Teaching writing can feel like an uphill battle, especially when your students are still developing foundational reading and phonics skills. Writing journals for special education students can provide the structure and support early writers need to practice phonics, build sentences, and develop independent writing skills.
As a special education resource teacher, I struggled for years to find a writing curriculum that truly fit the individual needs of my students. Many early writers simply aren’t ready for traditional blank writing paper or a journal with nothing but lines and the instruction to “just write.”
Eventually, I realized that the best approach was to build writing journals for special education students using the skills they were currently learning. Over time, I developed strategies and materials that gave students the structure and support they needed to become more successful writers.
While I mention some of my own resources throughout this post and provide customizable templates in my free resource library, you don’t have to use mine! Teachers Pay Teachers and online teaching communities have endless options, or you can easily create your own. The goal is simply to find or build writing journal activities that work for your unique learners.
One great strategy for early writers is using pictures as a bridge to writing.
Have students illustrate a simple story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Once their drawings are complete, students can label their pictures by phonemically encoding (spelling) the words they want to use.
For example, a student might draw a picture of a dog running after a ball. They could label the picture with words such as:
dog • run • ball
Once the pictures are labeled, have students share their story aloud. This gives you an opportunity to check for narrative structure, vocabulary, and phonemic accuracy while also helping students see that their pictures and words can work together to tell a story.
For students who aren’t ready to write complete sentences, this can be an important first step toward becoming independent writers.
I created a simple free picture labeling packet to use with your students. It contains a cover and two types of writing pages.
One page is completely blank, giving students plenty of room to draw their picture and use their phonics strategies to label it.
The second page includes writing lines at the bottom. After the student draws and labels the picture, the teacher can conference with the student and ask them to tell about their picture. The teacher can then write what the student says on the lines at the bottom.
This gives students an opportunity to practice communicating their ideas even when they aren’t yet able to independently write everything they want to say.
Sentence building is another way to give early writers structured writing practice without expecting them to start with a completely blank page.
To practice initial sounds and sentence structure in context, print a simple sentence on paper strips. Have students cut the sentence apart and glue the words back together in the correct order.
You can quickly write a sentence on paper, cut the words apart, and have the student reconstruct it.
Even students who aren’t reading independently can participate by matching initial sounds, recognizing familiar words, and using picture clues or other supports.
Doing this manually on the spot can be time-consuming, especially when you’re working with a small group and trying to meet the needs of several students at different instructional levels.
And let’s be honest, teacher prep time is already limited!
To streamline this process, I created pre-printed journal pages with ready-made sentence strips for students to cut and paste.
Below the sentence-building activity, I included writing lines where students could continue the thought, add another sentence, or write about the picture.
It’s simple for students to navigate, provides plenty of repetition, and saves precious teacher prep time.
I also created a blank template if you would like to create your own sentence-building pages. The template is ready to print and use with a student, no extra planning needed. All the teacher has to do is write the sentence at the bottom. The student then cuts out the words and glues them onto the journal page.
I also created a sheet of ready-to-go sentence strip boxes that can be printed and reused. The teacher and student can write new sentences on the strips as needed.
This makes it easy to create customized sentence-building activities based on whatever skill the student is currently working on.
Before students can independently write sentences and stories, many early writers need lots of practice with foundational phonics and encoding skills.
I created worksheets targeting the specific sounds my students were learning and put them together into individualized writing journals. Each student could have a writing journal focused on the specific skills they needed to work on.
These pages covered skills such as:
Activities included:
These activities reinforced literacy skills on a structured, word-by-word basis while giving students repeated opportunities to practice the skills they were learning in reading.
The same phonics skills will be used when students sound out and spell words in sentences, so incorporating them into writing activities gives students another opportunity to apply what they are learning.
These special education writing activities can easily be put together into an individualized writing journal.
The key is to match the writing activities to each student’s current instructional level rather than expecting every student to complete the same writing assignment.
Check out some of these resources here.
The biggest benefit of creating individualized writing journals is that you can adjust the activities to match what each student is currently learning.
One student might be working on identifying and writing initial sounds, while another is ready to build complete sentences. Another student might be working on labeling pictures and developing a beginning-middle-end story.
Instead of giving every student the same blank journal and asking them to “just write,” you can provide the scaffolding they need to be successful.
It’s an easy way to create individualized interventions in your classroom without having to reinvent your writing instruction for every student.
As their skills develop, you can gradually remove those supports and increase the amount of independent writing.
The goal isn’t to keep students dependent on supports. The goal is to provide the right amount of support until students are ready to do more independently.
Once the journal packets are put together, they can easily be reused with future students. I won’t dismiss the amount of time I had to put into creating these packets, though! There is definitely some initial prep involved.
The good news is that once you have the materials created, you can reuse them year after year and customize them for different students.
If you don’t want to spend the time creating your own packets, I also have many of these resources ready to use in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
One of my favorite benefits of having these materials prepared ahead of time was using them for substitute plans.
In my special education classroom, I had a Sub Tub filled with materials that a substitute could easily use with my students. I would leave packets that were familiar and easier for my students to complete so they could review skills they already knew.
There was no additional learning or complicated teaching required.
The substitute could simply pull out the appropriate packet and work through the activities with the students.
Easy materials + familiar routines + less stress for the substitute = a much easier day for everyone!
What should you include in a special education writing journal?
Include activities that match the student’s current skills, such as phonics practice, picture labeling, sentence building, word writing, and supported independent writing. The goal is to provide enough structure for the student to be successful while gradually increasing independence.
How can writing journals help early writers?
Writing journals provide structure and scaffolding so students can practice writing skills without having to begin with a completely blank page. They can also give students repeated opportunities to apply phonics and encoding skills in meaningful writing activities.
Can writing journals be used for different ability levels?
Absolutely! Individualized writing journals can be created around each student’s current instructional needs. One student might need activities focused on initial sounds, while another might be ready for sentence building or story writing.
I’ve created a free resource library filled with reading, writing, math, teacher support, and special education resources.
You’ll find materials to help supplement your instruction and customize activities for your learners, including learning board games, activities, printables, and more.
If you’re looking for simple, ready-to-use resources to support your students, check out the free resource library!
Teaching young writers to read and write is incredibly challenging. Kindergarten and early-elementary teachers are absolute saints for leading students through this process!
I hope these ideas give you a few simple, structured strategies you can use to support the early writers in your classroom.
