Teaching expressive writing to students with learning disabilities: research-based applications and examples

This article presents research-based examples of effective instructional approaches for improving the quality of the content of stories and essays written by students with learning disabilities. We also describe recent research on handwriting and spelling (transcription skills) and show how instruction in these areas affects overall writing quality. Examples of instructional approaches that improve writing quality are taken from experimental studies included in a recent meta-analysis by Gersten and Baker (2001) conducted on writing intervention research. A common goal in these studies was to teach students with learning disabilities how to organize writing tasks, generate ideas about the writing topics, and produce final written products that were coherent and organized. In this article, our goal is to illustrate how findings from these studies can be implemented in both general and special education settings.