CONNECTIONS

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LINC staff recommends two software titles for students who cannot associate printed letters with sounds, and cannot combine letters into words. Both have built in scanning access, enabling switch users to focus on letters and words.

Don Johnston’s Simon Sounds It Out (Mac, $59) provides vital practice and the repetition students with disabilities need to overcome the letter-to-sound barriers by using structured phonics to decode words. The software has practical activities that teach students how vowels work. It helps build vocabulary using basic word families and spelling patterns. Children with learning disabilities benefit because the software uses visual cues (such as color coding, repetitive patterns, and matching games) to move them forward in the lessons, and verbal cues to repeat directions and model pronunciations.

RJ Cooper’s Spell A Word (Mac & Win, $99) allows teachers and parents to customize the spelling lesson or incorporate the weekly spelling list. The software allows the student to record his own voice prompts, and uses visual feedback to move the student along. As the student learns the words, the verbal prompt becomes the main cue, and the visual cue fades. Children with low cognitive skills use this software effectively because it is simpler in design, with less choices and visual distractions.

An Intellipics activity, called Sounds Like It, can be downloaded free from the web (www. intellitools.com/activities/HTM_ pages/Sounds_ Like_It.html). It introduces individual letter sounds for students with emergent literacy needs. It provides lessons on sound-symbol relationships and keyboarding skills.®