Helsel and Greenberg

I read the Helsel and Greenberg piece titled “Helping struggling writers succeed: A self-regulated strategy instruction program.” In this article describes how teachers can combine writing instruction with instruction on self-regulatory behavior. The authors hypothesize that the reason many students struggle with writing is because they struggle with self-regulation skills such as goal setting, choosing the best strategies for a task, self-instructing, monitoring progress, knowing when to seek help, and managing time. The article describes how self-regulation is a necessary skill to produce quality writing through being able to make a plan for writing and make thorough revisions. The article sets out a model for teaching self-regulation strategies through writing which includes building background knowledge, discussing the strategy, modeling, having the student memorize the strategy, offering support for the student in implementing it when writing, and allowing the student to demonstrate it independently. The authors also present a case study of working with a sixth-grade student on building self-regulation through writing and the success this student found through this model.

I feel that this model for teaching self-regulation strategies could be very beneficial in my 3rd grade class. This article seemed to be written to give teachers ideas for bringing older students who struggle with writing up to grade level, however I believe these methods can be modified for younger students who are just learning how to self-regulate in the writing process. There are several students in my class who struggle considerably with reading and writing. If they are not taught specific strategies for self-monitoring their work, they will fall even farther behind. At the same time, students who can write at or above grade level could also benefit from learning these strategies to improve their process even more. Teaching self-regulation strategies would probably be best taught in combination with writing strategies in mini-lessons as part of writer’s workshop. I would like to learn more about which strategies would best help students learn to be independent in monitoring their own writing process and also how to teach writing strategies with self-regulation strategies embedded. This will take considerable thought when it comes time for me to plan these kinds of lessons.

As I analyzed my students’ writing samples and remembered the work I did with them on these pieces of writing, I learned that many of my students struggle with having a main idea and supporting details focused on the main idea. For example, one of the writing samples was a personal narrative in which students described when another person cared for them or when they were caring toward someone else. Most students were able to identify the person or event they wanted to write about, but then struggled to write details that were focused on this topic or eventually led back to the idea of being caring. My unit will be focused on guided reading, but I can use this unit to discuss main idea and supporting details. Throughout my unit I plan to present my students with broad themes related to each story they read or that tie all of the stories together. I plan to work with them on identifying and explaining details and examples from the stories to support these themes.