Assistive Technology to Support Writing

Summary

Writing can be a very difficult and daunting task for some students. The writing process includes prewriting, drafting, reviewing, editing, and sharing/publishing. While there are many parts of the writing process, teachers can implement certain strategies in the classroom to assist students. Many students with disabilities may appear to be avoiding doing their work when they are supposed to be writing, but it really may be that the process is too difficult for them. It is the teacher's job to make it doable for the student. Some ways to do this are using graphic organizers, word processors, word prediction, custom dictionaries, text-to-speech, talking dictionaries, and digital storytelling, just to name a few. With the help of assistive technology and patient teachers, students can experience success with the writing process.

Work Cited: Dell, Newton, Petroff. Assistive Technology in the Classroom (Pearson Education, 2008), 52. 

Writing Process

1. http://www.readwritethink.org

This website is beneficial for students with reading and/or writing disabilities. The website is very organized; you can search by grade level, resource type, learning objectives, and even different themes. Different resource types include: lesson plans, student interactive activities, mobile apps, calendar activities, and printouts.  Aside from being an extremely versatile website, it's also free! Lesson plans incorporate popular children's books, such as Fancy Nancy, so they seem highly engaging for students. Teachers could use this website during guided-reading activities, to help students organize their thoughts, recall information about a book, and retain important story elements. This is an easy-to-navigate, teacher-friendly website.

Graphic Organizers

1. http://www.inspiration.com/

This is another great website for students with reading and/or writing disabilities. It could also be helpful for students with ADHD, who may have difficulty focusing during traditional classroom activities. This website offers a product called Inspiration. Inspiration is a great product to help students (grade 6 - adult) with visual mapping, outlining, writing, and even making presentations. Inspiration is available for a free 30-day trial download, if you would like to test the product before making a commitment. A single Inspiration licenses costs $39.95, but if your school is looking to purchase more than one license, they do offer discounts.

This would be a great website to use to take notes during class or while reading, to organize ideas for a book report, and so many other activities. In addition, the website offers similar products for younger students, as well.

2. http://www.matchware.com/en/products/mindview/education/examples.htm

MindView is a product that provides students with templates that they can use with language arts, social studies, and science. The great thing about the templates is that they allow students to focus on the content of what they are learning, and less about how they are going to go about recording the information. The templates can be edited, customized, and saved for future reference. Clip art is also included, to keep the templates interesting and engaging for students. I can really see students with reading/writing disabilities, as well as we all students, using this product to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts they read about or studied. The website has a ton of information, it is organized, and teacher friendly. Depending on the product purchased, a single-used license ranges from $249-$279.

Word Processing for Drafting

1. http://www.ldresources.org/?p=171

This website provides resources for people with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. It is also a place for people to comment back and forth about issues and trends, regarding learning disabilities. If you click on the "links" section, you can find information about the following topics: adult literacy and ESL, books and videos, camps and residential, colleges, computers and software, education issues and ideas, electronic text collection, events and conferences, and much more. This website is free to use, and can provide teachers and parents with resources to help children succeed.

2. http://www.donjohnston.com/products/write_outloud/index.html

Talking word processors are great for students with reading/writing disabilities, but they are also great tools for other students too! One example is called Write:OutLoud. It provides speech feedback as the user types. It can read individual letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. Similar to word prediction software, this type of software can help students with spelling and grammar. This program is wonderful for students to use when editing their work. Students can adjust the size of the text, as well as the color of the font and/or background, to help the student follow along as the word processor reads their work to them. This can help students become more successful when editing their work.  It includes: a simple tool to help students make a bibliography, a talking spell checker, human-sounding voices, an age-appropriate dictionary, as well as a homophone checker! The price starts at $84 per computer.

Word Prediction

1. http://www.goqsoftware.com/

Word prediction software is a type of product that works by predicting the next word that the user is going to type. One great product that I found is called WordQ. It is great for students who have difficulty with spelling, grammar, and word choice; students with writing disabilities would benefit greatly from this type of product. WordQ can be used with young children but also with adults. It is an add-on that can be purchased to work with Microsoft Word and other word processors. This type of product is great for students who may develop anxiety while writing or have fine motor difficulties, as well as various other needs. The product costs $199 to purchase for a single computer.

2. http://www.cricksoft.com/us/products/tools/writeonline/default.aspx

Write Online is a tool that students with writing disabilities can use to improve their writing. It can be accessed online, at any time, but it can also be installed on a computer. It costs $300 to download the software, which is slightly pricey. This product could be beneficial for many different kinds of learners, especially learners who have difficulty with writing, spelling, grammar, and poor handwriting. The product works by predicting the words as you type, making sure the words fit the context. This can help improve student confidence and success rate!
 
Speech Recognition

1.  http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm

Speech recognition software is great for students who struggle with reading and/or writing disabilities, such as dyslexia. The example above, is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Speech Recognition. It is simple to use; the student talks, and the software types what the student says. All that is needed is a computer and a high-quality microphone. Students can use this product to write stories, send emails, open applications, move the mouse, and more! It is a very well-rounded product. It allows them to focus more on the content of their writing, instead of remembering where the keys are and how to spell words. The cost for a PC license is $74.99.

2. http://www.goqsoftware.com/product-details/speakq/

SpeakQ is a product that you can use if you already have WordQ installed on your computer. SpeakQ can be used to write short assignments or longer assignments. One nice thing about the product is that you can use a combination of speaking and typing to complete your activity. SpeakQ allows you type the words you know and use voice-to-text to say the the ones you do not know. Another nice thing about this product is that it offers suggestions for words you may be unable to pronounce. The price is $99 and would be beneficial for students who were completing a writing assignment and had difficulty with spelling, grammar, or typing in general.

Text-to-Speech

1. http://nextup.com/

TextAloud is a product that can turn text from documents or emails, into naturally-sounding speech. This can be useful for students with reading disabilities because it will transform hard-to-decode text, into words they can listen to and comprehend more easily. A free trial is available, and the product is fairly-priced at $29, making it more affordable than some other educational programs.
 
2. http://www.gingersoftware.com/

Ginger is a program that can be used as a grammar and spell checker for students with writing difficulties, and many other students as well. It works in a very interesting way; it takes your sentence and compares it to similar sentences on the Internet and proofreads your work. It scans your work as you type, but it can also scan your entire document as well. The website is easy to navigate and it has a clean and simple layout. The best thing is that the product is free!
  
Phonetic Dictionary

1. http://www.donjohnston.com/products/write_outloud/index.html 

Write:OutLoud is a great program for students to use when editing their work. It includes: a simple tool to help students make a bibliography, a talking spell checker, human-sounding voices, an age-appropriate dictionary, as well as a homophone checker! The price starts at $84 per computer. Students with writing difficulties could really benefit from using this product when writing in school or at home. A great thing about this program is that the definitions are age-appropriate, making it accessible for young children.

Dell, A., Newton, D., & Petroff, J. (2012). Assistive technology in the classroom. (2nd ed., pp. 3-22). Upper Saddle River: Pearson.