Would it be too controversial to utilise spell checking software in a school environment, especially when there is a huge focus on learning spellings by rote?

In her blog article for Teachwire, Sara Wernham, talks about how and why to implement consistent spelling and grammar across the all school year groups and how without skills in spelling, punctuation and grammar it is difficult for a child to gain independent access and take part in many school subjects.

Sara, is the co-author of the Jolly Phonics programme as well as having been a teacher for 20 years.

She goes on to say that spelling and grammar (often referred to as SpaG) should be taught progressively across the whole school building up the children’s knowledge, consolidating what they know and applying it to the rest of their work.

Sadly within schools, despite students being penalised in exams such as G.C.S.E’s for not accurately using SpaG, there is often no thought through way of teaching this, with teachers often opting to take an incidental approach to spelling and grammar, for example, “Today we are writing descriptions so let us learn about adjectives.”

Clearly Sara feels that there is a need to almost have spelling and grammar taught as a subject in it’s own right and certainly I can see the logic in this. Having good skills with SpaG, whilst helping with attainment, also build great communication skills with writing and if we look beyond school and into the workplace, challenges with spelling and grammar are relatively easy to support in that many apps and computer programs that involve writing will have some kind of spelling and grammar check. Often these are seen as wavy red lines in Microsoft Word, that are designed to get your attention whilst writing so as to correct and amend as appropriate. As someone who writes a lot, I have to admit that I do indeed rely on those wavy lines to alert me to the possibility of making mistakes in my written work. All I have to do is right click the mouse and onwards I go with barely a thought about why that correction was needed.

But spelling and grammar checking software in schools wouldn’t teach a pupil good spelling and grammar…

In many examples of spell checking software, this is the case and of course when we come to exams, these need to be switched off as they would give an unfair advantage to a pupil as a proportion of the marks in G.C.S.E’s are devoted to good spelling and grammar. The flip side of this is that you can be an expert in your topic, but if you get your spelling and grammar wrong you will never achieve that top mark.

So with most spell checking software apps almost giving individuals ‘subconscious’ abilities to glide through and correct their SpaG without even a level of learning taking place to improve skills, could there be a way to bring some learning into these apps given that young people doing their homework on PC’s are likely to be using them anyway?

Can a spelling and grammar checker help with teaching good spelling and grammar?

Swedish company, Oribi, have a spell checking programme that they kindly gave me a copy to review.

The video below is an explainer video that they have produced.

I thought that I would take a look and share my findings with you in my own video below:

What did I think about VeritySpell?

In hindsight, my video may seem a little confusing as I marked VeritySpell with 9/10 at the time of recording. For me, it dropped a mark as it seemed to check EVERY confusable word in the text that I wrote and so made the process of checking quite lengthy. It made me stop and think and then make decisions about what I wanted to do with the corrections. Don’t get me wrong, this is a GOOD thing. I found that in the process of stopping and thinking, I learnt more about spelling and grammar at a point when I needed to learn it. I found that this way of learning is beneficial as I am motivated to learn as I strive towards a desired outcome with my writing. I guess I didn’t seem enthusiastic because within the context of writing blog articles, I personally just want to get the corrections in place as quickly as possible without having to stop and think too much.

VeritySpell, only performs it’s function after I have written my work. Within a school context, this means that I can express my learning via the written text and this is not interrupted by VeritySpell, and then I can hit the VeritySpell button and move onto the proof reading stage. This is unlike, for example, Microsoft Word’s spell checker that tells me in real time when I have made a mistake. My brain could be focused on what I want to say and then that concentration is broken with a distracting squiggly mark. I then have to re-engage my brain with the original task. This could be challenging for student with SEN such as dyslexia or ADHD.

VeritySpell works really well within an academic, two step writing process, Step One, I write and express my learning, THEN Step Two, I proof read it and use VeritySpell to help me understand my spelling and grammar mistakes and thus getting me to make the most appropriate decisions about corrections.

Within a school context whereby the learning process is underway, the process of stopping, checking and learning is essential for developing independence and autonomy in learning spelling and grammar and I believe that Oribi’s VeritySpell could very easily be used to support a comprehensive strategy across a school in teaching good spelling and grammar skills.

The software was easy to use and I discovered that it can be used with MS Windows, MS Word, MacOS and Google Docs depending upon the preference of the school.

Final comments.

I believe that there is a place for using spelling and grammar checking programs within the school environment, but those programmes shouldn’t just give the power of correction ‘on a plate’ to students without making students learn why the correction needs to take place.

In my brief assessment of Oribi’s VeritySpell, I found that it provides not only a spelling and grammar correction function but it also prompts the student to think about spelling and grammar thus reinforcing learning. VeritySpell could never be used in exams (this would go against JCQ rules) but the learning gained from using it in the day to day writing of academic content would help prepare the brain so as to develop good spelling and grammar. Obviously, the needs of the individual needs to be taken into account and it may not be the right solution for some, but on the whole I would expect it to be very useful for students who struggle with spelling and grammar.

If you have a student who you feel could benefit from using VeritySpell then there are free trials available here in the UK via Aventido. Just click the banner below to find out more.

Further links of interest:

The Parenting Dyslexia Assistive Technology Online Course.

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