"Today's Talking Typewriter" - Supporting Early Literacy in a Classroom Environment

In this paper we present a specific phonics based approach to supporting early literacy. The application system is cooperative and embedded in a "computer-integrated classroom". It provides an interactive writing environment using a visual palette of letters associated with icons and synthetic speech feedback for the writing results. Ongoing developments enhance the intelligent support modules for the initiation of partner or group work and for the provision of context sensitive individual help.