention designed to improve students' academic skills through a six-step process that teaches students specific academic strategies and self-regulation skills. The practice is especially appropriate for students with learning disabilities, the focal population of the…

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the current research involving composition writing with respect to students experiencing difficulties. It responds to the fact that composition writing is a largely neglected area in education and research. This paper will review the following: (a) the reasons why writing competence is so vitally…

This article features a discussion of what contemporary research tells us are the most significant factors that individually and collectively serve to thwart the writing development and performance of students with LD. Support is drawn from recent research syntheses, as well as individual studies. I begin with an overview of skillful writing and…

This paper was written to expose the meaning, benefits, and answer why the use of assistive technology for children with learning disabilities. The paper discussed the various types of assistive technology devices that were designed and used to solve written language, reading, listening, memory and mathematic problems of children with learning…

By the upper elementary grades, writing becomes an essential tool both for learning and for showing what you know. Students who struggle significantly with writing are at a terrible disadvantage. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that only 25% of students can be classified as competent writers; students with…

This article examines the Common Core State Standards as they apply to writing and students with learning disabilities (LD). We first consider why the implementation of these standards is advantageous to writing instruction for students with LD as well as the challenges in implementing them. Next, we make the following four recommendations in…

Forty eighth grade students with and without learning disabilities in an inclusive classroom participated in an adapted Step-Up to Writing (Auman, 2002) intervention program. The intervention targeted expository essays and composing topic, detail, transitional, and concluding sentences. A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that both students with…

This paper reports on school-university collaboration during an action research project, which aimed to build a writing pedagogy for students with Learning Disabilities in the trilingual, biliterate educational context of Hong Kong. The project was established through interpersonal relationships built from the ground up between stakeholders from a…

The "Herman Method"[TM] teaches reading in small groups of up to three students. The curriculum provides instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, while also teaching spelling and writing. It contains 20 modules of instruction through a fifth grade level. Each module includes a reading,…

Students with disabilities often struggle with writing tasks. In order to improve the written expression performance of high school students with deficits in written expression, a Direct Instruction writing program was implemented. The participants were six high school students in programs for individuals with learning disabilities. Three of the…

A critical focus of effective writing interventions is to help students develop a more sophisticated approach to composing, one that is similar in design to those used by skilled writers. After studying the skills and approaches used by effective writers, Harris and Graham designed the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) approach as an…

This study evaluates the quality of the research and evidence base for a writing intervention called Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD; Graham & Harris, 1989; Harris & Graham, 1996) for students with and at risk for learning disabilities, using criteria for group research studies suggested by Gersten et al. (2005) and single-subject…

In this study, supplemental writing instruction in planning and revising was used to improve the stories written by young writers with learning disabilities (LD) and poor writing skills. Six second-grade students practiced a strategy for planning and writing stories using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach and then revised…