Experiences with the use of computer programs with speech output in teaching reading and writing

Feedback from a synthesizer when typing a text has been found useful for children with reading and writing problems. Increased motivation and improvement in spelling skills were observed. A recent project has shown further potentials of this new approach. Children can experiment wi th speech sounds and practice identifying phonemes, discriminating between short and long vowels, rhyming, discovering missing phonemes, syllables, misspellings, and so on. The first series of computer programs were developed during 1983-84. They were intended to train children's phonological awareness in a stimulating and effective way. In a first pilot project, nine subjects from second to fifth grade (8-11 years old) were trained. Tests before and after the experiment show a higher improvement then expected. A better collaboration between teacher and pupil, and an increase in the pupils' selfesteem was also observed. The Infovox speech synthesizer was used. The programs can be run on the Epson HX-20, the Multi-Talk and the