Internet Resources for Written Expression

Research / Organizations / Resources for Kids, Parents & Teachers / Commercial Sites
ldonline has a reprint of a research article published in JLD, Using Technology to Enhance the Writing Process of Students with Learning Disabilities, by Charles MacArthur. / The National Council of Teachers of English has reading and writing tools and resources for all grade levels, from elementary to college levels. / High School Hub has good links for spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, poetry, and literature among others. Very inclusive site. / Inspiration and Kidspiration are useful tool to create graphic organizers for the planning stages of writing. Version 7.5 of Inspiration has 10 new writing templates.
The University of Maryland Research Center has articles on Self-Regulated Strategy Development in Writing (SRSD) developed by Steve Isaacson and Karen Harris. / English-Zone.com is an interactive site with lessons and quizzes on grammar,verbs, spelling, and vocabulary from easy to advanced. It even has the Dolch basic word list. / Don Johnston has developed several technology tools to assist students with learning disabilities in writing, including Draft:Builder, Co:Writer, and Write:Outloud.
ldonline has a reprint of an article that was published in LDR&P by Steve Graham & Mary Gleason, Mechanical Obstacles to Writing: What Can Teachers Do to Help Students with Learning Prolems? / Paradigm Online Writing Assistant is an interactive writer's guide and handbook. Even though it is supposed to be for the inexperienced to advanced, the site appears more appropriate for advanced. / AlphaSmart and Dana are portable, relatively inexpensive word processors. Teachers can test drive an AlphaSmart for 30 days.
Write on is a web site developed by Jefferson County Schools in TN to improve the composition skills for 4th and 5th graders. It has writing prompts, journals, student compositions, and some great links. / The Writer, a portable writing tool, has many built-in features, including writing prompts, rubrics, journals, spell check, and thesaurus.
Writing Den, for students grades 6-12 seeking to improve their reading and writing skills. Includes 3 levels of difficulty with Real Audioclips. / Lintor Publishing produces template-based software to work with word processing programs to enable students to publish their own books.
The International Reading Association, the National Council of English Teachers, and the Marco Polo Educational Foundation sponsor read*write*think. Site contains resources on reading and language arts instruction. / Yak-Yak software is used to improve language skills for people with learning disabilities in 4 languages. There is a link to the English Wordfinder.
Blogs, a popular cultural phenomenon, are online personal journals that are free and require no knowledge of HTML. Blogger and other blog sites can provide teachers and student writers access to instant publishing. / Franklin Electronics produces a variety of speaking dictionaries in English and Spanish.