Forty-four students at a mid-sized urban university were given a pseudo-word spelling test to explore the relationship between their spelling ability and their placement in college writing courses. Half the students required a developmental writing course and half took college-level classes. Number of correct (i.e., orthographically possible)…

Many students have difficulty in educational and employment settings because they have failed to master basic writing skills. Multiple-baseline across-tasks designs were used to evaluate the effects of the Comprehensive Writing Program (CWP), a multicomponent intervention, on the writing performance of all students (n = 17) from 3 9th-grade…

This book briefs teachers on how to analyze individual students' spelling errors and coach them on strategies to overcome them. Although the book deals with spelling weaknesses of both learning disabled and basic writers, its message to practitioners can also provide help for any student who has spelling weaknesses. The book is organized in two…

Writing processes and writing skills are highly compatible, but only if "writing skills" are defined as genuinely helpful learning strategies rather than prescriptive techniques or isolated forms and rules. Increased skill is a product of meaningful practice, not prescriptive instructions or isolated drills. In the present context, the…

Describes in detail a one-to-one writing conference between a graduate student tutor and a basic writer in a writing center. Raises questions of problem identification, the university context, learning disabilities, tutor training, professional development, and what constitutes good tutoring. (RS)

Despite the repeated adage that "no two LD (learning disabled) students are alike, it is not only possible but important to focus on the most common errors of LD college writers in order to learn how best to serve these students. There are in fact two main categories of these students: severely learning disabled and classically learning…

Discusses use of "mediated texts" as a classroom practice which meets requirements of "accommodation" for alternative demonstrations of competency in academic writing. Defines mediated texts, describes case studies which use these texts with deaf students who are basic writers; and shows connection between this heuristic and…

Although Mina Shaughnessy remains influential in the basic writing field, her answers to the vital questions of who basic writers are and why they underachieve as writers are changing. Whether she intended to or not, Shaughnessy's book "Errors and Expectations" (published in 1977) was a major force in forming an image of basic writers as…

Selected subtests from the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) were administered to three groups of university students. The groups included students with learning disabilities who received course substitutions for the institution's foreign language requirement, students with learning disabilities who…

This paper provides an overview of the Computers and Writing Instruction Project, a field-tested curriculum for teaching writing to learning-disabled students consisting of a process approach, word processing, and strategy instruction. Its scope and sequence are described and guidelines for establishing a writer's workshop in the classroom…

Describes a study of changes in attitudes and writing performance of learning-disabled (LD) college students resulting from a mainstream writing class employing a workshop format and microcomputer word processors. The LD students' performance level was consistent with the non-LD students in the class, and their writing attitudes improved. (DMM)