Writing strategies encourage beginning writers to collect, explore, and focus ideas. This paper presents a rationale for fusing the word processor with the writing process and offers a series of pre-writing strategies, such as brainstorming, clustering and chunk writing, to help learning-disabled writers begin writing. (Author/PB)

A middle school classroom teacher and a college instructor describe an activity in which 14 students in a sixth-grade special education class corresponded with college students enrolled in a language arts methods course. The middle school students were excited about writing and motivated to do their best, and their writing grew in complexity,…

Ideas are presented for enhancing written expression programs for learning-disabled students. The ideas include, among others, creating a writing center in the classroom; encouraging students to share their writing with the teacher and classmates; capitalizing on such student interests as personal correspondence, a journal, and important…

By employing techniques learned through special education research together with the process approach to teaching writing, the composition teacher can help the ever-increasing number of learning disabled (LD) students in the developmental writing class to improve their writing. Using the process approach, LD students first concentrate on gathering…

Fourteen holistic, meaning-based reading and writing activities appropriate for students with learning disabilities are described, along with the theoretical background of the paradigm. As children experiment, approximate, and discover language naturally and socially, their immersion in authentic spoken and written language facilitates learning to…

This article reviews recent projects using text structures and the writing process as frameworks to guide the composition dialogue. Learning-disabled students' attitudes toward writing as a required skill rather than a means of expression are confronted in the emphasis on dialogue. Several blank forms for organizing prewriting thoughts are…

This action research study examined what writing strategy, process writing approach, free, or informal writing, was the most effective with students with learning disabilities. Five students (ages 13-15) in a self-contained eighth grade language arts class were observed while they learned the three different writing strategies. The process writing…

A successful expository writing program (1) should develop basic writing ability and fluency, (2) should convey to students that they are informants in a communicative context that includes writers and readers, and (3) should foster student control of the writing process including thinking and organizational strategies (such as planning,…

Written by teachers of elementary school students, the 30 articles in this collection are designed to provide insights into the way children learn to write and to encourage teachers to examine their own theories and perceptions of writing and writing instruction. The articles are grouped in six sections, covering beginning writing, collaborative…