Examples of Technology to Support the Recognition System

Options for teaching writing-related pattern recognition in a digital environment are far more varied, flexible, and customizable than are those in a print-based environment. Through color, animation, and interactivity, computers can help emphasize and isolate patterns, provide opportunities to practice and explore through active manipulation of words and texts, and engage learners' motivation and interest by accommodating individual differences. The flexibility to choose different methods and tools for different students, and the ability to customize the way patterns are presented and practiced, makes the computer an important tool for the universally designed classroom.

Here we address two main categories of pattern: phoneme-letter-word patterns and larger textual patterns. The UDL framework helps us to understand the commonalities between these two categories even though they vary significantly in sophistication. In both, the brain's pattern recognition and categorization systems are at work. The appropriate methods and tools for teaching pattern recognition differ markedly from those best for teaching skills and strategies. Keeping this in mind can help teachers select software and activities appropriate to the task.

A large number of software programs emphasize letter recognition, letter-sound correspondence, phonics, and word recognition (Meyer & Rose, 1998). Varying widely in quality, these programs tend to offer game-like formats, using color and animation to isolate patterns and direct learners' attention to the critical features that distinguish those patterns. Programs in which letter-sound correspondence, spelling, and word recognition are practiced in a communicative context, with good, relevant feedback may be most useful for writing, as the practice is occurring in precisely the environment in which the patterns will be applied. For example, in the Read-a-Rhyme exercise in Bailey's Book House, students select from a choice of words to complete a short poem. The feedback-a digitized voice reading back the "new" poem-is directly germane to the reading-writing task and reinforces the learning rather than providing extraneous "rewards." Though students are not actually writing, they are composing by selecting words, and receiving immediate feedback that demonstrates the results of their work. (A more comprehensive treatment of programs supporting letter/word level patterns can be found in Meyer and Rose, 1998 and at the CAST Web site.)