Teachers info:

Objectives:
To learn and practice writing English words correctly.

Method:
In this learning activity the student will type every word three times:

• In the first step, the word will appear on the screen, and the students will be guided where to click on the keyboard.
• In the second step, keyboard guidance will not appear, but the word will still appear on the screen, so it can be copied.
• In the third step the word will disappear from the screen, and the student will type it without any assistance.

In every step, if the student has difficulty, he can go one step back and get the assistance again.
In the beginning of every step, the word will be read aloud.

The Rational
The student could write the word by himself without assistance after he has seen and heard twice the correct sequence of its letters.

In step one, he is exposed to the letters composing the word, and hear them in the correct sequence, in accordance to the keyboard clicks.

In step two, he can copy the word from the screen. Now he has to focus on the word's structure and keep track of its correct letter sequence.

From the cognitive point of view, the letter sequence heard several times, gets into what is called a "phonological loop" (the short-term audio memory).
The fact the letters are repeatedly heard and viewed will make them easier to remember, and it will increase their possibility to enter the long-term memory.
The combination of the visual-auditory (sight and sound) letters, will deepen their processing and increase their chance to be learned.

In step 3, the student types the word from his memory alone. After he was exposed at least two times to the sound of their letters, he can now "play them in his mind" and retrieve them from his memory.

Tools:

• Rehearsal and priming.
• Exposing the student repeatedly to the letters in the correct order, visually and auditory.
• The student is actively engaged, and is not listening and watching passively.
• Incorrect letter clicks are not read out loud, and are not written on the screen. This way the student is only exposed to the correct word structure, and doesn't need to overcome distracters due to wrong clicks.
• There is a gradual increase in the difficulty of writing each word.
• The student can repeat every difficulty level as many times as needed.
• There is no "punishment" on mistakes.
• We are giving the student a series of successes, therefore increasing his feeling of accomplishment and achievement.