A study done by an information and communication technology teacher in England showed that using computer spellcheckers helped young boys learn to spell better.
Her study involved a group of 13- to 14-year-old boys who were asked to spell 68 words appearing in a text. Some of the boys wrote the words by hand, others used computers with the spellcheckers turned off. The boys who wrote by hand were then given the correct spellings of words they had misspelled and were told to write each one five times. The boys using computers were told to enable the spellchecker and figure out the correct spellings using that. A week later, all the boys were tested on the words they'd spelled wrong. The boys who had written the words by hand showed a 5% improvement; the boys who had used computers showed a 65% improvement!
The teacher came up with an explanation for this result: because the boys on the computer had to figure out the correct spellings themselves by choosing the correct version from the spellchecker, that active process changed the way their brains stored the spelling information, since it was more engaging. That information was then released through the visual cues given by using a word processor. The boys who wrote by hand had a less active corrective process and the spelling information was stored differently in their brains.
Because the teacher feels that boys in particular are attracted to using computers, these results could be encouraging for British schools, where “reports and exam results show that it is boys who are the weak link in the drive to improve literacy standards.”
For more information, please see the BBC.
It's always been my contention–and probably the contention of many others as well–that the existence of computer spellcheckers was ravaging people's ability to spell. Why would you learn how to correctly spell words if the spellchecker would catch any and all mistakes? Sure, the spellchecker doesn't always give you the correct word since you sometimes have to choose from a list, but how many people using spellcheckers actually take the time to think about which is the correct word and why, or even know the differences between the spellings?
But apparently my thinking may be an oversimplification. I don't think this teacher's study was conclusive by any means (especially since I don't even really understand all the details of how it was administered), but her hypothesis about the brain storing the spelling information differently depending on how the information was arrived at makes a lot of sense. The woman is reporting her findings to the British Psychological Society conference, but I imagine it would take a lot more stringent tests in differing conditions and with a wider variety of “subjects” before it could be conclusively proven that spellcheckers are good for teaching spelling skills. Note that I said “skills,” not spelling, since spellcheckers for the most part eliminate spelling errors. But practice and reading is really what makes you figure out the difference between “peace” and “piece” and “straight” and “strait” and “your” and “you're.” And if you don't have to worry about remembering “i before e except after c” because the spellchecker will fix “recieve” automatically for you, how is it possible that your spelling skills would improve? Another thing I noticed a while back was that Microsoft Word will automatically fix some misspelled words as you're typing (I think that was introduced in Word 97, though it may have been in Word 95 as well–I can't remember anymore). That's even more nefarious for spelling skills, since your attention isn't even drawn to words you've made a mistake on.
Again, I don't think I'm alone in wondering how it's possible for spellcheckers to teach kids to remember spelling errors and their corrections, unless these test conditions were so specific that there was no other recourse. I'd love for more comprehensive research to be done somewhere …
I used to be a good speller but MS word has ruined that for me. It undelrines the words I spell wrong and when i right clik on them it fixes them for me with little thought on my part. Sometimes when I'm not sure of a word I will speel it like it sounds a let MS do the rest. – by belgiebob
|Right on! (5:53pm EST Sat Dec 23 2000)
Belgiebob is right, I myself am already a very lazy person, but with spell checkers there goes another 1% of brain power usage. – by one dum kid
|Speeleng (5:02am EST Sun Dec 24 2000)
lay of the crack – by pyrolinux
|Speeleng (5:02am EST Sun Dec 24 2000)
lay off the crack – by pyrolinux