Some students enter our classrooms with a solid understanding of good writing. Many do not. All ability levels need to be taught what good writers do and how they do it. Teachers accomplish this with modeling and practice. While at -risk students, including special education and reading support students, benefit from modeling and practice, they need more. These students require additional techniques and strategies if they are to become successful thinkers, writers and readers.

Our at-risk students need visual cues and models to help them focus their writing. This additional focus allows struggling students to be effective thinkers and communicators. We train students to focus on the organization of their ideas in order to transfer these ideas into a piece of writing. We begin by looking at words and demonstrate how they are developed into effective sentences. Next, we show how these sentences are placed to form clear and organized paragraphs. With teacher guidance and modeling along with repeated practice, these students bloom into successful writers.

It is important to note that once students understand how to identify the main idea and provide specific supporting ideas and details in their writing, they easily transfer this thinking to support their reading as well. Power writing's use of a numerical structure to support ideas and details makes it an important and effective reading strategy for at-risk students.

We know all kids can learn. We believe all kids can write as well!

"Every study of young writers I've done for the last twenty years has underestimated what they can do. In fact, we know very little about the human potential for writing."

- Donald Graves,
A Fresh Look at Writing