Lower School Writing Program

The Eagle Hill Writing Program is designed to remediate and develop our students’ composition skills so that they will be more competent and confident writers. The curriculum reflects a continuum of skills from basic handwriting and fine motor skill development through advanced composition. Throughout the writing program instruction in expressive language development (vocabulary, sentence structure and complexity, organization and elaboration of ideas) is emphasized. A process writing approach, including emphasis on various pre-writing exercises is used in all levels of writing class. Spelling instruction is coordinated with each student’s tutorial teacher. This provides the reinforcement necessary for a learning disabled student to master and apply the phonetic patterns in which he is being instructed. Writing classes meet daily for a forty-minute period.

Students are placed in writing classes based on their oral and written language, spelling, and handwriting skills and needs. Teachers are provided with a scope and sequence of skills to be instructed in a variety of areas: handwriting and fine motor skills, spelling, sentence structure, grammar and mechanics, composition style, and editing. When appropriate, instruction in basic word processing and use of computers throughout the writing process is also emphasized.