Reinvigorating Writing Using WordQ to Support
a Student in 4th Grade
Available from:
www.goqsoftware.com
Amanda Fenlon & Renee Ferlito, SUNY Oswego
S- Student Profile and Characteristics
Writing before WordQ
John is a nine-year old 4th grade student with a learning disability in reading ad
written expression. He enjoys school and easily generates good ideas on a
topic for writing, but struggles to organize his ideas and spell words. He then
loses his train of thought and becomes frustrated, often refusing to complete
the writing assignment.
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E-Environment John attends an integrated co-taught 4th grade classroom, with
frequent writing assignments across subject areas. John receives daily literacy
instruction from the special educator.
John using WordQ to
organize his Friday Letter
T-Task John was required to complete a weekly “Friday
Using WordQ with Digital 4
Square Organizer
Letter” home to parents to describe his week at school,
starting with a a topic sentence and addressing four areas
(what I learned, my behavior/effort, what I enjoyed, my goal
for next week), using a simple letter writing format.
T- Teaching John received instruction in the writing process
(planning, editing, revising, publishing). His teacher first
modeled how to use the graphic organizer in conjunction
with WordQ, then supported him in creating his digital
graphic organizer and then his document from the completed
graphic organizer. He picked up the word prediction and text
to speech features very quickly and enjoyed the technology
tools. He exclaimed “Look what I wrote!”.
Objectives
•Make writing more accessible for John through the use of assistive technology
•Use a digital graphic organizer with writing tasks in order to organize thoughts
•Become more independent and more able to fully participate in daily writing tasks
Standards
•W.4.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and
organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
•W.4.10 Write routinely over extended time frames and short time frames for a
range of discipline-specific tasks, purposed, and audience
Friday Letter using WordQ
T- Tools
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A simple 4 square graphic organizer frequently used in 4th grade was converted
to digital format, using Microsoft Word and placed on students’ classroom
computer accounts/directories. It could be used in conjunction with WordQ.
WordQ, created by Quillsoft, can be used with any standard writing software.
WordQ offers word prediction. When typing, a list of words appears in a box that
you can choose from. To choose the word, either click directly on the word or
press the number choice associated with the word. You can also click on a word
and have it read aloud. When a sentence or entire piece is completed, WordQ
can be used to read the text aloud to make sure the writing is free of errors and
sounds correct.