Abstract:
The paper presents results of an Australian evaluation of Writing to Read, a program in which children's writing becomes the starting point for learning to read, and in which the computer has an important role to play in facilitating the teaching and learning process. The results of the evaluation are based on measures of pupils' reading and writing performance, their meta-cognitive understanding of the reading and writing process, and on attitudes of teachers, pupils and parents towards the program. The results are generally favourable to the program and confirm the findings of other evaluations. The program and results serve to demonstrate that the computer has an important role to play in assisting with literacy teaching and learning.