SRSD: Self- Regulated Strategy Development

SRSD:Self- Regulated Strategy Development RLA 514 Spring 2009

Why Use SRSD? • Proven successful (research based) for students with ADHD and LD SRSD has a strong impact on improving writing performance of upper elementary and middle school students In a study done with younger students: story length grew, wrote more complete stories, increased planning time, quality improved (not as widely studied) • Data (National Assessment of Educational Progress): 3 out of 4: 4th, 8th, 12th grade students demonstrated partial mastery of necessary writing skills and knowledge and 1 in 100 demonstrated advanced writing skills • Research indicates that as students develop effective strategies for planning and revising text and learn to self –regulate their writing, they exhibit more sophisticated writing • Strategy instruction helps students enrich and upgrade their skills as writers by teaching them new or different ways to formulate and structure their writing • Strategy instruction provides the young writer with several different levels of support Why Teach Strategies to Regulate the Writing Process? • They are general strategies that can be applied to a variety of academic tasks and situations • Self- regulation strategies, when combined with other strategies, enable a student to develop and execute a plan to independently accomplish a desired task • Self-regulation strategies contribute to students’ overall cognitive development • Teaching students to use these skills can increase their level of motivation and engagement with writing • Self-regulation skills provide students with the tools they need to start the composing process • Strategies can be personalized and individualized to meet the needs of every student no matter what grade or level

Why is Strategy Instruction and Self- Regulation a Good Idea? • Teachers can help students increase their confidence and competence in the processes central to effective writing • Teachers provide students with ongoing help in developing more mature and sophisticated strategies for composing • Teachers help students increase their knowledge about writing and the writing process Advantages • Students become empowered as they develop strong tools for writing • Students personalize these tools and make them their own • Students learn how to modify the tools to be used across tasks and settings • Assists students in developing knowledge about themselves • Teaching peer collaboration strategies contributes to the development of a social atmosphere in which students work together • Students can be taught strategies to help them with written assignments for any class • Students level of motivation and engagement in the writing process increases because students develop more positive attitudes towards writing and themselves

Stages of Instruction • SRSD approach requires the teacher to play an active, facilitative role in the development of writing abilities, through activities such as conferencing, modeling, prompting, and dialoguing • The level of structured guidance is tailored to each student and is gradually decreased as students master the writing process • The six stages provide a general format and you may return to any stage at any time and modify, reorder, or combine at your discretion • The goals of SRSD are: • Assist student in mastering the higher level cognitive processes involved in the planning, production, revising, and editing of written language • Help students further develop the capability to monitor and manage their own writing • Aid students in the development of positive attitudes about writing and themselves as writers

Stage 1: Develop and Activate Background Knowledge • Background knowledge and preskills (vocab, concepts, etc) needed for learning or using the composition or self-regulation strategies are developed • Background knowledge and preskill development activities depend upon the learner and the knowledge and skills to be developed • Knowledge and preskills should be developed enough to move on to the next stage Stage 2: Discuss It • Teacher and student collaborate to determine what strategy or set of strategies will be targeted for development or the teacher can select a strategy for instruction • The significance and benefit of the strategies or set of strategies is discussed as well as the goals of the strategy instruction • This stage helps establish motivation as well as enables a student to make a commitment to strategy mastery and to participate as a collaborator • Teacher describes the composing strategy (such as recursive steps in prewriting or revision) explaining each step and any mnemonics involved in its use and also the advantages and benefits of the strategy • How and when to use the strategy is also discussed

Stage 3: Model It • Teacher or peer models the composing strategy and selected types of self-instructions (to be discussed later on) while writing an actual compositition • Modeling must be natural and enthusiastic and should be matched to a student’s verbal style and language • After the modeling is done a discussion should be held about what people say to themselves while they work and what self-instructions the modeler used • Each student should then create their own lists of self-instructions • Modeling is such a powerful procedure because the model’s performance can be individualized to meet the needs of a particular student or group of students Stage 4: Memorize It • Students are required to memorize the steps in the composing strategy and the meaning of any mnemonics used either to represent the strategy steps or some part of the steps • Very important stage for students who experience learning or writing difficulties • Once students memorize the strategy can be paraphrased as long as the meaning stays in tact

Stage 5: Support It • Teachers support students’ strategy use • Additional self- regulation procedures such as goal setting, self- monitoring, and self- reinforcement can be discussed, determined, and initiated (more later) • Students use the strategy, self instructions, and other self- regulation procedures as they write • Teacher provides as much support and assistance as needed and may write collaboratively with some students • Prompts, interaction, and guidance are faded at a pace appropriate to the individual Stage 6: Independent Performance • Use of self- instructions in your head is emphasized • Use strategies independently • Self- regulation strategies are continued but can be gradually faded at teacher discretion • Teacher and student discuss and evaluate strategy effectiveness and performance Notes: • Stages do not necessarily correspond to individual lessons • Teachers and students should take as many class periods as necessary to complete any given lesson • Teachers reported that most students take between 4 and 9 class periods to learn a strategy well enough to use it independently

Characteristics of Effective Strategy Instruction • Collaboration Teacher provides as needed support to students until they are able to execute, monitor, and modify strategies on their own • Individualization Strategies and instruction should be tailored to a students’ capabilities Students need to develop their own self- instructions in their own words Students need to progress through the stages of strategy acquisition at their own pace If a student masters the strategy quicker then their peers, they can be tutors • Mastery- based Instruction Students should not proceed from one stage to the next until they are ready to do so Teachers may return to any stage at any time with the criteria for progression set higher as the student recycles through the stages • Anticipatory Instruction Generalization and maintenance of strategies should be planned for and initiated from the very beginning of instruction Think ahead to avoid or be ready for difficulties as they arise even if they’re not just the ones you anticipated

Booster sessions are an important form of “relapse prevention” and can consist of the following elements • Reviewing or renewing self- regulation procedures such as goal setting or self- monitoring • Reviewing the strategies mastered • Collaborative practicing of strategies mastered • Collaborative problem solving regarding and problems the students have experienced with a strategy or adaptations of strategy across the curriculum • Discussing successful experiences with strategy • Any other appropriate activity that is determined by teacher or students • Enthusiastic Teachers Working Within a Support Network Enthusiastic, responsive teaching is an integral part of strategy instruction If many teachers within a school or district implement strategy instruction, the impact on students will be greater • Developmental Enhancement In order to teach a strategy well, a teacher needs to help students see the significance of the strategy as well as its strengths and weaknesses

Brainstorming: A Planning Strategy For Generating Writing Material • Designed to help students generate ideas and content to write about • Have students “brainstorm” ideas in advance of writing* Listing possible words or ideas to use in a paper provides students with a means for carrying out a self- directed memory search Make sure the words help to improve the quality of the words they write • It has been well documented that the type and variety of vocab that a student uses in their writing is a powerful indicator of teachers’ evaluations of writing quality • Making sense and developing a good storyline is emphasized throughout • Students first learn strategy when “brainstorming” action verbs to use in their story. After they can do this successfully they use it to create adverbs and then adjectives • 5 steps of the strategy • Think of a good story idea • Write down good words for my story • Write story more good words? • using good words and make sure it makes sense • Read back over story and ask myself- did I write a good story? • Fix my story- can I use more good words?

What the Strategy Looks Like • Stage 1: Develop Background Knowledge • Charts that provide a definition and examples can be used to introduce students to the types of words they will “brainstorm” • Example Chart- it’s okay to call a verb, adjective, or adverb a simpler name if it helps your students • Stage 2: Discuss It • Students’ performance on previous stories is examined and depicted on a graph the students keeps in their writing folder • Discuss that their goal is write better stories, why it is important and how using good words improves a story • Discuss the strategy as well as the advantages of the strategy and when and how to use it • Teacher shares how they brainstorm using self- verbalizations (i.e. take my time or let my mind be free) • Students can then share their own ways and then write some down and then practice anytime they are useful • Stage 3: Model It Once the teacher models the strategy, students identify things the teacher said to get started, to write the story, and evaluate the story. Then they write down the things they would like to use to help them write (should be written in their own words)

Stage 4: Memorize it • Memorize the steps of the strategy • Stage 5: Support It • Goal- setting, self- assessment, and self- recording are introduced • Students set goals for how many action words they will include in their story about to be composed • After the story is completed, the number of action words is counted and compared to the goal established. Students then record their performance on the graph developed earlier. When goals is met, students are encouraged to set new one(s). • Students continue self- regulation procedures • Stage 6: Independent Performance • At first students will need help in setting realistic goals for their papers

TREE • Mnemonic used for writing opinion essays • Strategy prompts the author to evaluate and reflect on the quality of supporting ideas before they are committed to paper • Note TOPIC sentence • Note REASONS • EXAMINE reasons- will my reader buy this? • Note ENDING SPACE • Mnemonic used for story writing • Note SETTING • Note PURPOSE • Note ACTION • Note CONCLUSION • Note EMOTIONS

Basic Three- Step Strategy • Think- who will read this? Why am I writing this? • Plan what to say • Write and say more Step 1: Students consider the purpose for completing the paper and the audience. This helps the student set some general goals for what the paper will accomplish. Step 2: The student uses a series of genre- specific prompts (TBD) or a structural frame (TREE or SPACE) to generate, organize, and evaluate possible of planning while writing Step 3: A reminder to the student to use the plans already devised and to continue the process of planning while writing • After learning to use the 3 step strategy students’ papers were longer and they produced more convincing arguments. Students; confidence in their writing skills increased

PLANS: Planning Strategy Involving GoalSetting • PICK goals (one or more) • LIST ways to meet goals • AND make • NOTES • SEQUENCE notes • Write and say more • Test goals Goal Ideas: • General purpose of the paper (write a paper that will be fun to read • Completeness of the paper (write a story that has all the basic parts • Length (write a paper with 10 sentences or 5 paragraphs) • Specific attributes (write a paper that has 5 reasons to support your opinion) • Vocabulary (write a story containing 15 describing words) • Sentence variety (write a paper in which ¼ of the sentences are either compound or complex) • Mechanics (write a paper with no spelling errors) • NOTE: Goals that are product based are easier because they can be individualized and it is possible to determine if the goal has been mastered • Strategy can be used with a variety of writing assignments • Can use PLANS worksheet that has all the steps written out and students can fill it out * • Can use a pre-made sheet for younger students to pick goals *

Report Writing Strategy • Brainstorm what you know and what you want to learn • Organize your information on a web • Gather new information and revise your web • Use the web as you write • Keep planning as you write • Check the web: did you write what you wanted to? • In the first step students should brainstorm words and phrases, not complete sentences • When students web, main ideas should be circled and details are listed next to the corresponding main idea. A question mark is placed next to any item a students wants to learn more about.* Webbing is an active process: students should add, delete, transform, and organize ideas continuously • As students gather info they should ask themselves: What do I want to know? What is the main point of this section? Is this information on my web? • When students are ready to write, numbering the order in which topics are to be presented helps the web become an outline to guide the writing process • One of the hardest things about learning this strategy is that students have a difficult time transforming and organizing the gathered information into main ideas and details *After learning the strategy, students’ papers were longer, better organized, and more informative

SCAN: A Revising Strategy • Students do very little revising and when they do it is usually just proofreading • Read the first draft of your essay • Find the sentence that tells what you believe- is it clear? • Add two more reasons why you believe it • Scan each sentence: • Does it make SENSE? • Is it CONNECTED to my belief? • Can I ADD more? • NOTE errors • Make my changes What The Strategy Looks Like Stage 1: Develop Background Knowledge and Stage 2: Discuss It Students learn the basic parts of an essay including how to define, identify, and generate each part Stage 3: Model It The process for locating text problems needs to be made clear Examples that could be used: “As I say this out loud it doesn’t sound right or something is missing” “The rule for starting a sentence is to use a capital, but this sentence doesn’t have one” Stage 5: Support It Teacher needs to give feedback on the quality of the changes made as well as provide suggestive prompts when they are unable to locate a serious text problem or are having difficulty correcting one • After using this strategy, students made anywhere from 2 to 5 times as many revisions. 3 out of 5 of these revisions changed the text in some meaningful way

Peer Revising Strategy • Teachers need to be accepting and encouraging of students’ writing efforts • Teachers should try to develop a sense of community in their classrooms by promoting student sharing and by facilitating collaboration among students • Peer response is effective for improving students’ revising skills because it makes the audience an integral part of the process • Strategy has 2 parts: • Revise Listen to the writer and read along Tell what the paper is about and what you liked best Read and make notes- Is everything clear? Can any details be added? Discuss your suggestions with the author • Proofread Check your paper and correct errors Exchange papers and check for errors in sentences, capitals, punctuation, spelling Discuss corrections • Students are asked to make at least 3 suggestions for things the writer could say more about; the suggestions are written directly on the paper • Students are encouraged to make suggestions on how the recommendations can be fixed

Students use the following checklist to help edit the paper (for lower grades, checklist questions can be modified and added to for older students) • Sentences: read each sentence. Is it complete? • Capitals: Are the first letters of each sentence capitalized? Are proper nouns capitalized? • Punctuation: Is there punctuation at the end of the sentence? • Spelling: Circle words you are not sure of. Check spelling with your word list, spell checker, or dictionary. • When choosing partners students should be compatible and able to work cooperatively without too much off task behaviors. Students should also be reasonably similar in their writing skills. What The Strategy Looks Like Stage 1: Develop Background Knowledge and Stage 2 Discuss It Role of revision in the writing process needs to be discussed Reasons why we revise and edit (make sure it makes sense) Stage 3 Model It and Stage 5: Support It Have two writers model the strategy for the whole class or show students a video that models the strategy Teacher should emphasize that partners’ feedback should be given in a positive manner Students need to practice both roles Students may need a lot of guidance at first with the editor role

C-D-O Revising Strategy • Created to help beginning writers orchestrate the complex processes underlying revising • COMPARE • Read the first sentence • DIAGNOSE • Pick a blue card • This doesn’t sound right • I am getting away from the main point • People may not understand this part • People may not buy this part • This is good • Tell why you picked the blue card • OPERATE • Pick a yellow card • Leave this part out • Say more • Say it in a different way • Leave it the same • Make your change • Go to the next sentence • Students should eventually be able to revise without the cards. • Once students reach Independent Performance, they should be able to make revisions that affect the text as a whole • Students using this strategy are better able to spot problems in their papers, make more revisions, and increase the number of revisions that make a positive change in the text.

Using Teacher Created Strategies • Teachers need to help students adapt and upscale the writing strategies they use so they are responsive to their growth as writers and the changing demands of the curriculum across subjects and grades • Students need to develop a rich repertoire of strategies on which they can draw • Teachers should use the strategies presented as a framework for deciding what planning, revising, and management strategies should be taught to students • You can also create your own strategies. Some suggestions are: • A strategy should consist of a small number of steps so it can easily be remembered or mastered. A rule of thumb: no more then 3 to 6 steps depending on age and capabilities of students • When creating each step, be brief and use the students’ language. • Develop a mnemonic for the steps. It can be a word, phrase, or sentence. • Design a strategy so that it can be modified to be easier or more challenging. • When possible, refine or extend strategies the student already uses. • Involve students in the development, piloting, and evaluation of strategies as much as possible.

Self-Speech/Self-Instructions • Self- speech develops naturally among children • Gradually, a student develops the ability to use self-speech to plan, direct, and evaluate his or her own activities • Until the age of 6 or 7 most self- speech is out loud after this age, it should decrease and become internal because as their cognitive capabilities increase they realize its not okay to talk to yourself out loud in front of people • Self- instructions is self- speech used to regulate a student’s own behavior they can help: • A student stop and think • Help student deal with anxiety or frustration • Help focus a student’s thinking Six types of Self- instructions*

Don’t worry about making a statement “fit” a category. Focus more on whether students are profiting from the statements or not. • With younger students don’t worry about labeling them, instead make up your own names like “Things to get me started” or “Things to say while I work”. • Students should develop the types and levels of self- instructions that fit their needs and interests • Modeling of the self- instructions is critical in helping students use them effectively • Once they use them effectively, students can learn how to generalize them to other situations • Students can be taught to use one or more self- instructions alone or in combination • The more severe a writer’s problems are, the more complex instruction becomes • Self- instructions need to be matched to the student’s verbal style and language level

Goal- Setting • Supplies a means for making a complex problem like writing a term paper more manageable and less overwhelming • By defining what the paper will look like or accomplish, writers provide greater structure and focus on what they want to accomplish while at the same time limiting the possible solutions that can be used to complete the exercise. • Why is goal setting effective? • Goals enhance human motivation • Goals allow an individual to compare their present performance against the standard embodied in the goal • Goal setting provides an incentive to perform and promotes pride in accomplishment Properties of Goals • Specificity- supply a specific and clear standard of achievement (results in better performance) • Difficulty- goals should be challenging • Proximity- goals can be close at hand and completed quickly or completed farther in the future How can teachers foster students’ goal acceptance and commitment? • Being supportive is vital • Teachers should listen to students’ opinions about their goals, encourage questions, and ask students what they plan to do to meet their goals • Goals are more likely to be accepted if they have a high expectation for achieving them and are valuable

SCHEME • Skill Check • Choose Goals • Hatch Plans • Execute Plans • Monitor Plans • Edit • This step is to complete an inventory of how the student is presently doing to make informed decisions regarding selection of goals • Students can choose goal(s) from a list and then discuss with teacher whether it is a good goal(s) • The strategies or action plan the student will use to meet each goal are specified

Self- Monitoring/Self- Assessment/Self- Recording • Self- Monitoring occurs when a student determines whether or not, or how often or for how long, a specific behavior has occurred and the self- records in some way. • Self- Assessment involves determining whether or not, how often, or for how long an event or behavior has occurred • At first students and teacher should decide what will be self- assessed and the criteria for acceptable performance • Some writing products that may be self- assessed are: Fluency Number of good story parts Amount of time spent writing Number of elaborations • You can also use a checklist with younger students* • Self- recording involves having students record whether or not, how often, or for how long the selected behavior or event occurs • Individual graphs or charts are frequently used for self- recording because the present a picture of the students’ performance over time and allow the student to see improvement

Self- monitoring can be taught in 15- 20 min • Step 1- determine and define explicitly what the student will self- monitor (should be a behavior or even a student can easily understand) • Step 2- information is gathered on the students’ current performance on the behavior or event to be self- assessed • Step 3- teacher briefly explains rationale and purpose for self- monitoring and the benefits • Step 4- when the purpose of self- monitoring is clear, the teacher instructs the student in the procedure involved: What will be self- assessed What criteria are desirable How to count and record the targeted aspect of writing When self- monitoring is to occur • After outlining the steps, the teacher models them, verbalizing what is done at each step. Then the students talk the teacher through the steps and then the student models the steps independently • Remember that self- monitoring is not a learning strategy and that the student must be able to perform the writing process for self- monitoring to work • Self- monitoring should not be combined with rewards because students have a tendency to cheat or inflate their scores

Self- Reinforcement • Occurs when a student chooses and administers reinforcers to themselves whenever a criterion for performance has been reached (this often has greater effects then teacher reinforcement • Self reinforcement involves: • Determining the standards for earning a reward • Selecting the reinforcer to be earned • Evaluating performance • Self- administering the reinforcer • Students can gradually assume responsibility for these components depending on their age and capabilities • Teachers need to monitor what students set for standards because some students will make them too easy while other will make them to difficult to reach

Planning for Success • Strategy instruction must be in line with the student’s chronological age, cognitive capacity, and development • Strategies stated are for fourth grade and above, but some students below fourth grade may be ready to use them especially with modifications • When students believe their difficulties are due to factors beyond their control, they typically make less effort, use less sophisticated strategies then they are capable of, and perform below their capabilites. In order to stop this: A strategy must be chosen that is powerful and appropriate to the student’s developmental level, needs, and interests Writing tasks and goals must be appropriate to the student The teacher needs to help the student gradually develop more positive, adaptive attributions and expectancies

Evaluating • A newly developed strategy needs to be more closely assessed than a strategy that repeatedly has been shown to be effective in the past • Students should be included as partners in the evaluation process- increases sense of ownership • Students should be encouraged to evaluate their own progress during instruction by asking: • Am I ready to move to the next step? • Think back- what went right today? • Do I need to do anything different? • Do I need to ask the teacher or a friend for help? • Determining what should be assessed is dependent on the particular strategy being taught • To assess improvement in the quality of a students’ writing, it is helpful to keep a writing file of work done before, during, and after strategy mastery • These types of portfolios are: • Biography of work-portray stages and development of a piece • Collection of a variety of works (stories, essays, letters, poems, etc) • Collection that facilitates and captures students’ reflections on their own work • By keeping portfolios, students learn to engage in reflective self-evaluation and to see their development as writers as a long term activity

Resources • Chalk, Jill C., Hagan-Burke, Shanna, & Burke, Mack D. (Winter 2005). The effects of self- regulated strategy development on the writing process for high school students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly. 28.1, 75. • Harris, Karen R. & Graham, Steve. (1996). Making the Writing Process Work: Strategies for Composition and Self- Regulation. Massachusetts: Brookline Books. • Helsel, Lisa & Greenberg, Daphne. (May 2007). Helping struggling writers succeed: a self-regulated strategy instruction program: the Self- Regulated Strategy Development model can help teachers incorporate self- regulatory training into their writing program. The Reading Teacher. 60.8, 752 • Reid, Robert & Lienemann, Torri Ortiz. (Fall 2006). Self- regulated strategy development for written expression with students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Exceptional Children. 73.1, 53. • Saddler, Bruce. (Fall 2006). Increasing story writing ability through self- regulated strategy development: effects on young writer with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly. 29.4, 291.

Other Resources • Baker, Scott K, Ketterlin-Gellar, Leanne, Chard, David J., Apichatabutra, Chanisa, & Doabler, Christian. Teaching writing to at-risk students: the quality of evidence for self-regulated strategy development. Exceptional Children. (Spring 2009). 75.3, 303 • Reid, Robert (2006). Strategy Instruction for Students with Disabilites. Guilford Press • Wong, Bernice Y.L. (ed). 1992. Contemporary Intervention Research in Learning Disabilities: an International Perspective. Springer • Mason Linda H., Harris, Karen R. &Graham, Steve. Every child has a story to tell: self- regulated strategy development for story writing. Education and Treatment of Children. (Nov 2002) 25.4, 496.

SRSD: Self- Regulated Strategy Development