If your child has struggled with writing and spelling in spite of remedial help, you may reach a point where continuing to work on basic skills seems fruitless. When our son was in seventh grade, still working on spelling, and still unable to remember how to spell simple words, our neuropsychologist told us our best course of action might be to teach our son how to use tools that would enable him to write well.
One of the things I learned also was that self-correcting spelling errors can bring about more lasting changes in spelling than spelling lessons. We have found this to be VERY true! My son's spelling has improved a great deal since he started using a word processor that notes his spelling errors for him, but does not auto-correct. Assistive technology has really helped elevate my son's writing level to closely match his sophisticated thought level.
That said, let me share a couple of tools with you. One of my FAVORITE new products on the market is Ginger's revolutionary writing solution, a new spelling and grammar checking software. OH MY! I LOVE THIS software!! It is like having an interpreter for dyslexia-speak built into the word processor. There are very few phonetic spellings my son creates which Ginger cannot adequately interpret.
Ginger's revolutionary writing solution has a widget on you can use to TRY their software FOR FREE: Type in any of your child's written work and see how Ginger works right here:
World's Leading Grammar and Spell Checker Learn More
I was very surprised and had instant-love for the product when it was first demo'ed. If you like the widget, you can click on the banner below to go visit their website and download their free trial software.
Another great tool is Speech-To-Text software. A lot of PC's have this built-in capability nowadays and you have to have a built-in, headset, or separate microphone to utilize this technology. The biggest trick is finding the software and activating it. You can usually find this software somewhere under the configuration options for your display on your PC, usually provided as an "accessibility" feature. You will need to check with your specific PC manufacturer to find the exact location.
You can always purchase Speech-To-Text software as well. A personal favorite would be Dragon Naturally Speaking. This software has been on the market a long time, and probably does the best possible job of translating spoken text into written text. Dragon Naturally Speaking, like all speech-to-text software, requires 'training' time. In order to function properly, the software has to be used by the dictator and corrected manually for some period of time before it will be adept at typing out whatever the user dictates. It is a matter of time and patience to get the software properly set. The person who will be using the software has to do the training, so it can be a frustrating experience for children. I think it is easier for teens to be reasoned with regarding the temporary/frustrating need to train the software, but once the software has been trained to recognize the speech, it is a great tool!!
These two tools are both used in conjunction with a good word-processor. Word Perfect and Microsoft Word are probably the two most popular word processors. Either of the tools above can be used with either of these word processors. If you happen to have an Apple, you can get Microsoft Word for the Apple, however Ginger is not YET available for the Apple (as of July 2011). As soon as it is available, an Apple + Microsoft Word + Dragon Dictate (for Apple computers) + Ginger's revolutionary writing solution-Try now! will be the best possible set-up for your learning abled child to become a proficient and independent writer using assistive technology.