Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 16(2), 74–84 Copyright C  2001, The Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children Prevention and Intervention of Writing Difficulties for Students with Learning Disabilities Steve Graham, Karen R. Harris, and Lynn Larsen University of Maryland This paper presents six principles designed to prevent writing difficulties as well as to build writing skills: (a) providing effective writing instruction, (b) tailoring instruction to meet the individual needs, (c) intervening early, (d) expecting that each child will learn to write, (e) identifying and address- ing roadblocks to writing, and ( f ) employing technologies. Abstract. Many students with LD experience difficul- ties mastering the process of writing. We examine how schools can help these children become skilled writ- ers. Six principles designed to prevent as well as alle- viate writing difficulties are presented. These include providing effective writing instruction, tailoring writ- ing instruction to meet each child’s needs, intervening early to provide additional assistance, expecting that each child will learn to write, identifying and address- ing academic and nonacademic roadblocks to writing, and deploying technological tools that improve writing performance. The mn was sneB [translation: “The man was scared.”] I think theu shold no how to speek differint langwges. If theu go to like dutch countri sombodie might ask them something theu cold have two kinds of langage The two compositions presented above were written by Arthur Dent, 1 a 5th-grade child with a learning dis- ability (LD). The first was written at the start of 2nd grade in response to a picture of a young girl show- ing her father a large fish she had caught. The second exposition was Arthur’s written reply to his 5th-grade teacher’s query, “Should children have to learn a second language?” Although these two compositions make it clear that Arthur has made some progress as a writer during the 3 intervening years, they also highlight sev- eral continuing problems. One, his responses are inordi- Requests for reprints should be sent to Steve Graham, University of Maryland, Department of Special Education, College Park, MD 20742. 1 This is not the child’s real name; in all our papers we substi- tute real names with the names of fictional characters from popular science fiction or fantasy books. nately short, containing few ideas and little elaboration, and two, it is difficult to decipher his writing, because of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization miscues. Concern about Arthur’s writing capabilities initially surfaced in 1st grade. His teacher observed that he was reluctant to write, often became frustrated while writ- ing, and avoided working or sharing his writing with others. Teachers in 2nd and 3rd grade indicated that Arthur would hurry through writing assignments, do- ing little or no planning in advance, and writing quickly, taking short pauses to think about the spelling of a word or what to say next. They further noted that it was diffi- cult to get him to revise his written work, and when he did revise, his efforts typically focused on making the paper neater, correcting spelling miscues, and chang- ing a word here and there. As a consequence of his difficulties with writing, Arthur was tested for learn- ing disabilities at the start of 4th grade. Although his intellectual capabilities were within the normal range, he scored 2 standard deviations below the mean on a norm-referenced writing test, qualifying him for spe- cial education services. Unfortunately, Arthur’s difficulties with writing are not unique. They are shared by many other children with LD. Just like Arthur, children with LD typically employ an approach to composing that minimizes the role of planning in writing (Englert, Raphael, Fear, & Anderson, 1988; Graham & Harris, 1997a). This ap- proach to writing was illustrated in a recent Peanuts cartoon 2 where Charlie Brown’s dog, Snoopy, is typing, “The light mist turned to rain.” He pauses and contin- ues, “The rain turned to snow.” After another pause, he writes, “The story turned boring.” Whereupon, he throws his paper away. Like Snoopy, children with LD often compose by drawing any information from 2 This paper is dedicated to the late Charles Schultz and we draw on his cartoons to illustrate critical issues and concepts.