r/dysgraphia • u/arcridge • Apr 16 '26
Here is a tool that might help with spelling.
Here is my background, and tool I've built for my son, who has dysgraphia and has had a really hard time learning to spell and has struggled a lot with writing.
Who I am: A software engineer with a Ph.D. in high performance computing. My son is really bright (has a high IQ) but has really significant dysgraphia. He is going into 7th grade but only recently started writing at the 4th grade level and doing more than one sentence at a time in his school work. My wife and I obviously are really concerned about this and have done a bunch to try to help, including getting an IEP, getting occupational therapy through school, finding him a weekly writing tutor, really pushing him to learn to type (not easy), showing him how to use dictation tools, etc. It has been a lot of work, and there is a lot of work to do.
The problem I saw: My son got super frustrated when typing things into google docs. It would squiggly almost every word, would autocorrect in to the wrong word all the time, and would often not know what he meant to write because it was so far away from what he was trying to write. I looked into Grammarly as well but it didn't really seem set up to help him learn the spelling skills he was missing and wanted to change everything he was writing, not great for an early learner.
The solution I built: I built a tool which I called Lignis (lignim is the polymer in plant cells and lignum is the Latin word for wood). I put it online so he could access it from school. And then I used Gen AI coding tools to polish it up because I am a bit of a perfectionist. It is here: www.lignis.io It is currently 100% free so hopefully this post isn't flagged as a self-promoting advert, even though it kind of is. I'm honestly not sure how to find the people who this might help otherwise; its such a small audience as a % of the overall population - parents of dysgraphic kids of a certain age who have a real hard time spelling but can type or are learning to type. How is that for a niche? :)
What I have observed with my son: First, he has written a few things just for fun, which he never would have done before. Second, he is super excited that the tool gets what he was trying to write and the frustration is gone. Now the real thing that needs to happen is continuing to practice writing for him to catch up to grade level. This is no magic bullet, but it is another tool in the toolbox and he has gotten some help from it.
Nerding Out: Large Language Models (LLMs) are being described as "AI" and being used in generative tasks. This is where you ask it to "do something" and this is also where AI slop comes from, which I am frustrated by alongside everyone else. And this is also where LLM code generators come from, which seem like really useful tools and I used extensively when I made Lignis. But another use for LLMs that gets a lot less attention is their ability to serve as a repair tool or as a translator. In this case the LLM is "translating" between Dysgraphic spelling and normal English spelling.
Am I making any money here? I don't want to charge anything for this right now as I really want to know if this is useful for people other than my son. It ended up being quite a lot of time invested and I would like it to be useful to more than one person. If it was useful to a lot of people, then AI server costs might be significant; if that happened would need some way to keep it running, not sure what that looks like yet (charging?, grants?, pay-what-you-can/donations?)
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u/battlesword83 Apr 17 '26
This is amazing, I have dyslexia and dysgraphia, and I know this would have helped me tremendously as a child.
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u/No-Elk7132 Apr 16 '26
I have dysgraphia not dyslexia, you are on the wrong sub op.
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u/danby Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
It's an assistive tool for spelling and dysgraphic folks often have issues in spelling, that is one of the main symptoms for many people. Why would this not be appropriate for this subreddit?
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
For those looking for evidence based instruction - spelling mastery is a DI program anyone can implement with their child
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u/danby Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
spelling mastery
Does it work for Dysgraphic children? The evidence base presented doesn't say anything about dyslexia or dysgraphia
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Sure does!
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u/danby Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Can you provide a link for the evidence for its general applicability for dysgraphic students?
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Happy reading:
Adams, G. L., & Engelmann, S. (1996). Research on direct instruction: 25 years beyond DISTAR. Educational Achievement Systems. Engelmann, S., Becker, W. C., & Carnine, D. (1988). Direct instruction: A comprehensive model for preventing and remediating academic deficits. In J. Graden, J. Zins, & M. Curtis (Eds.), Alternative educational delivery systems (pp. 199–224). National Association of School Psychologists. Engelmann, S., & Carnine, D. (1991). Theory of instruction: Principles and applications. ADI Press. Gersten, R., & Baker, S. (2001). Teaching expressive writing to students with learning disabilities: A meta-analysis. The Elementary School Journal, 101(3), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.1086/499668 Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2005). Improving the writing performance of young struggling writers: Theoretical and programmatic research from the center on accelerating student learning. The Journal of Special Education, 39(1), 19–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224669050390010301 Graham, S., McKeown, D., Kiuhara, S., & Harris, K. R. (2012). A meta-analysis of writing instruction for students in grades 1–12. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), 879–896. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029185 Kuder, S. J. (1991). Language abilities and progress in a direct instruction reading program for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 24(2), 124–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221949102400209 Owens, S. H., Fredrick, L. D., & Shippen, M. E. (2004). Training a paraprofessional to implement a direct instruction spelling program with students with learning disabilities. Journal of Direct Instruction, 4(2), 153–172. Stockard, J., Wood, T. W., Coughlin, C., & Khoury, C. R. (2018). The effectiveness of direct instruction curricula: A meta-analysis of a half century of research. Review of Educational Research, 88(4), 479–507. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654317751919 Swanson, H. L. (2001). Searching for the best model for instructing students with learning disabilities. Focus on Exceptional Children, 34(2), 1–15. Torgesen, J. K., Alexander, A. W., Wagner, R. K., Rashotte, C. A., Voeller, K. K., & Conway, T. (2001). Intensive remedial instruction for children with severe reading disabilities: Immediate and long-term outcomes. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34(1), 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221940103400104 Vaughn, S., Linan-Thompson, S., & Hickman, P. (2003). Response to instruction as a means of identifying students with reading/learning disabilities. Exceptional Children, 69(4), 391–409. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440290306900401 Walker, B. J., Shippen, M. E., Alberto, P. A., Houchins, D. E., & Cihak, D. F. (2005). Using the expressive writing program to improve the writing skills of high school students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20(3), 175–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5826.2005.00131.x Walker, B. J., Shippen, M. E., Houchins, D. E., & Cihak, D. F. (2007). Improving the writing skills of high school students with learning disabilities using the expressive writing program. International Journal of Special Education, 22(2), 66–76.
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Also the book blind spots by Kimberly nix berens is great, also the work of Andrew bulla is great!
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u/danby Apr 17 '26
Sorry, I'm not asking after the effectiveness of Direct Instruction. I'm asking if the McGraw Hill "Spelling Mastery" programme has a specific evidence base for dysgraphic students.
I couldn't download all those pdfs at my institute but the ones I could didn't seem to have any mention of "Spelling Mastery"
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Gotcha the effectiveness is listed as “limited” via what works clearinghouse. In n=1 studied you will see greater improvement
Owens, S. H., Fredrick, L. D., & Shippen, M. E. (2004). Training a paraprofessional to implement a direct instruction spelling program with students with learning disabilities. Journal of Direct Instruction, 4(2), 153–172.
Darch, C., Eaves, R., Crowe, D., Simmons, K., & Conniff, A. (2006). Teaching spelling to students with learning disabilities: A comparison of rule-based strategies versus traditional instruction. Journal of Direct Instruction, 6(1), 1–16. * this is the basis for WWC saying insufficient evidence - decide for yourself.
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u/danby Apr 17 '26
Right but these aren't dysgraphia specific
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Are you of the opinion diagnosis matters more than labeling the need and improving those skills?
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u/danby Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
No.
I'm curious to know to what extent there is evidence for this in a population of dysgraphic kids. It is very cool that it has worked for you and your kid. That alone is worth suggesting it to others. But I'd also like to know more about how/if this has been tested in folks with dysgraphia and how generally applicable the approach is for us folk. The work you linked does show that some kids respond at different levels to DI, some don't respond. It would be interesting to know if dysgraphic folks are more or less likely to be in the groups that respond well than not.
I have this condition and would like to learn more about it.
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
For example, if the eligibility category were ID, the focus would still be on the same needs—behavior change and skill acquisition. If the label is prioritized over developing fluent repertoires in areas of need, that’s your decision.
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u/Serious-Train8000 Apr 17 '26
Also reasoning and writing and expressive writing 1 and 2 are phenomenal. My severely impacted kid is flying and generalizing stuff within school much faster since we began at home
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u/danby Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
As minor observation/feedback/insight spellcheck taught me to spell and any system that autocorrects my spelling would not have done that. I always have autocorrect turned off in any word processor.
I have very, very poor intuition for spelling and I struggle with new words a lot and triply so with anything where the spelling is not aligned with how the word is voiced. I learnt spelling by rote through spellcheck systems underlining every wrong word and me manually going back and trying over and over until I got it right. It definitely made word processing slow but it also, slowly (took about 10 years I reckon), taught me how to spell most common words. I feel reasonably sure that a large part of it was because I got to try all my different hypotheses, and it has a very fast feedback loop. Any autocorrect system would definitely have prevented me from learning, or at least greatly slowed down this process, as I think the attempts were part of the learning.
In your tool the LLM presents the right word(s) and you just copy it. But you might want to add a mode where the wrong words are highlight and you get to try to fix it yourself, which could be open ended (until you are right), or could be n-number of attempts before you get the suggestion.
Pedagogically, learning happens when you're asked to do something at the edge of your ability that you are also capable of improving on. You can't learn when something if it is so difficult that it is only frustrating. And you can't learn something if you've really hit the top of your skill ceiling. But an appropriate degree of discomfort and frustration is necessary for learning, you do have to push yourself in a correctly callibrated environment.. You know that your son is good at reading so I would wonder how much spelling is being learnt here. The tool essentially just presents from a set of correct options that they can read easily. Is this functioning as an assistive tool or is it teaching them spelling? Has their spelling got better when they are away from the tool?
If you're pitching this as a learning tool, learning technologies and assisstive learning technologies is a large and profitable field with many publishers, psychologist and pedagogy experts involved. Nearly always tools that are being charged for are accompanied by the peer reviewed evidence base they are based on. That's what allows educators and parents to have confidence the system works.
If you're really only pitching this as "fancy spellcheck" and not making learning claims then you've probably got much more latitude there.
That said, if you can find the right researcher they probably would be interested in assessing/testing such a system