How Word Recognition and Speech Synthesis Can Help

dent who attended a small private school for students with learning problems. He had a severe learning disability in read-ing and writing, as well as an attention deficit disorder. Despite above-average in-telligence and good verbal skills, Thomas read at a first-grade level. Although he had a lot to say when he dictated, his spelling was so poor that his writing was usually unreadable even to himself and his teacher (see Figure 1). Thomas’s math skills were average, and he had a keen interest in computers. The reading instruction program de-signed for Thomas and his classmates in-cluded systematic instruction in phonics, reading and discussion of trade books, and story listening and retelling activi-ties. The class wrote in dialogue journals about twice a week. Using Dialogue Journals Dialogue journals are written conversa-tions between the teacher and each indi-vidual student (Staton, Shuy, Kreeft-Peyton, & Reed, 1988). Dialogue journals provide an opportunity for teach-ers to model language usage and written form without directly correcting student language. Students can draw on the teacher model and their own oral lan-guage competence to construct written language that serves an immediate and personal purpose. Before the class began using comput-ers for their journals, the teacher woul