Writing Instruction and Intervention for Struggling Writers: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Writing is a challenging task for many children. To address this issue, many educational researchers advocate for schools to implement a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) model where struggling writers can be detected as early as kindergarten and provided with intervention programming to improve their skills and hopefully not need long-term placement in special education. Traditionally, schools have employed the wait-to-fail model where children were offered the opportunity to learn to read, write, and do math in the first few years of elementary school; if they still struggled at the end of third grade (age eight), then they would be assessed for special education. The problem with this was not only a delayed assessment timeline, but also the standardized tests not having an adequate set of questions to assess early-elementary grade skills, as well as the ethical problems and racial/ethnic biases of test questions. MTSS provides educators with a renewed emphasis on early intervention and progress-monitoring assessment once or twice a week to monitor each student’s skills and make instructional changes to promote success. This book offers a description and case examples of how schools and teachers can apply MTSS concepts for writing.