Improving Writing Skills 1 by Queue

Skills 1 by Queue Queue Improving Writing Skills 1 is a software program that works as a simple word processor with some really interesting extras. The word processing itself is very straightforward, with easy to use buttons for the basic editing features. The best part of this program though is the extras. Some of the extras include a writing coach, which helps by giving hints, openers or basic rules. There is also a text to speech function that allows students to hear the computer read what they have written. The quality of this text to speech feature isn’t the greatest, but it is adequate and fun for students to hear. One downfall of the text to speech feature is that it will try to read words even if they are misspelled or non existent, thereby giving the students the false belief that they have written the word correctly.

There are five lesson options you can choose from. Sentences and Paragraphs teaches how to work with fragments, run on sentences, topic sentences and ordering. Writing for Fun covers poetry, jokes, news reports and stories. Capitalization and Punctuation reviews when to use capitals, the correct use of commas and quotations. Writing to Explain covers skills relating to explanations, contrasts, definitions, and comparisons. Writing Letters includes the skills necessary to write all of the basic letter formats: friendly, formal, thank you, invitation, and reply.

I think this program could be very useful in a literacy classroom as it covers a lot of different skills and is excellent for individual work. Because the program keeps track of completed work, it is easy for students to return to continue work from previous lessons.

This program is very easy to install. It requires QuickTime and 256 bit colour. There is a version of QuickTime included on the CD, which you can quickly install if you don’t already have this software.

I would definitely recommend this software for labs that are looking for an interesting way to help improve their students’ writing skills.