Reading Online - Electronic Classroom: Technology Empowers Reading and Writing of Young Children

Jean Casey reminds us that computer technology has many benefits for children with learning difficulties. These range from motivational aspects to addressing issues that result from still-developing fine motor skills. Dr. Casey provides examples of computer use with children and software suggestions that facilitate their learning to read and write. Please contact her directly if you wish to receive research-based publications that support the claims made in this thought-provoking article.

Chuck Kinzer
Department Editor

Failing to learn to write and read in the early years results in more special education placement, retention, and poor self-esteem for the learner than any other cause. The technology of the pencil has not worked for those who have not yet developed the small muscle coordination to be successful with this tool.

In classrooms around the world, this is often the scene: A child tightly holds a large pencil and stares at the lined paper. He tries to copy the marks he sees on the board, with no success. He erases the paper until a gaping hole appears. Ideas fill his head but the frustration of not being able to write them down practically sends him hiding under the classroom desk. He may be discovered to have a learning disability, attention deficit disorder (ADD), or a behavior problem. Or he may be simply dismissed as lazy, belligerent, or inattentive. In how many classrooms does this occur and how many students do we lose to frustration and failure in the early years of school? In how many homes does a discouraged child walk in the door and announce, “I hate reading!”

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Fourteen years of research gathered by educators in the U.S. and Europe paint a much brighter trend and future for our young student. Today, using a computer with a talking word processor, he can now show others the ideas he has been unable to express with pencil and paper. He types his name, then “Mom,” and then every other word he knows. The computer reads back what he has just written; he sees it, hears it, reads it, and prints it out. He takes it home to read to everyone there and post on the refrigerator as proof of his ability to write and share his ideas.

Daily writing on the computer leads to his words growing into sentences and stories. Since they are stories from his own language experience, he has made the connection: "What I can say, I can write, what I can write, I can read and print out for others to read as well. I am a writer, a reader, an author!"

Superintendent Pat Eggleton leads Orcutt School district in Santa Barbara County, California. There, schools have six networked computers for writing in every classroom. Eggleton has observed the literacy growth of her students who began writing on computers in kindergarten and now excel in writing as sixth graders. They win local writing contests, have their own Web page, communicate through e-mail with students across the world, and use computers for their learning daily. Computers are part of the students' literate lives.

1. Select software that puts students in control of their own writing. Best choices: KidWorks Deluxe, Writing Blaster, or Ultimate Writing and Creativity Center. (These and other resources are listed at the end of this article.)

2. Type stories that you and your students write together, they need to see you as a writer. Print the story and read it aloud together, noticing beginning sounds, descriptive words, and other important elements of writing.

3. Give your students time every day to write out their ideas, listen to the computer read back their stories, and print them out and read to others.

4. Parents: Find out if appropriate software is available in your child’s classroom. If not, suggest to the PTA that software be purchased for the class.

A parent of a boy having learning problems in school wrote, “Once he got the computer, he knew he was in charge of his learning. Now he writes to other students worldwide online, he writes the history of where he has been and what he is doing, he writes novels for other kids, the ideas and words never stop. He is no longer a learning disabled child. For kids with a learning disability, the computer is a must!” For all students, it is a tool that empowers their writing and reading at an early age.

At 93rd St. School in Los Angeles, California, thanks to a Riordan Foundation grant, first-grade students learning English are creating their own stories on the word processor. Their proud smiles as they read these stories aloud is proof of their learning. If only every one of our students could have this opportunity.

KidWorks Deluxe, Writing Blaster, and KidWorks Month by Month Classroom Writing Activities from Knowledge Adventure

Jean Casey is a professor of reading/literacy at California State Long Beach/Fullerton. She conducts early literacy and technology workshops, speaks at conferences, and is the author of two books on the topic, Early Literacy: The Empowerment of Technology and Creating the Early Literacy Classroom available from Libraries Unlimited. Contact her at jeancasey@aol.com, or visit her Web site, www.csulb.edu/~jmcasey.

Citation: Casey, J. (2001, October). Technology empowers reading and writing of young children. Reading Online, 5(3). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=casey/index.html