Self-Regulated Strategy Development as a Tier 2 Writing Intervention

Selecting an Effective Writing Intervention

The RTI leadership team had several challenges getting started with the important task of finding an appropriate writing intervention. First, writing is extremely challenging for students with learning disabilities (LD; Graham, Harris, & Larsen, 2001). Students with LD tend to write papers that contain fewer ideas, are more poorly organized, and are of lower quality than papers written by their typical peers (Graham & Harris, 2002). This is true in part because writing is a complex task that requires the successful integration of numerous skills to produce a quality piece of writing. For example, effective writing must have a clearly developed topic, consistent organization, and interesting details that engage the reader. In addition, adhering to conventions is necessary to produce quality writing. Grammar, word choice, punctuation, spelling, and other conventions are important considerations—too many errors can detract from the meaning, even if ideas are well formulated. Given the complexity of the task, it is not surprising that students with LD can be overwhelmed by the writing process. Writing interventions designed to meet the needs of students with LD need to focus on strategy development to facilitate the writing process, as well as on strengthening students’ writing mechanics. Many programs focus on the latter at the expense of the former.

The RTI team at Mountain View faced a second challenge. Writing instruction was not a routine part of the general education curriculum, so they had very little knowledge of the key elements of effective writing instruction. In this regard, Mountain View Elementary was not unique. It has been well documented that writing instruction nationally is either nonexistent or focused primarily on mechanics rather than composition (Baker, Gersten, & Graham, 2003; National Commission on Writing, 2003). The negative impact of this lack of instruction is evidenced by recent results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress; one in three students in fourth grade does not meet proficiency levels in writing (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). Many states have also done away with performance assessments of writing in part because of the expense of scoring them. Following the adage of “what gets tested gets taught,” the elimination of writing assessments has contributed to the decreased emphasis on writing instruction (Resnick & Resnick, 1992).

The lack of writing instruction is troubling given that writing has been found to be an extremely effective tool in developing students’ thinking and understanding across content areas (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004). The National Commission on Writing (2003) recommended that writing become a central focus of school reform efforts because writing skills are crucial to students’ educational and occupational success. Given the importance of writing, and understanding the challenges of learning to write well, especially for students with learning difficulties, it is critical that writing instruction become a more prominent part of daily instruction. However, because writing is so complex, it is difficult to find effective programs that teachers can reliably and efficiently use in the classroom. One instructional approach to writing with a solid evidence base is self-regulated strategy development (SRSD; Harris & Graham, 1996).

Self-Regulated Strategy Development

Self-regulated strategy development is a model for teaching students writing strategies and self-regulation strategies that empower them to become good writers. In a recent review of evidence-based practices, SRSD was found to have a very strong evidence base establishing its efficacy as a writing intervention for students at risk for poor outcomes (Baker, Chard, Ketterlin-Geller, Apichatabutra, & Doabler, 2009). SRSD also receives the highest rating of convincing evidence across all indicators in efficacy reviews of instructional programs conducted and published by the National Center on Response to Intervention (2010).

Despite a strong evidence base for SRSD, because it is a model for teaching rather than a scripted program, very few materials to support implementation are available. The basic stages of instruction outlined for SRSD include (a) developing and activating background knowledge, (b) discussing the strategy, (c) cognitive modeling of the strategy, (d) memorization of the strategy, (e) collaborative support of the strategy, and (f) independent performance. These stages are not meant to be followed in a strict order but can be revised to meet student needs and are meant to be recursive so they can be revisited if needed (Harris, Graham, Mason, & Friedlander, 2008). In addition to these stages of writing instruction, four basic strategies for self-regulation are emphasized. These include (a) goal setting, (b) self-instruction, (c) self-monitoring, and (d) self-reinforcement.

SRSD is effective because it comprises writing and self-regulation strategies that are critical to writing development. In addition, teachers are encouraged to differentiate to deliver instruction according to student needs (Harris et al., 2008). However, implementing SRSD instruction can be challenging for teachers, precisely because the model requires teachers to decide which strategies to use when, with whom, and in ways that appropriately support specific goals and needs of their students (Harris et al., 2008). The lack of a very scripted, explicit instructional program can make SRSD implementation seem daunting for teachers who do not already know about SRSD but want to implement effective writing strategies in their classrooms. This was the precise challenge at Mountain View Elementary. Therefore, the team decided to move slowly with implementation, starting with one Tier 2 writing intervention block, led by a provider who would focus on implementing SRSD with fourth grade students identified as in need of targeted writing instruction.

Identifying Students in Need of Tier 2 Writing Instruction

When the team was initially deciding who should receive writing intervention support, they first looked at prior-year state assessment data on language usage. When the data were reviewed, it was noted that fourth grade had the highest percentage (28%) of students not meeting proficiency levels in this area, so the team decided to focus on fourth grade. However, the team also noted that with 15 students identified as in need of services, the teacher-to-student ratio in intervention services would be too high and students would be less likely to receive and benefit from intense instruction. In addition, some students were just below the cut point for meeting proficiency levels whereas other students were well below. The team realized they would need more data to make an informed decision about which students were in need of more intense writing interventions. This discussion prompted the team to realize that although they had benchmark data for reading and math that were collected three times per year, they did not have similar data for writing.

After reviewing potential candidates for collecting writing benchmark data, the team decided to use the total words written (TWW) curriculum-based measure (CBM) on AIMSweb (NCS Pearson, 2011), an online assessment and data management system related to RTI. TWW consists of giving students a predetermined story starter followed by 1 minute of think time and 3 minutes for the students to generate a story (Powell-Smith & Shinn, 2004). At the end of the 3 minutes, the writing is scored by underlining the number of words the student has produced. A word is defined as a series of letters followed by a space. Correct spelling and other conventions are not factored into the TWW score. The TWW measure was adopted schoolwide and given to students in Grades 1 to 5 in fall, winter, and spring as a part of the routine academic screening that was already occurring for reading and math.

The team decided that fourth grade students who had a score below proficient on their prior-year state language usage assessment and a score on TWW that was at the 25th percentile or lower on AIMSweb norms would be identified for intervention. When the grade-level data were reviewed, it was noted that although there were 15 students who did not meet proficiency standards on the language usage test and many students who performed below the 25th percentile on TWW, there were only 7 fourth graders who met the criteria of being below proficiency and below the 25th percentile on TWW. Those 7 students were selected to receive intervention.

Designing Writing Intervention Using SRSD

Although SRSD instruction can be highly effective, it is not packaged as a prescribed, step-by-step sequence, and in fact very few implementation guides for SRSD are available.

Mountain View Elementary School decided to focus its writing intervention on (a) the story writing strategy and (b) the opinion essay strategy to help develop students’ writing abilities in both narrative and expository genres. The seven students were pulled from the end of their 90-minute reading block to attend SRSD intervention 4 days per week for 30 minutes each day. Although instruction varied on a daily basis, in general the intervention provider followed the steps, sample scripts, and lesson plans as presented in the Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students text (Harris et al., 2008). In addition to the writing strategies, students were taught to use the self-regulation strategies that include monitoring their own use of the strategies, reviewing their own writing, reviewing their peers’ writing, and thinking of themselves as writers. An overall “getting started” strategy of Plan, Organize, Write (POW) is presented, and then various mnemonics are taught based on the specific writing genre. For example, the strategy POW + WWW (Plan, Organize, Write + Who, When, Where) is used for story writing, and the strategy POW + TREE (Plan, Organize, Write + Topic sentence, Reasons, Explain Reasons, Examine Ending) is used for opinion essays. A series of lesson plans that focus on the specific strategies used for various types of writing are included.

Monitoring Student Progress

Once the intervention plan was in place for students, weekly progress monitoring measures using TWW were implemented. There are no set guidelines for determining adequate rates of progress for TWW (McMaster, 2009), but suggested guidelines for growth rates include using published norms, using local norms, and using classwide data. The leadership team decided to use AIMSweb-published norms to set goals for students. For each student, the ambitious goal of increasing performance to the 50th percentile by the end of the year was set. Of the seven students who began intervention, by the end of 12 weeks, four met the goal of TWW performance at the 50th percentile. Two of the remaining three had performances just below the 50th percentile, and the final student did not make much progress because of a significant number of absences.

In addition to using TWW to monitor progress, other measures of writing performance were employed. These included qualitative reviews of students’ writing samples, a rubric based on SRSD materials integrated with a writing rubric used by the fourth grade at Mountain View Elementary, and student feedback about the importance of learning how to write well. Progress monitoring data were used to give an overall gauge of student response to the intervention, but the qualitative measures tapped skills that are not well represented by timed production measures. To illustrate how these measures worked to inform the program, a sample student’s experience with the intervention is described next.

Anita

Anita’s score on the third grade language usage test placed her performance in between the below basic and basic categories, and her fall TWW benchmark score was 26, which placed her performance at the 25th percentile. Figure 1 shows Anita’s progress monitoring data. Although there were some inconsistencies in her performance, in general her trend line indicates that she not only met but even surpassed her ambitious end-of-year goal. Finally, Anita’s performance on language usage moved out of the below basic category to the basic category, just 3 points less than the cutoff score for proficiency. Perhaps the most convincing evidence of Anita’s success in making gains as a writer is seen in her own self-reflection. When asked whether other students should be taught the writing strategy POW + WWW, she confidently replied, “Yes, because it is a great strategy to help people write better storys [sic].”

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Anita’s progress monitoring data show some inconsistencies in her performance but with a trend line indicating that an end-of-year goal was met.

Conclusion

Mountain View’s pilot of SRSD as a Tier 2 writing intervention was deemed a success for six of seven students receiving the instruction. Another positive consequence of having introduced a Tier 2 writing intervention was its impact on the general education instruction. Through the introduction of the TWW measures to collect benchmark data, all of the teachers realized that they spent very little time teaching writing and integrating writing into instruction. As a school, they decided to administer the writing CBMs monthly as an initial step in emphasizing the importance of writing. This initial step prepared the school to take on the much larger task of adopting a writing curriculum schoolwide.

The RTI team at Mountain View decided that it would expand its use of SRSD within Tier 1 instruction so that all students would benefit from receiving evidence-based writing instruction. The use of a consistent writing approach within Tiers 1 and 2 also helps provide consistency for students who move through the tiers of instruction. This consistency can facilitate student generalization and transfer of the strategies taught. Within the RTI framework, the focus on using evidence-based practice and ensuring that Tier 1 is effective is consistent with a model that values prevention. When all students are exposed to high-quality instruction, more intense resources can be targeted for only those students who truly need them.