Are you assessing ideas or printing? Decriminalize supports!
I have taught for 10 years and worked hard to help every child express themselves. I have not always succeeded and am still building my practice. I am very passionate about decriminalizing supports and presuming competence. Over the years I have heard many a teacher/parent complain about penmanship or kids being so bad at spelling that it is paralyzing. I then get asked why I don’t do spelling tests… I have seen kids afraid to put pen to paper and try to erase their work. The question is, are we assessing printing…or ideas?
I would argue that we should be assessing ideas. If this is the case, we need to help kids lower anxiety and share their thinking with greater independence. Is scribing a good thing? Sure! It really works some of the time, but it is still dependance on an adult in the room. A dependence that some kids really hate, because they have grown up believing they are different/bad and it is not safe in their world to need help or be different. So what else can we do (along with building a safe class community where supports are not a criminal offence or something to be ashamed of)?
A Few Low-Tech Ideas
Point-form is okay. Take away the pressure of full sentence answers when it is not sentence formation that you are assessing.
When writing, encourage kids to circle words they tried even though they weren’t sure how they were spelled. We can always fix the spelling-we want to help kids build fluency.
Don’t skip the prewriting/lesson to engage ideas. Bring kids into the writing with confidence/ideas. Adrienne Gear is a wizard at this. Check out her Writing Powers books. I use the lessons in these books constantly and most school libraries have copies for teachers to borrow.
Less is more… A powerful paragraph that is revised 5 times can create much deeper understanding of writing than a five paragraph essay that causes stress/is not even revised once….scanning for spelling is not revision…it is editing for the nitty gritty.
Explode a boring paragraph or poem as a class. See the Picture Books Part 4 for an example of this strategy. It can be used for a poem/paragraph and you can create something powerful as a class. For example, sometimes I give each child a sentence strip and they write ONE line of a poem. We put it together as a class and the next day, we explode it together to make it better.
Tech-Supports
Voice-to-Text Software AND Predictive Text
The first time I let a student use voice-to-text was my fourth year as a teacher. I was blown away instantly by the voice it gave my student. I have not stopped since.
My district uses Office365, which is very handy because all of the apps have some sort of voice-to-text function and every student in the district has an account.
I have heard using voice-to-text called ‘lazy’ and ‘cheating’. It is neither. In fact, it is a powerful tool for kids to express their ideas CLEARLY and EASILY. It is a way for kids to see VALUE in their thinking and build their capacity as writers. The neat thing about voice-to-text is that for most programs, you also need to say the punctuation. So my kids who use it, actually form complete sentences and learn quickly what types of punctuation are important.
The software is also not perfect…and sometimes the kids who need support with output also need support with speech. So they try their best and sometimes 20% is a little garbled, but the kids persevere. They move from voice-to-text to using the curser and predictive text to fix mistakes. They are able to SEE mistakes and CLARIFY their ideas. This is the power of writing. Clarifying ideas and expressing ones self. It is NOT lazy. It is NOT cheating. Everyone benefits from learning how to use this support and for some kids, it is life changing…they suddenly see value in their own ideas and not frustration in letter formation.
The picture above shows you where the microphone icon is on a desktop. On some of the computers at my school, the microphone is hidden in the top right hand corner and you find it by hovering over an ellipses (…). Below is a short video about how to use it on an iPad, Tablet, and/or phone. The video goes silent when I actually start dictating because the internal microphone took over.
This video show you how to use voice-to-text for an iPad, tablet, or phone when on Word/Office365.
Helpful but Not Necessary…
So two years ago I picked up one of these. It is $30 Canadian and it makes a huge difference. I also use it for any video presentations or when recording kids for FreshGrade. It is not necessary, but it is not that expensive and pretty awesome.
I have a confession. I loved to write as a kid-I still do, but my spelling was atrocious and my penmanship was sloppy because my mind moved faster than my hands. Whenever I got the chance, I would type my assignments from an early age so my teachers would not see the bad speller or the messy writer…they would see the ideas. They would see me. To this day I have a dictionary in my desk and sometimes I misspell things on the board or in emails to parents. I try not to feel silly, and my class is very supportive. It makes me human. I understand what supports can do to build confidence.
Please presume competence. Please decriminalize supports. Please help kids find joy in sharing their ideas and clarifying their thinking…at the end of the day, it is all about them.
Further Resources
Shelley Moore: Five Moore Minutes Videos/podcast…Her books…her instagram….She is all about supporting kids and presuming competence.
Kids These Days AND Teachers These Days by Jody Carrington