2nd Try with WordQ/SpeakQ

I just spent another 45 minutes or so trying out WordQ/SpeakQ. This time I actually opened up the manual (PDF file) and read through areas that I had questions about. They recommend 15 minutes of training before SpeakQ is felt to be accurate enough to use--I had only trained 7 minutes the first time and still had about 75% accuracy. Each training session lasts about 5 minutes so I completed two more sessions before putting the program through its paces in a Word document. I am really getting sold on this program! I could tell that the accuracy had increased with additional training, plus I discovered that you can train individual words as needed (any time) by adding them to the dictionary and recording the pronunciation of the word. After doing this with the problem words (it did not have "blog" in the dictionary, and had difficulty with some other words) I noticed much more accuracy. I also added my email address to the dictionary and recorded the pronunciation as "email address" and it worked! You can also create topic dictionaries so if the student is doing a report on a particular topic, it will include words from that dictionary as well. When using SpeakQ, I prefer the preview option and found that using the mouse to choose the correct phrase rather than hitting the corresponding number was the easiest way to go. It will be awhile before I will use it to speak directly into the document, if at all. The drawback of this program is that you really need keyboarding skills to edit your document as it has limited command features, that are limited to punctuation marks. For example, you can say "period" and it will type "." but you can't say "backspace" and expect it to actually backspace--that you will need to do by hand.
I think that this program would be best for students who are able to do some keyboarding but have poor literacy skills. The fact that the words are read back to you after you say them while appearing in written form would be very reinforcing for students who are just learning to read/write and have a lot to say. I think that the students with developmental delays and learning disabilities could experience success with this program while reinforcing their learning. I am going to give this program another try with some of my students who have some speech errors to see if training individual words will improve the accuracy of the program. I think I will have to add this program to my wish list!