Cultivating Special Education Teachers’ Implementation of Writing Instruction Through On-Going Coaching Professional Development

Abstract

Writing skills are an area of instruction that can be particularly challenging to teach to students with low-incidence disabilities. Providing teachers with professional development through ongoing coaching may improve their knowledge and implementation of meaningful writing instructional strategies, potentially leading to students with low-incidence disabilities’ acquisition and improvement of writing skills. This dissertation examined a coaching model of professional development to support special education teachers’ writing instruction. Teachers taught students to use a graphic organizer using task-analyzed steps paired with a system of least prompts. I used a multiple probe across participants design to examine the effects of coaching on the implementation of the EBPs and the effects of these evidence-based practices on students’ writing abilities. Results suggest that teachers can improve practice of implementing a system of least prompts during writing instruction and that students with low-incidence disabilities are capable of learning how to use a graphic organizer as a prewriting during writing instruction.