Written Expression Handwriting

1. Written Expression Handwriting Sasha is a 1st grader. His handwriting is not legible. The 1st grade classroom uses a D’Nealean handwriting system. He is continually mixing up his b d p q letters and many letters are backwards. His pencil grip is awkward. He usually will not write during writer’s workshop. Sasha’s teacher worked with the Occupational Therapist assigned to the school. The OT suggested that she do the Handwriting without Tears Screener to determine is baseline. The screener indicated a problem with memory and orientation. The problem solving team made up of the OT and the General Education teacher decide to implement direct handwriting instruction. Each day the teacher is going to dedicated 15 min of instruction during center time in the classroom focusing on pencil grip, posture and letter formation. A modified D’Nealean is going to be used. 6 other students who could improve their handwriting will join the group. All students will have additional handwriting homework. After three cycles or 6 weeks of additional small group instruction, it was decided that they needed to adjust the instruction. The OT observed the lesson and made suggestions for adjustments for Sasha. Additional multisensory instruction was added with focus just on the capitol letters as they all start at the same place on the paper. Two lined paper was used only and the pencil size was adjusted with a pencil grip. Sasha’s additional data on the screener was… Progress Monitoring 4: Memory 64 Orientation 32 Progress Monitoring 5: Memory 64 Orientation 33 Progress Monitoring 6: Memory 66 Orientation 33 See the graph of progress on the next page The teacher decided to progress monitor using the Handwriting without Tears (HwT) screener. This is given every other week. Sasha’s initial results for the memory and orientation portions of the HwT Screener were… Base Line Screen: Memory 49 Orientation 23 Progress Monitoring 1: Memory 52 Orientation 22 Progress Monitoring 2: Memory 54 Orientation 30 Progress Monitoring 3: Memory 49 Orientation 28 1st grade target score for memory is 98 and for Orientation is 95 Specific Learning Disability

2. Handwriting Progress Monitoring Adjustment to Instruction Specific Learning Disability

3. Written Expression Spelling Spike is a 3rd grader who is an excellent reader but has struggled with transferring decoding skills to spelling. His teacher is concerned and presents him to his grade level data team for discussion. The team shared that they have about 7 children who struggle with basic spelling skills. They decide to do a Words their Way spelling screeners and discover that all the students are in the late letter naming stage. They should be in the late within word pattern stage.. They decide that one of the teachers will take all 7 of the students and work through the Words their Way curriculum for 30 min a day with additional center times and homework tasks for an additional 30 minutes a day. After three cycles or 6 weeks of additional small group instruction, it was decided that they needed to adjust the instruction. All but two of the students were able to increase their levels and graduated from the intervention group. The teacher started to take a different approach using the words their way word sorts and lists. Rather than relying on a discovery approach for the patterns, the teacher would provide direct instruction of the patterns and then allow for discovery in the work stations. Sasha’s additional data on the screener was… Progress Monitoring 4: 27/64 feature points Progress Monitoring 5: 38/64 feature points Progress Monitoring 6: 41/64 feature points See the graph of progress on the next page The intervention teacher for the spelling groups decides to use the Words their way (WTW) primary spelling inventory every two weeks to determine if they are making progress. Spikes results were… Base Line Screen: 13/64 feature points Progress Monitoring 1: 13/64 feature points Progress Monitoring 2: 16/64 feature points Progress Monitoring 3: 19/64 feature points 3rd grader should have 41/64 feature points for Late Within Word Pattern stage Specific Learning Disability

4. Spelling Progress Monitoring Specific Learning Disability

5. Written Expression Israel is a 8th grader who has scored unsatisfactory on all writing benchmarks and tcap assessments for the past three years. Handwriting and spelling are not issues for him. He struggles with translation of oral grammar into written grammar. The English teacher noticed that there was a lot of students in his class who wrote how they talked and seemed to be unaware of the need for grammar application in their writing. This teacher decides to do a small group instruction with this group of students on grammar. He teaches parts of speech, phrases and clauses, sentence types and basic paragraph structure. Israel is a part of this group. Each week all students do a short constructed response to a topic. The English teacher goes back and tries a second round of intervention. This time he implements the two grammar strategies and uses the Writing CBM. Since Spelling is not a concern he only looked at the Total Words Written and the Correct Writing Sequence. For an 8th grader their CWS should be 56 and their TWW should be 64. Baseline Probe: TWW -12- gap 5.3; CWS-5- gap 11.2 Probe 1: TWW- 15- gap 4.2; CWS -9- gap 6.2 Probe 2: TWW- 19- gap 3.3; CWS- 14- gap 4.0 Probe 3: TWW- 17- gap 3.7; CWS- 12- gap 4.6 Probe 4: TWW- 22- gap 2.9; CWS- 18- gap 3.1 Probe 5: TWW- 25; gap 2.6; CWS- 17- gap 3.2 Probe 6: TWW- 25; gap 2.6;CWS- 20- gap 2.8 The teachers using a writing rubric to grade the responses. He just looks at Israel's Mechanics score on the writing rubric. This is a four point rubric. He has scored a 1 on all of the responses for the first four weeks of writings. Frustrated, he approaches the special educator with suggestions on what he can do. After reviewing the responses, the special educator suggests that the teacher uses a writing CBM. Israel's writing did show improvement but the writing rubric is not a sensitive enough tool to reflect the growth. The special education teacher also suggests some progress grammar strategies such as sentence combining and sentence codings. Specific Learning Disability

6. Written Expression Gap 2.0 Or higher Significant Specific Learning Disability