Computer-Assisted Instruction: Guidelines for Composing at the Computer

from: Working with Special Students in English/Language Arts

Brief Description
Certain instructional guidelines will help LD students compose more comfortably and effectively at the computer.

Objective
To help LD students feel comfortable when composing at the computer; to help LD students overcome the mechanical complexities of working with word processing; to assure successful instructional activities for LD students.

Procedures
Before you begin working with learning-disabled students in the classroom, consider the following guidelines drawn from two years of research on word processing. Use these guidelines as you create your own activities.

1. Identify writing strengths and problems before you have students work on the word processor. The students' individual strengths and weaknesses will dictate how you might use word processing with them.

2. Teach your students machine skills at the beginning. Students need to use both hands on the keyboard, the left hand for the left side of the keyboard and the right hand for the right side of the keyboard.

3. Have students use the word processor for composing. The revision/editing features make the computer an appealing composing tool for LD students.

4. If your students are new to word processing, provide them alternatives to revising on the computer. Pair an "author" with a "typist," or work with the student yourself, letting the student take the author role while you act as typist.

5. Save editing for last. Suggest that students insert an asterisk (*) by an uncertain word or phrase and come back to it later.

6. Respect students' need for control over the content of their writing. Remember that their ongoing composing process is highly visible on the screen, a more public activity than most are accustomed to experiencing. That very visibility, however, gives you opportunities to reinforce and appreciate the student's writing process.

7. Time your interventions according to the students' stages in the writing cycle: how they write, what they write, and the rules for correct and effective writing. Focus on "how" during any new stage: generating ideas, planning, reviewing, revising, editing. Focus on "what" when students begin to generate their own ideas. Focus on "correct" at the final editing stage.

Personal Observation
Because writing at the computer is more "visible" than other means of composing, LD students may be reluctant to compose at the keyboard. Using these guidelines, however, will ease them into an activity to which most respond well. Because illegible handwriting is no longer a factor, because revising is no longer a painstaking recopying procedure, and because collaborative learning can be part of the instructional technique, instruction in the LD classroom can benefit from computer technology.

Source
ED 296 492
Morocco, Catherine Cobb, and others. Teachers, Children and the Magical Writing Machine: Instructional Contexts for Word Processing with Learning Disabled Children. Final Report, and "I Know What to Say!" Writing Activities for the Magical Machine. Education Development Center, Inc., Newton, MA. 1987. 202 pp.

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