My son has a learning disability that is most apparant in the composition of writing. He has trouble applying correct spelling, grammar rules, and basic structure and organization of a story. I was thinking of purchasing software to assist with prompts that would help him in writing until it became automatic.
Any suggestions?
Linda L.
Microsoft Word will do a lot, too.
Grammar checking is still, fundamentally, lousy - but for lots of the spelling and basic things like verb-subject agreement, doing a “right click” over a word you’re wondering about (because it’s underlined in red or green to tell you to check :)) will often give you the correct option and all you have to do is click! and it’s fixed for you. This saves my college kiddos lots of time.
You can also use “track changes” to leave comments in different colors when you’re going over somebody else’s work, or even record your comments for them to go over on their own. This can really help because the bottom line is a computer can’t teach writing — this whole language thing is complex.
For composition structure...
I really like the Institute for Excellence in Writing program (www.writing-edu.com). It is not a computer program, rather it offers a series of videotapes for teaching writing. The basic building block of the program is the key word concept—it’s explained in an article on the newsletter section of the site called “Writing Without Tears.” An incomplete, but very good alternative to the the teaching videos are the videos for an intensive student workshop. My 11-year old son watched the tapes and followed the instructions by himself, producing the best paragraphs he has ever written. These videos would give him the basics of structure and style, but he would need to practice each of the techniques taught outside of the videos for them to be integrated.
Re: Software Suggestions for Writingq
If you type in www.inspiration.com they will send you a free 30 day demo. My daughter, age 9, used it to write her first report.
The following programs are being used by my son in school for these issues:
Cowriter
Inspiration
Write Out loud
You can find them at www.donjohnston.com
Writing resource 2000 was also recommended for the grammer stuff. It is a book that has every grammer rule known to man in it. Good resource book.
Hope this helps.
Jean