Explicitly and systematically teaching strategies for planning and drafting specific types of text has improved the writing of elementary and middle school students with disabilities in previous studies. In this investigation, we examined the effect of teaching a planning and drafting strategy for persuasive writing to high school students with…

The present study replicates and extends previous research regarding the effects of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) within a school wide positive behavior support model among students with writing difficulties who also had either internalizing or externalizing behavior patterns. Two multiple-probe designs, involving 13 second-grade…

An important goal in preventing writing disabilities is to provide effective early instruction to at-risk students to maximize their writing development. This study examined whether or not explicitly teaching six at-risk second-grade writers, including children with disabilities, how to plan and draft stories would improve their story writing as…

A study of three fifth-grade students with learning disabilities examined the effectiveness of a strategy deigned to help them become more reflective when writing opinion essays. Following the instruction, students wrote essays that were longer, provided more support for their premise, and were qualitatively better. (Author/CR)

This article about the poor writing of many students with learning disabilities suggests that a major cause is inadequate instruction and presents three principles of writing instruction: (1) frequent and meaningful writing; (2) developing, embellishing, and refining; and (3) a warm and supportive environment. (DB)

Writing development involves changes that occur in children's strategic behavior, knowledge, and motivation. The authors examined the effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD), a strategy instructional model designed to promote development in each of these areas. Instruction focused on planning and writing stories and persuasive…

The study with three sixth-grade learning-disabled students found that a self-instructional strategy to facilitate the generation, framing, and planning of argumentative essays had a positive effect on the students' writing performance and self-efficacy. Effects were maintained over time and transferred to a new setting and new writing genre.…

Effects on quantity and quality of student compositions of mechanical interference, rate of production, and contentless production signals to write more were studied for 24 learning-disabled (LD) fourth and sixth graders. Results indicate that LD students' writing problems are partly a result of difficulties with mechanics and sustaining…

The effects of dictation and explicit instruction in planning on the composing skills of 42 fifth, sixth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities were studied. The combination of dictation and instruction in advanced planning resulted in more complete and qualitatively better essays than those written by comparison students. (SLD)

Four fifth grade students with learning disabilities were taught a strategy to facilitate setting product and process goals, generating and organizing notes, continued planning during writing, and evaluating goal attainment. Strategy instruction had a positive effect on students' essay writing and knowledge of the writing process, and effects were…