Academic Intervention Academic Intervention Plan:Plan:

WritingWriting

Academic Intervention Academic Intervention Plan:Plan:

WritingWriting

Kerri Watkins and other studentsKerri Watkins and other students

Writing Difficulties

• LIST SOME EXAMPLES OF WRITING ISSUES.

• ALBERT!

Possible Causes of Writing Difficulty

• Poor muscle tone• Poor pencil grip• Different disabilities• etc

Intervention Techniques

• Some quick outlines of some useful Intervention techniques

• Slant Board for poor muscle strength• Grips for pencils• “Hold a cotton ball with the pinky and

ring finger in palm and then use only the thumb, pointer and middle finger to write” It helps correct the child’s pencil grip.

Case Study: Johnny• Johnny is a 5th grade student, in a co-teaching, collaborative

setting, whom has always struggled with his writing. He has poor handwriting that often he cannot read and will often write very short responses to questions that require lengthy responses.

• His parents say that it is a constant struggle to get him to write at home and when it comes to writing an essay he will often put up a fight to the point that his parents will just write down what he says for the essay.

• Johnny had an awkward pencil grip that was corrected with the “cotton ball technique” in the 2nd grade. He has poor/awkward spacing between words and sentences. He sometimes still struggles with forming letters and is inconsistent with using proper capitalization. His sentences will also often go off of the lines and margins of his paper. His Math problems also tend to go all over his paper and he now has been doing his problems on graph paper inside of large boxes on the page.

Johnny• Johnny became a Classified student in the 4th

grade under OHI, due to his diagnosis of ADHD.• In the recent weeks Johnny has been seen by

his psychologist and other professionals and after assessments, has also been diagnosed with Dysgraphia.

• “Dysgraphia is a deficiency in the ability to write, primarily in terms of handwriting, but also in terms of coherence. Dysgraphia is a transcription disability, meaning that it is a writing disorder associated with impaired handwriting, orthographic coding, and finger sequencing (the movement of muscles required to write). It often overlaps with other learning disabilities such as Speech impairment, attention deficit disorder, or developmental coordination”

» Wikipedia.com, 2013

What to do?• Due to Johnny’s recent diagnosis, his parents

requested a return to committee to add it to his IEP, and possibly receive some related services, such as Physical Therapy.

• The classroom teacher’s have spoken with the Physical Therapist and have began an Intervention Plan. Itincludes a number of techniques and a reward system that is being used within the classroom to begin to help John

Intervention Plan• According to Crouch and Jakubecy (2007) “There are

two different approaches to address dysgraphia. The first is using systematic techniques that improve functioning: this is referred to as remedial treatment. Remedial treatments are those that seek to correct handwriting either through direct instruction of handwriting or a fine-motor program. The second strategy is using by-pass strategies, such as technology, to find a way around the hand writing difficulties.”

• The classroom teachers are using two remedial techniques in the classroom. The first one is known as “Drill and Practice.”

• Also using fine-motor exercises and techniques to help build the muscles to help him write.

References • Crouch, A. L., & Jakubecy, J. J. (2007). Dysgraphia: How It Affects a

Student's Performance and What Can Be Done about It. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 3(3),