A Review of Teaching Sentence-Level Writing Skills to Students With Writing Difficulties and Learning Disabilities
Remedial & Special Education
Datchuk, S. M., & Kubina, R. M. (2013).
Remedial & Special Education, 34(3), 180-192.
This systematic review investigates the impact of sentence-level writing interventions on the handwriting, sentence construction, and grammar/usage of students with learning disabilities and writing difficulties.
No funding received
No restriction for sentence construction or grammar/usage interventions; After 1994 for handwriting interventions
Experimental designs; quasi-experimental designs; single-case research design studies
19 (3 grammar and usage studies/9 sentence construction studies/10 handwriting studies)
Nine of the 19 included studies examined the use of sentence level written instruction techniques to improve the writing skills of children with learning disabilities. Overall, the majority of these studies revealed that students demonstrated improved writing skills using the a model-lead-test instructional format to construct simple to complex sentences. Three additional studies examined the use of grammar/usage instruction to improve sentence level writing. While the findings from the studies revealed positive results, the small number of studies and varied grammar instruction across studies limit the utility of the results. Further research is warranted.
