A study examined whether computers equipped with speech synthesis devices could facilitate children's writing. It was hypothesized that children using the devices would write longer stories, edit more, and produce higher quality stories than children not receiving feedback from a speech synthesizer. Subjects were 48 children, three girls and three boys each drawn from two second grade and two fifth grade classrooms in two different schools. Subjects from one second grade and one fifth grade classroom at each school wrote one story under the spoken feedback condition and then two stories under the nonspoken condition. Experimental conditions were reversed for the other two classrooms. Results showed that using a speech synthesizer led to increased levels of editing in young children. In addition, preference for the spoken feedback was negatively related to story length for both second and fifth grade students, to audience awareness for second grade students, and to story level editing for fifth grade students, indicating that less-skilled writers were the most motivated by hearing spoken feedback. References, tables and figures are appended. (FL)