AlphaSmart

my daughter has one and is not a great typer. One classroom activity I have heard about is to write a group story—every child writes a sentence—then passes the alphasmart to the next child, who adds another sentence or something more.
My daughter had the assignment to write 4 paragraphs a day about science class (she can’t write much of anything). so she used the alphasmart to write two phrases a day, then was able to print them off after two weeks. she uses it as a diary also—for journal writing.

I use the AS nearly daily in my middle school English classes (I have both SC and teamed classes) and most of my kiddos enjoy using it. I have a class set, so each student can use one during class time. They practice vocabulary exercises, do word games, take tests and quizzes, and do journal entries as well as produce written work. I also work with teachers of other subjects (particularly those who have the LD student in their mainstream classes) and they send me their tests/quizzes via e-mail attachment and I upload them to an AS, which I deliver to the classroom. Quite a few of my students like to check one out for a weekend or overnight, so they can work on a writing project for other classes. They bring it back, we save to computer and disk (or print out) and procede from there.

Be creative!

Kay Smith

I have used AS for about 5-6 years. The students in my Resource Room use them more than paper and pencil. I was lucky enough to convince my principal to purchase a classroom set for Sp. Ed. so I have 20 and share with the Special Day Class next door. I have numbered the back of each AS to help keep track of who is using each one. I start with a very basic intro during the 1st week of school. Most kids start out by just making an effort to use RorL hand on the correct half of the keyboard. By 3rd grade about 90% can at least do this. Then for the first month or so, I give all small group Spelling tests on the AS. This is not an option for the students - all Spelling tests must be done on the AS. Other written work can be paper and pencil. So, when dictating the Spelling list I do it very methodically - it is always scripted exactly the same way:
Turn on your AS.
Type your name, the date, and the number of your AS and the file # (1-8) on the 1st line.
Hit return.
Type 1, period, tab - (dictate word #1) hit return
Type 2, period, tab - (dictate #2) hit return……
I have aide monitor while individual students download and print. This makes correcting a snap. I then gradually increase the amount of work to be done on AS. Once they see how impressed the reg. ed. teachers are with the quality of their work, the student use of AS increases dramatically. By 4th and 5th grade, my students are the school-wide “experts” on AS’s and help reg. ed. teachers to introduce them to their classes. A great self-esteem booster. I also use these “experts” to tutor newly admitted sp. ed. students on AS skills. I am lucky because each reg. class has 2 -20 min. sessions in the school’s computer lab each week just to practice keyboarding using Typing Tutor. I encourage parents to enroll my students in a keyboarding class over the summer and or purchase keyboarding software for home. Parents have been very enthusiastic and cooperative because they see the benefits almost immediately - they can read their child’s classwork! With younger students I use the AS to take dictation of written work from class. Sometimes the sp ed. aide who works in the reg. ed. classroom, use the AS to take dictation from the sp. ed. student for written assignments. I even use AS for workbook pages that need to be filled in by students. They dictate or type in answers per directions. Heading on this paper is: student’s name, date, workbook name and wb page #. Then print it out and staple to wb page. Reg. ed teachers love this because they can read it easily.
Every student’s IEP has as an appropriate modification that “any classwork or test can be produced using a word processor” so reg. ed. teachers have to accept this type of work. This has dramatically improved sp. ed. students’ performance, especially on district wide writing proficiency tests. Good luck. Hope this helps!

My son is very dysgraphic. He has trouble writing anything. The help is is getting in resource is minimal, 1/2 hr. daiy with a group. I am disapointed and would like to see him learn typing skills to use an alpha smart. Can I ask the school to get him one? Will they give him the training to use it? How do I go about getting this written in his IEP?