You might want to determine what their grade level is in writing and find a good curriculum at that level.

See how they do and adjust if needed.

Then try to put in a little rigor and move into different elements of writing areas if you can.

Try to keep at a pace or level where you see them progressing (getting it), otherwise if it is too hard they will turn off.

Make it fun and relevant as much as possible

First, find out what their IEP’s say about their goals for writing or communication. The IEP guides all of their instruction.

While IQ’s from 70 – 90 are lower than average, your students are certainly not considered to be mentally disabled. They will go on to jobs, marriage, making purchases, using credit, banking, voting, and everything else that people do.

If they are working on sight words in reading, they should learn to spell those words and create sentences from them. If you are an English teacher you know that reading and writing go together and can’t be entirely separated. Coordinate with whomever is teaching them to read. Let them write their own stories using invented spelling if necessary, or by them telling you the story while you write it down and they can copy. They can then read those stories to their other teachers. My guess is that they are farther along than that, but you’ll have to decide.

Even though they may not go to college, there are many other types of “real life” writing skills that they will need : filling out employment applications, contracts, tax forms, banking and credit forms, a variety of letters, consumer complaints, etc.

I have had success with a series of texts called Be a Better Reader. This series has the students read and then write about what they’ve read. A website for examing these and other helpful books is http://plgcatalog.pearson.com/subject_area_listing.cfm?site_id=2083&discipline_id=804

You should also check with any other teachers they may have that require writing, whether test answers, essays, research reports, etc.

I will repeat here what I said at the first — check the IEP’s for their goals and expectations. That is how you will decide what to do.

The only way to know what to teach a child, is to assess them.