Writing is a complex process that requires many skills. Students with disabilities often struggle with writing because of this and the multiple steps that are involved. Luckily, there are many technological tools that can assist these students. Below you will see each step in the writing process and the tools that can remove barriers for students with disabilities:
Step 1: Prewriting (planning of writing)
Graphic organizers can be extremely helpful to students when planning their writing. In my previous blog I discussed Kidspiration created by Inspiration Software Inc. which allows students to connect their visual thoughts with words and pictures to easily create graphic organizers.
Step 2: Drafting (turning ideas into text)
In the drafting process, students develop their thoughts into meaningful text composed of sentences and paragraphs. Tools that can assist students with this step include word processing to remove the task of writing with pencil and paper, word predication software to assist with spelling, and speech recognition for students with physical disabilities that cannot write or use a keyboard.
Step 3: Reviewing (reading over the written draft)
This step can be a particular struggle for students with poor reading skills. A text-to-speech software such as Write:OutLoud will assist students by reading aloud the text making it easier for students to hear and identify errors in their writing.
Step 4: Editing (correcting mistakes)
After reading over a written draft, students may need to correct spelling or revise mistakes. Using a spell-checker or talking dictionaries will allow these students to make the corrections with ease. As a teacher of writing it is important that I am aware of the devices and options to remove barriers for my students so that they can be successful in each part of the writing process.
The assistive technology that I mentioned can be used by all students in the classroom depending on their needs. Kidspiration is something that I know my students would love and it would definitely engage them in the prewriting stage!
Kate, I really like how you briefly described each step of the writing process! This description will be really helpful for anyone who reads your blog that may not be familiar with the writing process! I also really like how you provided your readers with a link to each of the assistive technology devices you talked about in your blog! This would definitely come in handy for an educator or parent who was interested in using one of the above devices in their classroom or at home to help a student!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Pam! The writing process is definitely a complex process even for teachers! I think that using AT in the regular education classroom is a good idea too!
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