[senco-forum] Handwriting help

Hi Lesley

To add to and support Ruth and Judith's mails, Dragon is a fantastic tool.
I have used it successfully with Year 6 boys.  One thing you will need to
check out is how Dragon runs on a laptop.  At one time Ian Litterick was
advising that laptops can be noisy and this noise can interfere with the
accuracy of voice recognition.  Some laptops were definitely better than
others, as the fan is quieter.  The microphone that is used can also make a
big difference - especially 9in a classroom environment.  Talkmic was the
one Iansyst used to recommend.

May I suggest that if you decide to go with Dragon Dictate - which is the
best voice activated software for performance - then check out which
equipment will run it best with IANsyst at www.dyslexic.com  They are
experts, offer great advice, have some good information on their two web
sites, will not sell you what you do not need and can sell you dictation
ready laptops.  The version of Dragon that was recommended to our school by
Martin Miles, educational psychologist in Devon, is Naturally speaking
preferred.  I believe this is available n version 9 now.  I was using
version 5 and that was brilliant so 9 must be much improved.

The 10 year old it was most successful with could hardly write, his dyslexia
was so severe.  He took to Dragon like a duck to water and his self esteem
rocketed inside two lessons as Dragon removed mechanical restraint on
writing his ideas.

Best wishes,

Philippa

On 4/4/07, Lesley <lesley.hodges at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We have a year 10 boy who had a serious road accident back in October, and
> as a result spent a long time in hospital.
>
> He has recently returned to us for a couple of hours a day to begin the
> begin the reintegration process. We all know that this is going to be a
> very
> slow process for him and we are not trying to rush him into anything that
> he
> isn't ready for.
>
> However as part of his reintegration we are looking at putting together a
> handwriting scheme for him. He will had a word processor to record any
> work
> that he does and access to laptop computer where necessary. He isn't ready
> for the typical handwriting schemes yet ... we tried these last week and
> they knocked his confidence.
>
> I have started to use the Teodorescu scheme but I think he will whizz
> through these at the rate of knots, I had thought of using dot to dots and
> maze pictures but after searching the web for a couple of hours  today I
> haven't found any that a 15 year old boy would be happy to do in a
> classroom
> of mixed ages.
>
> So I wondered if you clever people could recommend any thing that would
> help
> with refining handwriting skills and rebuild his confidence in his
> abilities
> at the same time.
>
> Many thanks in anticipation of your help.
>
> Lesley.
>
>