ANSWER: You haven’t said how old your student is, but a “scribe” is someone who writes down notes for a student who has difficulty writing by hand.
In the earlier grades, dyslexic students may benefit by using scribes to help get their ideas down on paper when they can’t write all that they have in their minds to say. When a student first begins to receive remediation for dyslexia, writing will lag reading – sometimes by a few years. Some students can type their answers (programs with word prediction maybe able to help) or dictate, so a scribe may not be necessary on a routine basis in the classroom; a scribe still may be helpful for standardized tests that require essay or short answer writing.
For students accustomed to dictating, a scribe may be preferable to typing by hand. Some students with dysgraphia have finger confusion – while others struggle knowing where to find the correct keys – and lose their place. Writing places enormous burdens on working memory. Assessing which accommodation is best for them at a point in time is a good idea before the test comes around.
Every district has different criteria and rules regarding scribes, so check out what rules apply to your student.
In a classroom, typically a scribe is a para-educator or classroom parent who has offered to help. Students may feel inhibited asking for the use of a scribe in the beginning, but it is a common accommodation that many students with dyslexia and dysgraphia use. It may be that your student takes the test initially with classmates, then finishes up with a scribe during recess or after school.
A helpful review of the use of scribes in education can be found here from the National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Their summary:
“In general, research shows that students with disabilities who have difficulty with writing mechanics or the physical act of writing may benefit from the use of a scribe on both writing assessments and assessments of other content. Although high school students preferred speech recognition over dictation to a scribe or handwriting the response, for students with learning disabilities, essays dictated to a scribe were generally higher quality than essays dictated using speech recognition.”
One of the research studies showing benefits of scribe accommodations involve the study of 5th graders.
IMPORTANT CAUTIONS REGARDING SCRIBES ON HIGH STAKES TESTS
It’s important to be aware that scribes are often instructed not to add any punctuation or capitalization on work that has been scribed. This can make proofreading and adding punctuation impossible – if they have not worked with this beforehand with a teacher, parent, or tutor.
Also if a student will use a scribe that they are unfamiliar with for a high stakes test, it’s good to talk with them ahead of time and review rules, but some students may be shy about talking to someone new and not know, for instance that they can return to previous questions or other issues that may arise on a test. In fact, we usually recommend that a student practice with someone new – like a neighbor or family member to get used to the experience of dictating and adding grammar as a second step.
Also, although the above research review stated that high school students generally prefer speech-to-text, there will be some students who prefer to dictate to a person. There can be many reasons for this – auditory processing issues, difficult working with existing software programs, etc.
College Entrance Exams are all very accustomed to students requesting scribes. Typically a student will need testing to document need for a scribe, but if the option for a scribe has been on an IEP or 504 in high school for years, it will usually be granted as an accommodation by the College Board or ACT as well as college.
In the past, some students who had accommodations in high school were denied accommodations for college entrance exams – but since actions and clarifications by the Department of Education and Department of Justice, college test services have been more consistent about allowing accommodations.
SCRIBE WITH EXTENDED TIME
Another policy to be aware of is that a scribe is typically accompanied by an extended time accommodation. Here is a video introducing the use of a scribe for a California exam. There’s a little role play in the second part of the video.
