Itinerant Teachers’ Writing Instruction

The majority of deaf and hard of hearing students are taught in public schools. Many of these students are taught by itinerant teachers who report their primary areas of instruction are language, reading, and writing (Antia & Rivera, 2016; Luckner & Ayantoye, 2013). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine (1) how strategic and interactive writing instruction (SIWI) was implemented by three itinerant teachers of the deaf in one rural, one urban, and one affluent school district and (2) what context-specific variables impacted their writing instruction. Through observations of a unit of their writing instruction for informative writing, scoring their fidelity for that writing unit, and conducting interviews about their instruction, the researchers concluded that the itinerant teacher participants were able to implement SIWI with typical fidelity for teachers in their first year of using this instruction technique. Their unique insights highlighted ways that the interactive instruction principles of the instructional fidelity instrument could be revised to better align with the educational contexts of itinerant teachers. They also reported four main challenges to their writing instruction: working with general education teachers, district-related factors, time, and physical space and organization.