By: Chris Hamel, SALT Center Rev. January 08

Effective Writers versus Ineffective Writers: How & Why Students with LD Struggle with Writing

The information in this handout is intended to provide a foundation on which those who work with student writers with LD can build their instructional techniques. By understanding how students with LD can struggle with their writing, what the reasons behind those struggles might be, and where these writers want to go – the establishment of productive writing habits -- tutors, instructors, and academic support staff can more successfully guide their students through the development of effective composing strategies. Characteristics of Effective Writers Effective writers often…

• View writing as a top-down activity, setting goals which they adjust as they go along, according to the demands of their composing process;

• Think before they writer, brainstorming topics and ideas, allowing for many false starts;

• Are aware of the types of questions different forms of writing are designed to answer and

are aware of the structures that are appropriate for each genre;

• Organize related ideas into relevant categories;

• Engage in a myriad of strategies to help them develop their ideas (self-questioning, engaging other readers for feedback);

• Recognize and write for the anticipated needs to their chosen audiences, even when those

audiences are not physically present;

• Know when to play “secretary” to their writing (i.e., attend to mechanics, grammar, and format considerations), and when to allow the “author” to function unhindered (i.e., concentrate on idea development and organization, audience considerations, and project purpose).

Characteristics of Students who Struggle with Writing Due to LD Writers with LD often…

• Have trouble selecting paper topics and generating ideas for development of those topics;

By: Chris Hamel, SALT Center Rev. January 08

• Have trouble accessing information from memory or from sources to use in written

compositions;

• Plan only a little, or do not plan at all, before writing;

• Tend to produce “knowledge dumps” (writing down whatever comes to mind on the topic under consideration, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion) rather than organized and developed texts;

• Focus more often on surface features of text (spelling, punctuation, margin size) than on

content development;

• Equate revision with making surface changes rather than more global idea and organization adjustments.

Why might writers with LD exhibit these characteristics?

• Students with LD may experience significant trouble with the mechanical aspects of writing, which can inhibit their ability to attend to higher order composing skills.

• Students with LD may not have knowledge of how to write (the processes involved, the

steps necessary), or may be unable to easily access that knowledge from memory.

• Students with LD may not have developed any strategies for coping with writing projects - or their strategies may be ineffective.

• Students with LD may experience deficiencies in metacognitive processes (the ability to

think about their thinking) and thus not know how to plan and readjust their writing projects.

• Students with LD often experience extreme anxiety about writing that may cause writer’s

block (bad past experiences may weigh on their minds every time they sit down to write).