Introduction
Writing is one of the basic elements used in learning or education processes. Instructors use it as a basic method to evaluate their students; therefore, students without the ability to write well have difficulties in reading and passing examinations. Correct spelling of words and grammar usage are some of the essential skills in writing. Unfortunately, some students within the society lag behind in their education mainly because they have writing disabilities.
Dysgraphia is the common writing disability while other disorders include speech impairment, lack of attention, and deficiency in coordination, which occur during development. Luckily, sociologists, psychologists, and educationists are ever-devising ways of managing writing disabilities. The next discussion expounds the causes and characteristics of writing disabilities highlighting management strategies for a child suffering from the disorder.
Definition of writing disability
Learning disorder is among the defects, which interferes with the writing abilities of a person or a child. A person with learning disabilities will also present writing disabilities. Therefore, writing disability is the inability to distinguish and identify letters correctly; poor word coordination, spelling mistakes, grammar, reading, and poor mathematicians. Eventually, the student fails in the examination because of low level of memory, which leads to presentation of poor work.
Statistically, children with learning disabilities are hard to identify. However, a combination of observational skills from the instructor and assessment of their performance in both class work and extracurricular activities will lead to their identification. The next discussion gives the analysis on how to identify a child with writing disabilities.
Dysgraphia
Dysgraphia is the commonly known writing disability. A child or person suffering from this disability lacks both transcriptional and writing skills. Differentiation of words and lack of coherency in one’s writing is a clear indicator of the disability. However, a person who suffers from Dysgraphia may also be unable to perform other tasks, which involve the use of fingers.
Experts in special education classify Dysgraphia into three groups. Sociologists associate dyslexic Dysgraphia with both transcriptional skills and the inability to identify letters correctly. Although the handwriting may be legible, the sentences contain many grammatical errors. The solution is to give them thorough practice to improve their transcriptional skills.
Secondly, motor Dysgraphia occurs due to a defect in the motor neurones. Consequently, the person suffering from the same is unable to coordinate his/her fingers, which affects his/her writing ability.
The problem may arise due to either brain damage or through genetics. Finally, spatial Dysgraphia is whereby the individual is unable to allocate or arrange his/her work uniformly. Eventually, the person produces poorly arranged work, but the words have the correct spelling. Treatment of Dysgraphia is through the strategies expounded at the end of this paper.
Identification of writing disability in children
The first way to identify children with writing disabilities is through observation of their behaviour. Most children with writing disabilities tend to be under pressure to perform, which leads to stress, or depression. Due to frustration and underestimation from their fellow students, the children tend to withdraw from their social lives. They are always found in lonely places, unhappy and always seem dissatisfied. Some of them have low self-esteem because of their presentation as failures.
On the other hand, in case of inability to perform a difficult test, they may defend themselves to fulfil their ego while others may fake sickness to avoid attention or attending the class. Secondly, is through observation of their consistency in their academic performance or examinations. Normally, learning institutions use examination to assess the comprehension level of their students. A student with writing disability may not only fail the tests but also may be unable to answer any of the questions presented to him or her.
Thirdly, a child may love books, but eventually is unable to reproduce what he or she has gone through, which leads to failure. The inability to remember is due to poor memory; fortunately, parents, teachers, and guardians can assist their children through assessing their memory skills. Therefore, observation of both behavioural and class performance levels of children will enable a teacher to differentiate those with writing disabilities.
Sometimes diagnostic tools can enable an instructor to identify children with writing disabilities. For instance, the use of writing, oral, reading, and comprehension test to assess the student’s ability in writing. There are different tests like the Wood-Johnson III, Stanford, achievement tests, and Weschler individual Achievement test among others, which enable an instructor to evaluate the writing skill of children (MacArthur & Graham, 1987, p.42).
Sometimes the correlation of the IQ with the achievement level also assists in evaluating children writing skills. All the diagnosis process should include other age mates to ensure accuracy. All children within the same age bracket should be at the same level in their writing, reading, and comprehension levels.
Causes of writing disability
Although there are no clear causes of writing disability, some clinicians and psychologist relate the disorder to defects in the brain, ear or eyes while other relate it to problems with the nervous system. Automobile or any other form of trauma enacted on the brain may lead to deformities or defects. Occasionally, poor brain development during childhood also leads to writing disability. The brain is the centre of memory; therefore, any defect will undoubtedly interfere with a child’s learning or writing process.
The nervous system coordinates body movements while the sensory and motor neurons communicate with brain when a person is performing physical activities. A defect in both the brain and the nervous systems disrupts the physical ability of the hands, eyes and fingers, which eventually leads to writing disability. Due to disability in the hands and eyes, the child may be unable to organize his/her work. Furthermore, visual and speech impairment interferes with a child’s writing ability.
For instance, a stammer may be unable to communicate effectively because of fear or embarrassment. Most people always laugh at stammers, and this may instil fear in children especially when communication with their teachers. Eye defects lead to poor reading skills while hearing impairment reduces the learning ability because they cannot communicate with the instructor or teacher. Therefore, such individuals lack effective expression skills leading to writing disability.
In addition, writing disability may arise due to genetic identity or heredity. Children inherit different traits from their parents and writing disability is not an exception. Poor coordination and inversion of words are some of the writing traits a child may inherit, which lead to writing disability. Sometimes, defects in brain development arise due to genetic identification, and this may lead to writing disability.
Characteristics of writing disabilities
There are different characteristics of writing disabilities. The most common writing disabilities include inability to complete assignments on time, poorly done work, avoiding writing at all costs, and constantly failing in school. A student who has poor writing skills cannot perform any task, which involves writing. Poor letter and word coordination with inability to comprehend the relationship between them is an outstanding characteristic of writing disability.
The children also lack basic reading skills because of inability to comprehend words, letters, and sentences. Sociologists cite a deficiency in the transcription skills as another characteristic of writing disability (Graham, Harris, Fink-Chorzempa, & MacArthur, 2001, p.177). Due to poor memory, the affected children cannot integrate any assignment given to them, and this leads to failure. For example, computation activities like mathematics are some of the assignments, which a person with the disability is unable to perform.
According to Mason et al, the inability to comprehend the writing process plus difficulties in producing ideas and topics (2002, p.496) are some of the characteristics of writing disability. Composition writing requires a person to have creative skills; however, most of children with the disability cannot only devise a title for their paper, but also are unable to construct a sentence, which is free from errors.
The lack of planning skills during writing and reluctance in revising work after a writing assignment is also among the features of writing disabilities (Mason et al, 2002, p.496). Lack of motivation in class work, learning, and writing is one of the features a teacher may associate with the disability. If a child is aware of his or her problem, s/he will not solve it, but will avoid it, and this occurs commonly in children with disabilities in a bid to fulfil their ego.
Moreover, a child whose performance is not uniform in all subjects suffers from writing disability. While they can perform well in extracurricular or outdoor activities, they are unable to pass their English and mathematics papers. Reading and writing are the essential aspects in education, which the disability interferes with (Graham, Harris & Fink-Chorzempa, 2002, p.686). Nevertheless, a factor like the inability to follow the basic instructions both on paper and from the teacher may also lead to inconsistency in the performance.
However, the children may be reluctant to follow instructions because they are inattentive, and all directions by the teacher pass them unknowingly, hence failure. In all areas of learning strict adherent to the rules and regulations correlates with a good performance (Graham, Harris, & Fink-Chorzempa, 2002, p.690). Children with writing disability have a low span of attention mainly because of brain defects or lack of interest in the class activity, which is in progress.
When reading these children will have difficulties in mastering sequence of words presented in a sentence and this leads to incomprehension contributing to their failure. The coordination of hands and eyes is poor because of defects in the nervous system (Jones & Christensen, 1999, p. 45). Physically, hands and eyes are essential in education or learning activities especially during the writing process. The organization skill of children with writing disability is below average because of the unattractiveness of the work.
Management and treatment of the disorder
Treatment and management of writing disability involves various strategies. Strategies are ways, which psychologists have established to assist children to improve their writing skills. There are different schemes drawn to aid in writing as expounded next. The first scheme recommended by Mason et al is Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) (Harris, Graham, &Mason, 2003, p.3). SRSD strategy is efficient in solving reading, mathematics, and spelling problems.
The teacher maximizes on the student strengths and weakness to improve their performances (Kellogg, 1987, p.257). This strategy “combines the effective academic strategies with self-regulation measures such as, goal sitting, self instruction, self monitoring and self reinforcement” (Mason, Harris, Graham, 2002, p.496). There are several strategies within SRSD, which the instructor should follow to accomplish his or her aim.
The first step involves the introduction of the strategy to the child who is in the program (Mason et al, 2002, p.496). Prior to the initiation stage, the instructor should evaluate the performance background of the child. There is an application of two schemes P (pick an idea) O (organize) and W (write) and W (what)-W (how)-W (write) (Mason, Harris, Graham, 2002, p.496). Before accomplishment of the first step, the instructor should assess the child’s previous academic performance and establish or set a goal for the child.
The student should analyze and memorize the two strategies, POW and W-W-W and discuss with the teacher any challenges he or she faces in accomplishing them. Practical lessons in reading and writing will improve the performance ability of the child. The teacher can also assemble children with writing disability and assign them a group task. Through monitoring of their performance, the instructor will establish if their skills are improving or not. In case the child is not grasping the directions, then the instructor can use cue cards.
In step three, the student starts to practice the second strategy in the absence of the instructor. Using the given pictures, the student selects an idea and builds on it to form a story. Through the application of the aforementioned strategies, the teacher should allow students to write a detailed story. While giving instructions, the instructor should be loud and clear to ensure the child comprehends the instructions. Eventually the student should construct his or her own instructions and recite the previous instructions.
The next step should be collaboration between the teacher and student. Both of them should work to write a story while strictly adhering to the previous steps. The age of the child and the level of their writing, skills are critical at this stage. At this level, a child may either skip or repeat words, letters, or sentences; nevertheless, the teacher can rectify the problem by making them redo the exercise until they perform well (MacArthur & Graham, 1987, p.27).
After excelling the fourth step the student proceeds to the next level, which involves the use of graphs in the writing process. Initially, the teacher guides the student during the practice, but as they get deeper into the exercise, the instructor withdraws leaving the student to be independent. Through self-motivation and keenness, the student should improve at this level. The sixth step involves independent performance whereby the student writes without assistance from cards, graphs and the instructor. Age is critical in this strategy.
Experiment on the SRSD model
Harris and Graham introduced the planning-strategy instruction as away to improve the writing ability of children who are below average (2005, p.27). However, they also apply the SRSD model to improve the writing abilities of poor students. While Graham and Harris practically test the effectiveness of the SRSD model, Mason et al. give the essential elements and methodology of the model.
The experiment involved locating children who perform poorly mainly because of the inadequacy in instructional tools and ineffectiveness on the part of the instructors. Harris and Graham conducted their research in four schools located in the urban school. The number of children under the study was 73 (in grade three), from mixed races although the black were the majority. In the planning strategy, there were three groups of children each with different conditions (Harris and Graham, 2005, p.27).
The first group had SRSD exclusively while group two SRSD with peer support and a third group used the renowned method of instruction called the writer’s workshop (Pritchard 1997, p.10). Before commencing the program, all the children had to write narratives, which included persuasive, personal, or informative essays (McCutchen, 1988, p. 308), after which the instructors analyzed their performance.
After the exercise, the children under SRSD condition learned writing skills using the strategy POW while the control group used their common writing program (writer’s workshop). All the groups spend at least six hours a week under the supervision of an instructor. A week later the students who were under investigation used POW to write their stories without assistance from the instructor. Harris and Graham realized that students who were using SRSD model performed better than those with writer’s workshop model did.
The second time the student under instruction used both the POW and TREE strategies to learn the writing skills. They learned how to write persuasive essays, and the step lasted five hours. After the treatment, the students who participated in an independent writing exercise but under SRSD model produced better results (well-constructed and complete essays) when compared to their counterparts who were under control conditions.
In the second and third level of investigation, Harrison and Graham randomly chose second grade students with poor writing skills or struggling writers. The second group had six students while the third group had sixty-six students. In the second and third study, the students were younger than in the first study. All the conditions were similar to those in the first study. The students received SRSD treatment. However, the class teacher had to assess the writing skills of students under the study before and after exercise.
The second difference is that, the external instructor had to teach the students while in their classrooms. After instructing them using the SRSD model, and the writer’s workshop (control), the children under SRSD model produced positive results than those in the control. However, in comparison to study one, the essays of the students in the second and third study had low quality.
Therefore, due to the difference in age, the younger students were unable to integrate and comprehend the sophisticated instructional method applied by the SRSD mode (Mason et al 2002, p. 496). Depending on the age, the younger students should have more exercise and practice to meet the requirements of the SRSD model.
In the final study, both teachers and students participated in the program. Although the number of students differed from the previous studied, the teachers had to assess their students before and after the program and give their reports. After the exercise, most of the teachers accepted that the SRSD model is easier and effective than the writer’s workshop model, which has been running in schools for more than twenty years.
Conclusively, Graham and Harris recommended a change in the instruction method in schools, where students produced poor results. An explicit and systemic method of instruction like SRSD model instils both excellent writing and transcription skills (Meyer & Booker, 1991 p.80).
Conclusion
In brief, writing disability in students correlates with poor performance. Parents, guardians, and teachers should carefully assess their students to rate them on their writing skills. Secondly, teachers/parents should observe the behavioural changes of their children especially when in class to make sure all of them are comfortable in their class work. Psychologists and special educators recommend the use of SRSD model as the method of instruction exclusively in the lower grades.
References
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Fink-Chorzempa, B. (2002). Contributions of Spelling Instruction to the Spelling, Writing, and Reading of Poor Spellers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 669–686.
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., Fink-Chorzempa, B., & Macarthur, C. (2001). Teacher Efficacy in Writing: A Construct Validation with Primary Grade Teachers. Scientific Study of Reading, 5, 177–202.
Graham S., & Harris, K. (2005). Improving the Writing Performance of Young Struggling Writers: Theoretical and Programmatic Research from the Centre on Accelerating Student Learning. Journal of Special Education, 39(1), 19-33
Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Mason, L. (2003). Self-Regulated Strategy Development In The Classroom: Part of a Balanced Approach to Writing Instruction For Students with Disabilities. Focus On Exceptional Children, 35, 1–16.
Jones, D., & Christensen, C. (1999). The Relationship between Automaticity In Handwriting and Students’ Ability to Generate Written Text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 44–49.
Kellogg, R. (1987). Effects of Topic Knowledge on the Allocation of Processing Time And Cognitive Effort To Writing Processes. Memory & Cognition, 15, 256–266.
Macarthur, C., & Graham, S. (1987). Learning Disabled Students’ Composing With Three Methods: Handwriting, Dictation, and Word Processing. Journal of Special Education, 21, 22–42.
Mason, L. H., Harris, K. R., & Graham, S. (2002). Every Child Has a Story to Tell: Self Regulated Strategy Development For Story Writing. Education & Treatment of Children (ETC), 25(4), 496.
Mccutchen, D. (1988). “Functional Automaticity” In Children’s Writing: A Problem Of Metacognitive Control. Written Communication, 5, 306–324.
Meyer, M., & Booker, J. (1991). Eliciting and Analyzing Expert Judgement: A Practical Tour. London: Academic Press