My wife's sons spelling dilemma - HELP NEEDED!

Ok here's the deal...

My wife's son Ben wants to join the RAF as a mechanic. He's currently in his last year at high school. He excels in practical subjects and maths but he's absolutely terrible at written English - he has the writing ability of a 10 year old but he's now 15.

The problem is he needs minimum grades in certain subjects. One of those subjects is English and he needs at the very least a GCSE Grade C.

In an emotional conversation this morning my wife admitted that she's not dealt with this situation correctly and failed to encourage and motivate him to read and improve his writing. I don't want to go into too much detail here as to why because it's not appropriate, nevertheless as I'm sure you'll agree it's a big thing for any mother to admit!?

Ben's Dad is a successful salesman but like Ben his written English is terrible. Ben sleeps over at Dad's three nights a week so has regular contact and a good relationship. However, Dad is not particularly hands on with helping Ben with his studies, he just reminds him a lot that he needs to get good grades.

I've offered to help Ben but he doesn't know it yet because he's round his Dad's at the moment. We have a good relationship but I've kind of taken a step back in regard to parental stuff with him before although we do stuff together sometimes. Both myself and his mum are confident that he'll let me help him.

You see Ben has no problem articulating himself -for his age he is extremely articulate. The problem is putting his thoughts into writing. Something happens or is lost between the thoughts leaving his brain and entering his hands. His handwriting is often illegible and his spelling is to put it mildly terrible.

I'm going to install my copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking on his netbook, buy him a good quality microphone and encourage him to speak his thoughts and let the software transcribe it for him. This will help him no end with his graded coursework. I know there is a learning curve with this software and I know the software takes a while to 'learn' the way you speak. But I also know with a good microphone it works very well.

However Dragon Naturally Speaking is not going to be there to help him when he sits his written exams.

So...

I've got seven months to turn a fifteen year old boy who dislikes reading and has no confidence in his writing skills into a Grade C GCSE pass in English Language.

We know the best we can hope for is Ben scraping a GCSE pass by the skin of his teeth but we also know that he'll sail through the other subjects that he needs good grades for.

So why am I posting this?

Do any of you guys know of any software, resources or even a crash course in spelling that can help Ben. Please don't post links to your product because you happen to market in this niche, and please don't post links to YouTube Videos that you 'think' will be helpful.

I'm interested in solutions that has worked for you or someone you know and helped them improve their spelling and the quality of their handwriting.

If you prefer then pm me.

Thanks a million for reading this post - all help and advice will be considered and discussed.

Garry.