The Effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development on the Writing of Expository Essays for Adults With Written Expression Difficulties

Abstract

A multiple-probe, multiple-baseline, across-subjects design was used to examine the writing performance of four low-achieving adult students with and without disabilities enrolled in general equivalency diploma (GED) preparatory classes. Students' writing was evaluated before instruction and after self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instruction for the POW (Pick my idea-pay attention to the prompt, Organize, Write and say more) + TREE (Topic sentence, Reasons, Explanations, Ending) + COPS (Capitalize, Organize, Punctuate, Sense) strategies. Results following the instruction indicated that students had learned to independently write expository essays. The number of essay parts and transition words increased, demonstrating evidence of organized essays. The number of words written and descriptive word use also increased. Gains were maintained on maintenance probes. All students who took the GED exam passed the essay-writing portion following the intervention.

Improving quick writing performance of middle-school struggling learners

“…The strategy has been adapted for young developing writers in second and third grade (Graham, Harris, & Mason, 2005;Harris, Graham, & Mason, 2006) and for adult writers studying for a high school equivalency exam (Berry & Mason, 2012).…”

College Student Writers' Use and Modification of Planning and Evaluation Strategies After a Semester of Instruction

“…Self‐regulation can support students’ independence (Berry & Mason, ; Harris & Graham, ). Therefore, students were taught how to set goals and manage the writing task and their overall writing performance.…”

“…Numerous research studies have demonstrated the positive effects of strategy instruction on writing performance in elementary and secondary school (Graham, Harris, & McKeown, ). Some research has found positive effects of strategy instruction in adults preparing for the GED (Berry & Mason, ) and college students with learning disabilities (Butler, Elaschuk, & Poole, ). This current study adds to the research conducted on strategy instruction by increasing understandings of how students modify strategies and how they move toward the flexible use of strategies.…”

The written language of children with cochlear implant

“…[42,43] It is thus not surprising that writing interventions addressed to improve strategy development and self-regulation in writing have been proven to be particularly effective with children with learning disabilities, [43,45,68,69] as well as with children showing other kinds of developmental disorders. [70,71] It is therefore strange that instructional programmes addressing the development of writing strategies and self-regulatory skills in writing have been only rarely tested with children who are deaf [35] and, to the best of our knowledge, have been never tested with children with CIs.…”