Academic Intervention Planner for Struggling Students

This form provides descriptions of the selected intervention, a listing of research articles supporting the intervention ideas, and space for teacher notes.

 	Academic Intervention Strategies	Research Citations	Teacher Notes	
❑	WRITING: PRODUCTION: DRAWING AS A PRE-WRITING ACTIVITY. The teacher presents the student with a motivating writing topic and allocates a sufficient time (e.g., 30 minutes) for the student to produce a composition. During the writing period, the student is directed to first draw a picture about the topic and then to write a composition on the same topic.	Norris, E., Mokhtari, K., & Reichard, C. (1998). Children's use of drawing as a pre-writing strategy. Journal of Research in Reading, 21(1), 69-74.	
	
❑	WRITING: PRODUCTION: REGULAR WRITING WITH PROMPTS.  The student  engages in 20-minute writing sessions. Before each writing session the student briefly reviews the following prompts for writing mechanics--with an instructor or in peer pairs or groups--and has them available as a written checklist: (1) Use complete sentences. Each sentence should 'sound complete' and contain at least one subject and one verb. (2) Indent and punctuate. The first sentence of each new paragraph is indented. Each sentence in the passage has appropriate end-punctuation (period, question mark, exclamation point). Quotation marks are used to denote the exact words spoken by someone. (3) Capitalize. The initial letters of these words are capitalized: the first word in a sentence; the names of proper nouns. At the end of the session, the student uses the mechanics checklist to revise the writing sample before turning it in.	Harriman, N. E., & Gajar, A.H. (1986). The effects of repeated writing and repeated revision strategies on composing fluency of learning disabled adolescents (Report No. ED290312). Educational Resources Information Center.	
	
❑	WRITING: PRODUCTION: TIME-DRILLS AND GRAPHING. This intervention uses 5-minute writing drills with visual feedback (graphing) to improve the writing fluency of groups or the entire class. WRITING DRILL: The session opens with quick brainstorming or topic discussion to prime student writers. Then the teacher sets a timer and tells the students to write for five minutes. The teacher announces when there is one minute remaining in the session and tells students to stop writing when the timer sounds.  The following  rules are publicly posted and reviewed with students before writing sessions:  (1) Write quickly in legible handwriting;(2) Cross out mistakes and continue writing;(3)  Write for the full 5 minutes; (4) Refrain from talking or other distracting behavior; and(5) Do not request bathroom or drink breaks during the drill. SCORING: Students count up the number of words written and exchange their writing samples with a neighbor, who re-counts total words written to ensure accuracy. (The teacher resolves any scoring disagreements between students.) GRAPHING AND INCENTIVES: Each student updates a paper or computerized bar graph to include the current day's writing total and cumulative weekly total. Students receive recognition (e.g., praise) for improved daily scores and earn incentives (e.g., 10 minutes free time) for improved weekly scores. The teacher also collects writing scores from all students on a daily basis, with rotating students updating a daily class chart. The teacher acknowledges daily class improvement and provides an incentive for weekly class improvements (e.g., special class game played at the end of the week).	Kasper-Ferguson, S., & Moxley, R. A. (2002). Developing a writing package with student graphing of fluency. Education and Treatment of Children, 25(2), 249-267.