Yesterday I was honoured to present again with Molly Sharp from The Grove Education Centre at the 2019 AGOSCI Conference in Perth, Western Australia.
The Developmental Writing Scale (Sturm et al, 2012) allows us to track a student’s writing progress from emergent to conventional with a 14 point scale. Additionally, it is the first writing scale with accommodations for students who use writing tools such as keyboards and flip charts.
(And as a side note, I have blogged in the past about using the Developmental Writing Scale for writing assessment, and Using the Developmental Writing Scale to guide instruction. I have also blogged about the way in which we have been using the Developmental Writing Scale in data walls at The Grove. )
During this interactive workshop, we took participants through the 14 points of the scale, with examples. We then did some writing moderation, using samples collected earlier this term at The Grove, and we used the samples, and the scores they were given in the moderation, to create a temporary data wall.
And, finally, the workshop finished with a discussion about the use of data walls within a school to create a visual reference for each student's growth and achievement to support discussions around planning and intervention and how this has supported growth in writing instruction for teachers at The Grove Education Centre and growth for the students in their writing.
The PowerPoint we used in the presentation is below in two versions - one to click through and view online, and the second one to download.
Download "Using the Developmental Writing Scale by Jane Farrall and Molly Sharp"
To view the example video of a daily writing session with an emergent writer, see below:
To view the example video of a daily writing session with an early conventional writer, see below:
And as a final note, yesterday The Grove Education Centre was also given the ISAAC Australia School/Organisation Award for showing outstanding recognition and acceptance of AAC for someone who learns, participates or works there! A well deserved award for an outstanding school!
Reference
Sturm, J., Cali, K., Nelson, N.W., & Staskowski, M. (2012). The Developmental Writing Scale: A new progress monitoring tool for beginning writers. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 297 – 318.
