Why Some Kids Stare at a Blank Page And What to Give Them Instead
You set up the task.
You model the structure.
You send them off to write…
And one or more students just… freeze.
It’s not that they don’t want to write — it’s that writing taps into every major executive function skill at once:
- Planning
- Organisation
- Working memory
- Task initiation
- Self-monitoring
- Emotional regulation
That’s a big load to carry — especially for our neurodivergent or trauma-affected learners.
This week in Thera-Scholars, we’re offering a visual scaffold that supports thinking AND writing:
🖍️ The TEEL for Littlies Chart — a colour-coded visual to support structured, independent sentence building and paragraph creation.
Why This Matters:
Many struggling writers are actually struggling thinkers — who need help:
✅ Knowing how to start
✅ Remembering what each part of a paragraph does
✅ Breaking writing into manageable steps
✅ Seeing their progress along the way
This Week’s Tool: TEEL for Littlies (T-E-E-L = Topic, Explain, Example, Link)
This scaffold is colour-coded with icons and sentence starters, so students can:
- Build a complete answer or paragraph, one idea at a time
- Use visual memory to recall writing structure
- Feel success — even with 1–2 sentences
It works for:
📘 Writing in literacy
🌿 Reflections in SEL
💡 Responses in science or inquiry
How to Use It:
✅ Introduce it in a shared writing session
✅ Display the colour-coded TEEL visual on desks or whiteboards
✅ Highlight student writing in matching colours as a form of feedback
📝 On Friday, your students will reflect on what helped their brain write this week — not just what they finished.
SHS can support with writing scaffolds, task breakdown tools, and emotional supports for writing resistance.
For more info:
Autism Thera-Scholars Teachers Community
📧 info@succeedhealthcare.com.au
🌐 www.succeedhealthcare.com.au
#SHS #SucceedHealthcareSolutions #NorthLakes #WritingScaffolds #ExecutiveFunctionSupport #StudentWriters