Description of the Intervention Program
Written expression development was examined in two LLD classrooms over an eight-month period.  Both classrooms had children ranging in age from 6 years, 6 months to 8 years, 2 months, who all had specific language impairment.  Speech/Language Pathologists using the same curriculum taught both classrooms.  Pre-testing and Post-testing was done to look at knowledge of initial, medial and final consonants, rhyming, and early reading and writing concepts. 

Description of Experimental Classroom
The classroom is labeled a first grade Language/Learning Disabled classroom consisting of seven students whose language skills fall at least one standard deviation below the norm.  The children ranged in age from 6 years, 6 months to 8 years 2 months at the beginning of the school year.  The classroom teacher was a Speech-Language Pathologist with an endorsement in elementary education.  The students followed the regular first grade curriculum, but at a slower pace with a heavier emphasis on language. 

 The teacher's instructional philosophy can be described as loosely following the whole language mode. Information is often presented in themes that are based on books or concepts that have been introduced in books.  A typical day in the classroom includes an opening in which news, weather, and calendar are discussed, reading which follows the first grade text book, math which follows the first grade curriculum, SQUIRT (sustained quiet uninterrupted individualized reading time), literature which introduces themes and learning concepts using children's literature and journaling in which the children write about specified topics that usually relate to the literature themes.  On certain days the children had specials such as music and P.E.  They also had special writing projects in which they would write stories on the computer with one on one assistance.  The teacher used technology throughout the day.  A brief description of software used, curriculum adaptations and goals follows. 

OPENING:  During Opening the students orally present their personal news to the class while the teacher writes it.  A classroom aide types the news on Intellitalk at the same time.  Two students per day get to read the news on the computer, including choosing the voice, choosing the color, font and size of the print.  Once a week the news is printed off so that each student gets a copy.  The print out is used for word searches, math activities, word counts, etc. and then sent home. 

READING:  Curriculum stories were entered into a story reading template on Speaking Dynamically.  This allowed students to independently read stories, which helped reinforce story concepts, vocabulary and sight word knowledge.  The students were able to read the story along with the computer as it highlighted word by word.  They could re-read passages as often as they wanted to.  All of the stories were illustrated similar to
the curriculum stories. 

SQUIRT:  During individualized reading time one student was allowed to use the computer.  They could either use Speaking Dynamically and read curriculum stories or they could read one of the Living Books. 

MATH:  Math activities were often integrated into other activities using the computer.  For instance, when reading the news the students would do word searches then follow up with totaling and tallying the number of words they found.  The teacher also used the drawing programs for teaching such concepts as shapes and sizes. 

JOURNALING:  During journal time the children were allowed to use a desktop dictionary created on Speaking Dynamically to look up words they did not know how to spell.  The dictionary was picture based and consisted of vocabulary words and words that children came across that they needed help with.  The students and teacher amended the dictionary on a daily basis. 

WRITING PROJECTS:   Five times throughout the year the students had special writing projects where they worked either individually or in pairs with a Speech Pathologist to write a story and illustrate it on the computer.  This was done as a pull-out activity during the regular day.  The students used story writing programs such as Monsters and Make-Believe or Super Print with the assistance of a Ke:nx On:Screen Keyboard.  The screen was set up as template or story skeleton.  The students would click on a word to read it and if it was a word that they wanted they would type it using the keyboard.  This gave the students topic ideas, grammatical structure and vocabulary ideas. 

Description of the Control Group
The control group was also a first grade Language/Learning Disabled Classroom taught by a Speech/Language Pathologist. It consisted of eight children ranging in age from 6 years, 8 months to 7 years, 7 months.  The control and experimental group were comparable because the mean age of each group differed by only 1 month.  Standard scores on the PPVT-R were 7.3 points apart and both teachers used the same curriculum.  The control group had a computer in the classroom every other week.  Children had access to commercially available educational software, but no user programmable software (e.g. Speaking Dynamically, Ke:nx) was used to reinforce curriculum concepts.  The computer was used mainly for free play and drill. 

Description of the Experimental Design
For each classroom pre-testing and post-testing were done in the following areas:  knowledge of phonics in the initial, medial and final positions and the ability to recognize rhyming words.  The Test of Early Reading Ability was done as a pre and posttest.  A written language sample was taken from each classroom at the end of the year. 

When post-testing was done the experimental group showed greater improvements in recognition of final and medial consonants and rhyming.  Their written expression showed a greater knowledge of the conventions of written language such as spacing, punctuation, and capitalization.  They also used more novels word, meaning words that were not introduced via curriculum. 

Outcomes
                As a result of the previous comparison of classrooms, an increased use of computers for literacy development has occurred in this program.  Use of the computers equipped with literacy support software has allowed students to obtain operational competence on the computers in their early years which facilitates greater time spent on literacy and academic activities during literacy learning years. 

The experimental classroom has continued to expand their use of computer technology.  They have started to use the Internet.  While doing an author study they found a web site on a familiar author and emailed him. The author wrote back with information about himself and new books that he was writing.  They have also accessed a number of commercially available software programs and adapted them to meet their curriculum needs.