App Profile: The Writing Machine

The road to literacy is based on a foundation that starts with the development of very specific concepts related to language, print awareness and recognition. It is well known that developing concepts about print at an early age is invaluable to a child’s overall literacy development.

The Writing Machine is designed to start introducing your child to these pre-literacy concepts of print, text, reading and writing. The Writing Machine starts this process by introducing how one picture and one word go together. From this foundation, your child will begin to understand additional pre-literacy concepts including how to read text from left to right and to tell words from letters.

• Explore and identify levels of engagement
• ABC and QWERTY keyboard layouts with upper and lower case options
• Direct selection, single and two switch scanning access methods options

The entire interface is designed with your child in mind! At the Explore level, tap any key on the virtual keyboard to hear the letter, see a picture of a word that starts with the letter and watch the word being written as the word is spoken aloud. Use the Identify level to work on letter recognition and discrimination. The Writing Machine will ask to find a specific letter, and then visually prompt the correct answer after three attempts. 130 vocabulary words are included!

Developed by a certified speech-language pathologist and assistive technology practitioner.