To start out you don't need much - just 2 things to get started.
1) Pictures are important - they help you to have a context for what your student in writing about. I used extra pictures from our scrapbooks, familiar symbols, and I would print off pictures of items that my students liked - favourite cartoon characters, apps, toys, etc.
2 ) Something to write in - I choose small notebooks as that is what I had in a cupboard.
Here are some samples from one of my students.
It is hard to see but she did print the letters
'sesame str.' I took those letters and wrote the whole phrase. I
reinforced the letters that my student wrote by underlining the letters that we have in common.
In this example, she doodled but eventually wrote the word SUN. Again attention was drawn to the letters that she used and that word was turned into a sentence.
In this example, I used the app Abilipad to do some writing with the same student. I thought that I had created 3 pages to be written on over 3 days but she had other ideas! She went back and forth between the three pictures and would write on all of them. After I printed out the pictures, I highlighted the words that she independently typed.
All of my students are able to use a traditional pencil to write so I do not have to use alternative pencils. If your student/child is unable to print traditionally, use an alternative pencil. It could be a keyboard, eye gaze chart, alphabet flip chart, etc.
If you would like more information about Writing Without Standards you can access these resources.
- Erin Sheldon's Writing Instruction for Students with Angelman Syndrome, this is the handout that I used to create my one page How to
- Caroline Musselwhite's The Art of Attributing Meaning to Student Attempts
