The Power of AT: Empowering Students to Grow and Love Writing
By Kelsey Dadey - Lead Writing Specialist at Redwood Day
Imagine this: You’re in 6th grade, you have dyslexia, and you’ve just been told you have to plan, write, and revise a complete story called a CBM, or curricular based measure. In 3 minutes. Alone. Ready? Ok, go!
Seems pretty stressful, right? This is a lofty task that students are expected to complete multiple times a year, and to demonstrate growth in the number of words and syntax they use over time. I’ve taught writing using a variety of frameworks, and over time I’ve discovered a few undeniable truths:
Teaching writing is hard! Many people were trained to assign engaging writing activities, but were unaware of how to get students to those end-goals.
Learning to write is hard! It uses all of the brain: visual, auditory, memory, executive functioning, fine-motor…. The list goes on!
We at Redwood know, deep in our hearts, that our students need time and strategies to produce elaborated, organized pieces.
Our students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD thrive when provided clearly structured supports, which make them more independent at expressing their ideas.
The writing process is such an important system to teach students: from thinking and planning, to drafting, to revising and editing for voice and purpose. Yet, in quick-writes such as the Curriculum Based Measure (or CBM), students don’t really have the chance to work their way through the writing process. They’re expected to initiate writing on their own, organize their thoughts as they go, and write more content than they did last time.
So, in response to this very challenging task posed to students, teachers at Redwood Schools decided to switch things up.
Right before parent teacher conferences - our favorite time to celebrate growth - students were given back their original 3-minute, hand-written CBM. They read over their writing, reflected on what they already tried in their writing (hint: not much), and then were given time and instruction to revise. Teachers gave highly structured questions to students, like “What did it smell like?” and “How did people react?” Students took notes on a simple organizer, then got to work on sequencing when they would write these newfound sensory and writers’ choice details.
Then, the most magical part of all happened… Students took these new, structured, well-thought-out plans and plopped them alongside their Chromebooks and iPads. Students used the assistive technology that they felt most comfortable with. For some, they wanted to dictate the story using Google’s Microphone or Co:Writer’s Text to Speech. For others, they chose to apply what they knew about spelling and use Co:Writer’s Topic Dictionary and Predictive Text.
The results were truly outstanding!
Writing compositions went from basic run-ons with few vocabulary words, to organized and structured sentences with robust word choice.
Students tried strategies they wouldn’t have utilized when left to their own devices in the CBM, including using dialogue and sensory details.
The overall word-count went from an average of about 15 words written in 3 minutes, to 3x as much when students used Assistive Technology.
Writers were EXCITED to share their writing with their families!
While sharing their CBM versus revised piece, many students recognized errors and revised “on the fly!”
If ever you were wondering, “does AT work?” or “can all kids revise?”, hopefully this shows an unequivocal YES!