Accommodations

Accommodations

Strategies and Suggestions Related to Writing and Students
with Special Education Needs

The teacher may:

§ encourage oral discussion of the assignment before writing begins;

§ use direct instruction and modeling to encourage the use of a variety of pre-writing and organizational strategies (e.g., conferences, brainstorming, illustrating, tape recording, mapping, outlining, semantic webbing);

§ encourage the use of drawing or sketching as part of the planning process;
The Ontario Curriculum Unit Planner: Special Education Companion © Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2002

§ model and display examples for specific purposes in writing (e.g., letters, editorials, essays);

§ model and display various aspects of the writing process (e.g., mapping, outlining, revising);

§ develop strategies with the student that will help him or her move from the pre-writing stage
to sequencing ideas for writing (e.g., TOWER – Think, Organize, Write, Edit, Rewrite;
MAPS – McGill Action Planning System);

§ save the student use a computer for word processing, proofreading, and editing (e.g., to make use of spelling and grammar checkers);

§ provide, as appropriate, technology for speech recognition, word predication programs, and computerized organization tools such as Inspiration;

§ concentrate on teaching one writing skill at a time and assess accordingly;

§ encourage the student to write drafts, and suggest ways he or she can improve drafts;

§ provide frequent feedback on the student’s draft-writing abilities;

§ provide the student with opportunities for collaborative writing with peers;

§ have the student read his or her work aloud or on tape to help with self-editing;

§ teach the student to use electronic spellers, spell-checkers, dictionaries, and thesauruses, and make these available;

§ provide frequent opportunities for small writing assignments as an alternative to long writing assignments;

§ allow the student additional time to submit writing assignments and, where possible, help the student to “chunk” writing assignments for draft submissions;

§ negotiate the required length of appropriate deadlines for written assignments with the student;

§ provide the student with opportunities to submit alternatives to writing assignments (e.g., graphic representations, dramatic or media presentations, collages).
(taken from OCUP, 2002)

**See the links on this blog for many websites to support the use of specialized software in the classroom.

This internet based project can be used with students of all ability levels. Many students with special education needs already have their own or have access to specialized equipment to support their learning needs. Therefore, they will be allowed to use such equipment to support their learning in this area.

Mrs. Harwood