Assistive Technology

Assistive technology encompasses a wide range of tools and devices, from least to most sophisticated. For teachers in Schaumburg School District 54, the key idea is to provide students in the literacy classroom with a print-rich environment where students can have access to language, where words, phrases, and sentences are displayed throughout the room. The classroom is full of writing and reading tools and materials—magnetic words on the whiteboard, word walls, highlighters, books on tape, a digital camera for reading conferences, and others. Scaffolding the reading and writing process forms the essence of the literacy classroom and writing workshops. To achieve effective learning, the principle "Hear it-See it-Produce it," as the teachers in Schaumburg School District 54 call it, permeates the writing process by the use of the following: Hearing spoken and written language (e.g., audio books; tape recorders; talking word processing; word prediction; writing software with story starters; on-screen vocabulary; and auditory feedback; or more complex programs that scan and read text) Dictionaries (e.g., picture, personal, class, electronic) Charts and posters Modeled writing (e.g., daily news, morning message) Shared writing (e.g., class newsletter) Interactive writing Graphic organizers (e.g., low-tech webs and organizers; software that provides graphic organizers with color, shapes, voice output, and easy translation to outline form) Templates (e.g., various forms of writing)

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