This week, I’m hoping to find as much valuable information about teaching language and writing to kids with disabilities as I was able to find about teaching reading. Since I’ve only been teaching Reading this school year and Language/Writing for the last 4, I’m much more familiar with the curriculum however, I’m always on the search for new ideas and I like to hear the thoughts of others on how to teach writing to kids with disabilities. I went to a writing workshop a few years ago and came back armed with all these great techniques to try. Sadly, they all failed miserably (and I tried and persisted with all of them to no avail). With any luck this search will result in a more fruitful acquisition of knowledge.
There are countless products out there to help students with writing disabilities (or even regular ability). The product described on this website http://www.wordq.com is called Word Q. This software program works with any word processor. It predicts words and provides speech feedback. You can also have text read back to you. It doesn’t correct spelling or grammar but that is rather irrelevant because the word processor itself does that. I think one of the most key tools associated with this software is that it claims to have the ability to predict words based on “creative spelling” and if it can predict the spelling of words for some of my students then it’s worth its weight in gold. One of the biggest problems with using the regular word processor is that kids type stories and essays and get discouraged because every last word is underlined with a squiggly red line. I would hope this program could alleviate some of those problems.
So Word Q is one of many products out there that aids students with writing disabilities and I can see how it would work for some, even many students. I feel like this program is still just a band-aid for the real problem which is that students with learning disabilities and expressive language problems would be doing well to put ANY idea down on paper. I have on many occasions asked frustrated students to dictate stories, sentences, and ideas to me so I can write it for them. Many are still unable to get thoughts out on paper. So while I’m pleased to find programs like Word Q, I am still on a quest for a solution to the greater problem: how do you get students to form ideas, organize those ideas and put them on paper in the form of a readable essay/story/sentence?
4 comments:
If you find the solution to your problem (how to get kids to organize information and put it down on paper) please let me know! I get so frustrated when my tried and true methods don't work. Writing is so difficult for so many children.
This program sounds like a really neat idea to help the kids gain confidence in writing. I would be interested to see how it really worked.
I was happy to see you post about writing today as I just came off an 8-hour workshop on the 6-traits writing program. While I got lots of new ideas for writing, I still walked away knowing that writing is one of the hardest things to teach to children.
It looks like you found another potential resource for your classroom, although a bit costly. I was disappointed that I couldn't take a look at the trial version as it is only for Windows.
On a different note, came across this link you might want to look at in the future from Scholastic about Math and Science lessons featuring interactive white boards. Was afraid that if I didn't share it now, I would forgot to share it later.
http://www.scholastic.com/interactivewhiteboards/
Getting my blogs mixed up. Meant the comment about the white boards for Jessica, although if you have one, you will find it helpful too. Sorry.
Writing is very difficult for all students, let alone those with language difficulties when verbally trying to express themselves. Having a program that would help with recognizing approximate spelling would be very helpful. Working with young students that has always been a problem. I wonder if this is similar to the T9 feature on texting with the cell phone? One way I can get my youngest students with limited language skills to write is to do a "tell about a picture". Either they or I cut out a magazine picture and then they have the choice of describing the picture or writing a story. There seems to be something about the magazine photo that grabs their attention. Not sure if this is too priamry.
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