Technology Based Study Tools

Students with reading and learning difficulties also experience problems identifying key ideas while reading and discerning relationships between key ideas and supporting details. They may read everything in the text as equally important, making it difficult to get through extended reading assignments and to focus on the most relevant information to be studied for tests (Anderson-Inman & Knox-Quinn, 1997-98). The reading and note taking strategy is designed to help overcome these types of difficulties in reading and understanding textbooks and other content-area reading materials. Students use the outlining feature of Inspiration to create an electronic skeleton of a chapter's heading and subheadings. They then scan each chunk of text and label it with a word or phrase that represents its content. They next use the outlining program to fill in supporting details under each topic. To facilitate retention, they use the program's hide and show features to test their understanding of information (Anderson-Inman, 1995). The two study strategies discussed above, and others, are described in detail on the Computer-Based Study Strategies web site.

Research about the use of computer-based study strategies in classrooms suggests that the strategies are most easily adopted and effectively used by students with above-average intelligence and reading skills near grade level. Good keyboarding skills also are important for effective implementation of the strategies, as is intensive and ongoing instruction about how to use and adapt the strategies (Anderson-Inman, Knox-Quinn, & Horney, 1996).

Inspiration Software's website contains many good ideas for other uses of the program to help students' comprehend text and organize information. Some of the strategies discussed above may also be implemented with the outlining features that are standard features of recent word processing programs. Other study tools of potential use to students with disabilities and their teachers include TimeLiner (Tom Snyder Productions), which facilitates the construction and arrangement of chronological information.