Struggling writers in year 2 with memory difficulties, dyslexic traits and speech and language difficulties!

[CuriousTeacher]

Hi. I'm posting here as there is more traffic than on TES, I think, and I also know there are some every experiences specialist teachers on MN :)

I am teaching in mainstream in a learning support role. Three of my year 2s are making slow progress with writing ( there is a chance they might be level 2c by the end of the year).

I'm fairly new to my role and would like some advice.

I teach phonics in a cumulative and structured way and do lots of work on phonological awareness and high frequency words. Reading progress has been really good and spelling has vastly improved. Most words are now phonetically plausible and many hf spelled correctly if doing simple word level or sentence level tasks. At least, I am seeing great progress in the context of my small group sessions.

My million dollar question is about how to have more of an impact on writing skills that they can transfer to the classroom and actually be seen in their independent writing. As soon as they have to write anything more independently, they seem to lose the thread and forget what they intended to write. Or the writing doesn't make sense. Or it's gone off at an irrelevant tangent. They cannot yet multitask to the extent they need to, to be proficient writers. And they currently lack some of the thinking skills too, tbh.

My gut feeling is that in schools, children like this are being asked to run before they can walk.

Do you think that I should be doing any creative writing/ writing composition with children like these in an intervention group? Or should I be taking the creative element out at this stage and just focus on the basics? ( and keep any composition really simple eg caption writing).

Btw, I am using some some programmes for spelling and phonics, but feel less clear about how best to support writing skills at this stage (at the 'text level' iykwim).

Hello
The million dollar question is 'why'. And 'why' in each case as they will all be different - I'm sure you know that.

I have two dcs with writing problems.

ds is dyslexic and dyspraxic. He had a teacher who said, off the cuff, 'sorry, I can't think and spell at the same time'. 'You are lucky', said ds, 'I can't write and think at the same time. It is think write, think write'

dd is hypermobile so it is like trying to write with thick woolly gloves on. It is a distraction from what she wants to write but less so than for ds.
Both learned to touch type which was the key.

So I would suggest comparing the quality of their stories, letters and reports when you scribe for them. If the quality leaps up then you do not have a global delay, but an specific issue with the writing process which realistically will be solved by work-arounds like touch typing or maybe even dragon dictate.

Then there are the numerous kids identified with sensory issues - who can learn in a low distraction environment but not in a noisier bigger classroom.

So I agree with your suggestion: try seeing if a simple creative task is performed better in the small groups than in the class room.

For any child, until writing and spelling becomes automatic, adding another job for the brain to do will always distract from the spelling-writing bit and vice-versa.

I hope this helps

By the way, there is a lot more traffic on 'child, special educational needs, chat about your child' with some fantastic researchers on there.

Senvet, thanks very much for your detailed reply, which is much appreciated. I absolutely agree that each child is different, but there are some similarities with 2 of the children, hence me posting about them together at once.

All have memory difficulties and massive problems retaining new learning/ info. They all have some speech and language difficulties to some degree. One has greater comprehension difficulties than the other 2. Only one has a broad vocabulary and is exceptionally imaginative and seems able at this time to be really successful at oral composition.

I think two of them have some attention deficit problems and all of them have some expressive language difficulties.

Dyslexia is also likely to be an issue.

I sometimes just don't know what to start or what to do next. There is just so much about the writing process that they find challenging. I think it's the memory difficulties that present the biggest immediate problem for 2 of them, btw.

I think global delay is not really applicable but 2 of them are definitely on the lower end if the normal range IQ wise.