Twin with Writing and Reading Difficulty

[Unregistered]

I have a student who happens to be a twin. She does okay with her reading, but has trouble with some decoding of basic words. Yet, she writes journals that don't seem to make any sense. It is like what she tells me and what she writes are two different things. What can I do to help her?

[Unregistered]

Have her write descriptions of pictures, then wait a day or two and have her read the descriptions to you as she looks that the picture. Ask her if the picture is accuratly described or if she needs to fix her descriptions. Soon her writing should get more detailed and match up to what she sees. After a while have her write about an idea. Do the same thing go back over her writing with her reading it to you and ask her "do you think that you stayed on the subject or did you start tallking about something new?" I have a lot of students who have trouble staying on topic so I do this and it seems to help. Also when a student rereads thier own work they see the problems with the writing and try to fix them as they read make sure you point this out to her. If she tries to change her words on the paper ask her "Is that what you wrote?" Younger kids like the attention and older ones hate to do it again but both are motivations to get it write the first time. I teach at the high school level but this has worked with younger children, just make the pictures match the age. Good luck!