• Ideation
• Planning to write
• Organization
• Vocabulary
• Transferring ideas from thinking to paper 

• Sentence construction/syntax
• Spelling
• Editing and revising

• Endurance
• Handwriting
• One-handed keyboarding
• Slow typing speed
• Adaptive writing paper

Endurance

For students who struggle with writing endurance
word prediction allows the student produce text with reduced keystrokes
Quick Guide: Word prediction
Speech to text reduces motor output and increases the speed of text production
Quick Guide: Speech to text
The option to answer comprehension questions by orally recording answers Quick Guide: Voice Notes

Handwriting

Collaboration with the Occupational Therapist assigned to your school is a great first step. They are an excellent resource for students who have motor issues impacting their ability to produce text through handwriting or typing.
For students who struggle with handwriting providing the option to type offers several supports including but not limited to:
  1. Mitigating motor deficits that impact tool (paper/pen) use.
  2. Students for whom legibility of handwriting is a concern
  3. Students who struggle with endurance for handwriting
  4. Reduced need to re-handwrite between editing and revising attempts (reduced workload and time)
Additionally, when keyboarding, built in spelling and vocabulary supports such as spellcheck, word prediction and “look’-up” options help to free cognitive functions for higher level thinking.
Many students in MCPS - grades 2 through 12 have access to a Chromebook - the following quick guides offer resources that support learning to type.
Free keyboarding sites
Keyboarding Practice Chart
Speech to text eliminates the need to handwrite
Word prediction combined with keyboarding eliminates the need to handwrite and supports spelling.
  It will also be helpful to collect data to measure handwriting vs. typing efficiency. This can be accomplished through administering the DeCoste Writing Protocol.
This link takes you to the DWP resources on the HIAT webpage
This link takes you to the materials required to administer the DWP (for MCPS staff only, login required)
  Although it is crucial to identify a student’s individual optimal written output regardless of “average” handwriting speeds it can be helpful to access data that represents current “norms” Handwriting Speeds

One-handed keyboarding

If a student needs resources targeted to one handed typing this website provides information.
About One Handed Typing
Two webinars below. The first addresses one handed typing and the second, resources discussed during the webinars One Handed Keyboarding Recorded webinar May 23, 2012 (arf)
List of links and resources from the webinar (pdf)

Slow typing speed

Many students will improve typing speed with practice and exposure. Short, frequent practice sessions are most effective. Many students in MCPS in grades 2 through 12 have access to a Chromebook. The following quick guides offer resources that support learning to type. Note: research supports keyboarding instruction is critical to reach proficiency, 25-30 hours of practice is more beneficial than specialized strategies for function.
Free keyboarding sites
Keyboarding Practice Chart
It will also be helpful to collect data to measure handwriting vs. typing efficiency. This can be accomplished through administering the DeCoste Writing Protocol using these materials for the DWP (for MCPS staff only, login required)

Adaptive writing paper

Shaded Lined Paper Wide (Google doc) (gr. 1-3)  and Shaded Lined Paper Narrow (Google doc) (gr. 4-5):
This paper has alternating shaded lines to help students with visual perceptual or visual motor difficulties.