Jeff Bakken and his coauthor present a cognitive strategy with a self-instruction component to improve the quality and quantity of written products for students with learning disabilities.
Teaching students with learning disabilities (LD) to become more proficient in writing is a challenge not only because these students are generally weak in writing, but they often see no need to improve their writing. The development of writing for students with LD is a process that requires guidance with the use of strategies that will possibly be generalized to other settings to improve their writing performance. This study focused on teaching students the acronym POWER (P = Plan, O = Organize, W = Write, E = Edit, R = Revise).
The subjects that participated in this investigation were 15 ninth-grade students with learning disabilities (LD) from low/middle class families in a high school in a large midwestern city. Instruction took place during regularly scheduled English classes every other day. For all lessons the teacher effectiveness variables of daily review, teacher modeling, guided and independent practice and formative evaluation were implemented. Every other day for two weeks, students were given writing topics and encouraged to write as much as they could with no time limits. During the writing process students were given no suggestions or instruction on spelling, punctuation, length, or handwriting. A week following the completion of baseline procedures the teacher taught the POWER plan for writing for one 90-minute class period. As with baseline procedures the same topics were then presented to the students at the beginning of each class one month after baseline procedures had been completed. Students were given the topic and encouraged to write as much as they could using the POWER plan. Strategy instruction had a significant impact on students' writing performance with an increase in quality and the length of written products. Students were also able to perform the strategy over a delayed period of two weeks.
The POWER strategy is a cognitive strategy that is an effective means for increasing the quality and quantity of students' writing. This strategy gives students the means for planning, writing, editing, and revising.
Bakken, J. P., & Whedon, C. K. (2003). Giving students with learning disabilities the POWER to write: Improving the quality and quantity of written products. LEARNING DISABILITIES: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 12(1), 13-22.
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