8. Describe Their Implementation

Due to the very structured appraoch to this program, it made it very easy for implementation.  Working with special needs students presents its own challenges, but having such a structured system helped to move it along.  Students tennded to move quickly through the beginning lessons, but required soem more support and practice as we got to some of the more advanced lessons.  Worksheets that were most challenging were when the students were required to formulate their own sentences, but providing them word bansk and limiting the options definiley helped them.  Student absences and covid quarantining presented as the greatest challenges, which did cause it to take ore time to get through lessons.  Overall the students did make gains and improve in their writing skills. 

I implemented FSW with one high school student, who really benefitted from going back to synonyms.  She was very motivated to improve her writing to apply for college.  Covid interrupted the final sessions, and we completed the final lessons through Zoom, emailing pictures of her work or typing it in the chat.

The successes of teaching this strategy were twofold.  First, the students were able to apply the four formulas of sentence types to vary their writing.  Using “PENS” and “MARK” afforded the students the opportunity to think through the process before writing a sentence and provided a means for students to self-check their work.  Secondly, the students no longer considered writing a task but something they knew they could do and do well.  This resulted in greater confidence in the area of writing during small group instruction and in their general education classrooms. 
The challenges of teaching this strategy consisted of organization of materials and coordinating the re-teaching for some students while others progressed.  To combat these challenges, I was able to create a system whereby students could independently pull the learning sheet they needed as I was working with a student or students.  This promoted independence in the students and provided for more efficient time-management.