Home Support Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) Co:Writer FAQ's

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Many struggling writers know what they want to say but have diffi culty writing it. CoWriter is a powerful word prediction program that provides writers with a number of scaffolds to help them become independent writers. One of these scaffolds includes the display of word choices as you type. This feature helps the writer spell words correctly and complete words and sentences with a varied vocabulary. It also allows sentences to be completed with a minimum number of keystrokes.

Customising Co:Writer

Co:Writer can be customized to suit the needs of the individual writer by modifying the Settings, the Palette or Vocabulary. You can select the way the prediction window and word guesses are displayed, set up prediction features, including number of words displayed, how they are selected and whether to use the powerful fl exible spelling option, designed to accommodate for writer spelling errors. It is possible to have speech feedback for words, phrases and sentences displayed in the prediction window. The Palette is an onscreen display of common commands the writer may need while they are writing that are displayed alongside the document and Co:Writer windows.

Vocabulary Sources – Prediction Dictionaries

Co:Writer uses different vocabulary sources to help writers fi nd the words they want when they are writing. There are fi ve different dictionary types that Co:Writer draws upon during a writing task: Main, Personal, Collected, Recent and Topic.

Main
There are fi ve Main dictionaries. They range in size from 1,000 to 40,000 words and are designed to support writers at different levels. It is possible to start the writer with a blank dictionary, where words in the prediction window are drawn from those words that are learned as the user writes. Each dictionary has detailed grammatical information to help Co:Writer guess words and word endings according to where you are in your sentence. Each word also has a word frequency score which tells Co:Writer how often this word is used in English.

Personal
The Personal dictionary contains saved words or word combinations, such as names of family, friends, place names or other vocabulary relevant to the user. This dictionary is always active when the writer uses Co:Writer.

Collected
Co:Writer collects new words that the writer uses and makes them available for future guesses. You can alter or delete these words if they are not needed again or send them to your Personal Dictionary. These collected words are then available whenever CoWriter is used.

Recent
It is possible for Co:Writer to keep track of words or phrases that have been used recently. These words can be predicted more rapidly during writing. This option can be turned on or off.

Topic
Topic dictionaries contain words that relate to a particular topic or curriculum area. A topic dictionary can be active along with at least three other dictionaries.

eWord banks
When you select a topic dictionary to use, key words from those dictionaries appear in the eWord bank at the bottom of the CoWriter palette. The words are sorted into Nouns, Verbs and adjectives. A static on-screen display of topic words can help writers build vocabulary, spell and focus on the particular topic they are writing about.

Why use Topic dictionaries?

The advantage of using a topic dictionary is that it helps writers focus on the meaning and content of their writing rather than on spelling words. To make customising writer preferences easier, there are a number of readymade topic dictionaries built into Co:Writer SOLO. Some, like the SOLO topics and Start-To-Finish titles are created to support other Don Johnson literacy products. These readymade topic dictionaries are arranged in categories.

Selecting an existing Topic Dictionary

There are two ways of selecting an existing topic dictionary

1. You can select a dictionary via the Teacher Options by following these steps:
   
   • Load Co:Writer
     
   • Select Teacher sign in
     
   • Type in Password (you can fi nd this in the user guide)
     
   • Choose the writer you want to create a topic dictionary for
     
   • Click on Select
   

2. From the Co:Writer Palette, once the program has been loaded, click on the arrow next to Topic Dictionaries.
   

3. Click on Select to display a list of Topic Dictionaries to choose from.
   

4. Place a tick in the box beside the Topic Dictionary you wish to use and click OK.
   
5. You should now see the name of the topic dictionary you selected in the display area below the heading Topic Dictionaries on the Palette or if you have selected via the Teacher Options section, you will need to select the Use Co:Writer icon to return to the program.
   

6. Selecting the arrow beside eWord Bank will display the words found in your topic dictionary.

Topic Dictionaries from the web

More topic dictionaries are available from the Don Johnston web site each month, www.donjohnston.com. These dictionaries can also be used with Co:Writer for Neo, or Co:Writer SmartApplet on the AlphaSmart. The fi les have been compressed for faster download transmission. They need to be placed into the appropriate folder on your computer.

Creating your own topic dictionaries

It is very easily to create your own topic dictionaries by using information from the web sites, e-books, textbooks and worksheets. Any text fi le can be transformed into a topic dictionary. This can be done from the Teacher Options section or from the Palette while the writer is using the program.

1. From the Co:Writer Sign In screen, select Teacher Sign In and type your password to get to the Teacher Options section. Then select Create from the Topic Dictionary Options.
   

   or select Create from the Palette, once Co:Writer is open.

   

2. Enter the name of your topic dictionary, then click OK.
   

3. You can type words directly into the window or copy and paste text with the vocabulary you want into this window from a document or web page. You can also select a pre-prepared text fi le containing words on the topic. You will need to browse your computer to fi nd the saved fi le. At this stage, you can specify whether you want the topic dictionary available to all writers or just to a particular writer.
   

4. Once the words are copied into the window, select Create Topic Dictionary.
   

5. You will see this window displayed if your topic dictionary has been successfully created.
   

6. Click Select (from the Palette, or from Teacher Options section and tick the new topic dictionary from the list. Your newly created topic dictionary will be displayed in the Co:Writer palette window.

Managing Topic Dictionaries

Organising categories and dictionaries

From within the Teacher Options section you can manage or organise your topic dictionaries. Clicking the Organise tab will take you to a section where you can add, delete or alter category headings for your topic dictionaries. You can also move dictionaries in and out of different categories. It is possible to merge two or more topic dictionaries.

View/Edit topic dictionaries
Edit and view words in any topic dictionary. Check or edit grammar and frequency of usage.

Import
From this section you are able to import text form a number of sources in order to add to your topic dictionary. The Easy Import option lets you type, copy and paste or import text into your topic dictionary. Import from Text enables you to import sentences or paragraphs into your topic dictionary. You are given the option of collecting all words, new words or new words plus those words used frequently in the topic list. The Import from List option simply lets you import words into the topic dictionary, not sentences. This can be done by copying and pasting the words or importing from a saved text fi le.

To learn more about how Co:Writer works, you may also wish to read the following article by the Don Johnson company, Word Prediction: What’s Good enough?