For many of the students I work with, focusing on learning to write with traditional writing tools (pens, pencils, crayons, etc) can be a barrier in their writing development.
Traditional writing tools are a physical barrier for many, due to the motor control required. For some students, having to hold pens and pencils is a barrier. For others, they can hold them, but holding them and using them with the motor planning required to form letters is problematic. Some of them can learn to do this over time – but the length of time needed means that if this becomes the focus in writing then they are losing out on valuable opportunities to learn about the other parts of writing – functions of print, view of themselves as a writer, control of a writing tool AND writing form (using spaces, letters, etc.)
Additionally, traditional writing tools can also be a sensory barrier for some, as the feel of dragging a writing tool across a surface can be overloading or create a really negative experience.
Therefore, for many of the students I work with, requiring them to use a traditional writing tool is going to slow down, or even stop, their writing development. But the good news is that problem solving, implementing and adapting writing tools as they develop as writers, is still leading to great outcomes in writing development. Sometimes, though, we need to do some lateral problem solving to help each student develop as a writer! And I wanted to highlight a couple of examples of that problem solving in this post.
Emergent Writers
I blogged a few years ago about Sensory Pencils and Early Emergent Writers. These are still a great option for some early emergent writers – and we find many students only need to use them for a short period before they move onto a different writing tool. They are definitely only for early emergent students as well – they make it difficult to teach students about spaces or for individuals to think about letters easily – so aren’t appropriate for emergent writers and beyond.
Flip charts are my other favourite option for early emergent writers – and continue to be fabulous with emergent writers. If you aren’t haven’t used writing flip charts, these were originally developed by Gretchen Hanser and the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies.
For emergent students I love using flip charts, similar to the ones originally developed by Gretchen Hanser and the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies.
On www.comprehensiveliteracy.com, my literacy website, I now have a page of writing tools available for download as PDFs and/or customisation on Canva. This includes a section of flip charts – some of which are an example of the lateral problem solving I mentioned! These are all available in Australian English – and some have UK, French and Spanish versions. They are all designed to be printed on A4 paper.
The first group of flip charts on the Writing Tools page are direct access (student points with finger or hand) and plain background. Many of these are very similar to the original flip charts, examples shown below.
However there’s a group of options called “Four per page with gaps” that I made up for the many students I work with who benefit from a bit more space in their pointing. This might be because they are still pointing with their whole hand or it might be an easier movement for them – but these have been an awesome option for some. And, of course, sometimes students just like them because they are different!
The next group of flip charts are still direct access, but I call them themed! I started off developing these as a piece of lateral thinking, again. I was thinking of specific students who were generally much more likely to be interested in a task that involves their favourite characters or things – and so I made up flip charts with those favourite characters (or things) on them.
These themed flip charts worked well for the group of intended students – but they also became high interest to many other students as well. I now think of them a bit like the coloured, scented, glittery pens you can buy. Do they make a student write better? No! Are they motivating to use for a short period? Yes! So – let’s add more pizazz and colour and offer themed flip charts!!
The next group on the website are what I call “non-linear” flip charts. I made these up last year for a specific student. She was someone who believed that the alphabet always goes in alphabetic order and always goes from left to right. I meet quite a few students who believe one or both of these things – and I have a range of strategies I use to help them develop a deeper understanding of the alphabet and how we use it. One of the best is simply using the flip chart myself and showing them that I jump all over when writing – and this works with so many students that there are many times I don’t need to do anything else.
But for this student, her classroom team had been modelling using flip charts for nearly a year – and she still consistently wanted to select letters from left to right, in alphabetic order. (We did try her with an out of order flip chart, but she either searched through all the pages to find the letters in order, or she selected letters on each page from left to right). We had also tried some of my other strategies such as providing a flip chart with a letter or two missing – but these didn’t work either.
So, I came up with the idea of non-linear flip charts, where pointing from left to right wasn’t really an option – and these worked! I made them up with her favourite things on them – and the first couple had the letters grouped in alphabet order, but jumbled in the group. The second two I made had the alphabet in completely random order. Now I fully admit that her change to selecting letters in random order may have also been about all the work her amazing team had done during the year – but within a day of getting these, she started to change which was awesome to see.
The next group of flip charts are also for direct access, but high contrast for students with a vision impairment. You could also use them for horizontal partner assisted scanning.
I am always tweaking slightly different versions of these – making a smaller size for a student with a small visual field, or different colours for a student who can see one colour more easily than another. They are mostly in the traditional linear flip chart design, but there also a couple in the “Four per page with gaps” layout. They also have three or four letters per page to reduce the visual complexity. And I haven’t made any of these up as “themed” as I think that would increase the visual complexity – which isn’t what we want!
Eye gaze access flip charts are next. These were designed as a short term solution for students who need to point with their eyes. They aren’t ideal as a long term system – but they are good for getting students started with eye gaze letter selection.
Combination access flip charts are designed for a student who is using eye gaze to select letters, but they also include a menu that the individual can use to develop a lot more control of the writing process. The side menu is accessed via partner assisted scanning.
These combination access flip charts are a lot more powerful than the simple eye gaze option and a much better option for students who need eye gaze access over the longer term. And, of course, there are more powerful eye gaze options, such as an ETRAN letter board, for the even longer term! (Not available from my website!)
This whole group is an example of problem solving. Firstly, designing flip charts that work for partner assisted scanning but which also incorporate the original elements of the flip charts. So all of these have at least two letters per page, so that individuals can compare and contrast between letters, and then have a couple of menu options designed for different writers at different levels. Lots of different colours in regular and high contrast complete the group – and there’s even one themed one at this stage.
The second section of writing tools to download and use are keyboards. I mostly use keyboards with students who already know “most of the letters, most of the time” (a Karen Erickson quote).
The keyboards are available as QWERTY with a plain background in lots of different colour combinations, QWERTY with a themed background (some of which I find are visual overload, but individual students have loved them), AZERTY for the French speaking population, and QWERTY ESP for the Spanish speaking population.
And they are all double sided as well, with lower case to be printed on one side and capital letters (upper case) on the other.
I hope this gets you thinking about writing tools for each and every student you work with – and which tools will help them to focus on ALL aspects of writing without the motor component dominating! And I also hope you find one or more that your students will enjoy using!!
