Here’s a new text that I collected from a dyslexic youngster recently – She is almost approaching nine years old with a reading age about the same, but comprehension well above this. She is in P4. She is trailing in spelling by about a year and two months

‘I put my foot dawn in froow the door. I was cold but my foot was lickr it was sumer. it was so I stept in. I sore buterflis in the garden I did not under stand it was winter  at home bet it was sumer at the garden.

I notest it was time for school. So I ran awte. So that I wood not be late wen I got to school  I told my frends abwte the garden. At the end fo school I went and shode them it thaye were ameramasd  at it so evry day we plade there. We went fishing, we plad tennis and bamigton.’

This pupil, clearly,  has a fair amount of phonic awareness. However she seems to have poor visual memory.  Just read the text out as she wrote it, especially – ‘I notest’. Yet this is a word that a standard spellchecker could not help her with.

Interestingly, the new Ghotit spellchecker scored well with this text – Microsoft Word fared less well! Here are the scores; 

• Ghotit; 18 corrections suggested  out of 21errors in the text.
• MS Word; 10 corrections suggested out of 21errors in the text

Remember that there are three real word errors in the text; ‘dawn’ for down; ’sore’ for saw; ‘bet’ for but. Only a spellchecker with context spellchecking can spot real word errors, which can be as common as 20% of some dyslexics’ spellimg errors.

Take a look at the trial version of Ghotit; www.ghotit.com

I expect that the release version of Ghotit will score 20 or 21 out of 21. It should do!

Doorway Speller is very near completion for use in schools. It is an implementation of the well proven method of improving an individual’s personal accuracy in spelling; Look, say, cover,  write and check.

Users can practise the lists of words with Doorway Speller  using the keyboard  an on-screen keyboard.

The lists of words to practise are, on average, about 10-12 words long. There are based an work done by Isabel Middleton, Learning Support teacher at Howdenburn Primary School. The words have been categorised into  five levels; A,  A-B, B, C and D, following the Scottish National Curriculum 5-14.

It is expected that this software will also be available from a website so that pupils can be set spelling homework that they can practise on-line.

For schools in Scottish Borders, to find out more, please send an email to; pwhittaker at scotborders dot gov dot uk

Ghotit spellchecker has improved a great deal since  I last looked at it, and wrote about it in this blog. Also I have learnt more about how it works. It does not work on a word by word basis but work as on continuous text. It is rare in that it can suggest when you have made a real word error. Here’s a sentence with three real word errors;

“John is not here. Can I tack his plays in the really tem?”

Ghotit is able to suggest the correct word. Real word errors can be as many as 20% of the errors that a dyslexic can make, though 10-15% is more usual. It can suggest the correct word when a confusable is used.

I was asked by Jane and Michael to go to there party.

How many spellcheckers do you know that can do that?

As well as the method of comparing the typed text with a mass of existing texts, Ghotit is gaining great deal of awareness of the phonetic errors that some poor spellers make. try this sentence in your spellchecker and then use Ghotit.

I yoost to liyk gong to the sinma.

Ghotit

There are various misconceptions about spellcheckers. This article aims to clarify some important points.

Almost all wordprocessors, computer software or hardware notetakers, have a spellchecker, however there is a great variety in quality betweeen the best and the worst. This is rarely recognised. The Study carried out by CALL Scotland in 1999 called – Supportive Writing Technology included the only comparative study of spellcheckers. It is still valid. Unfortunately some of the best have disappeared from the market – The Apple Emate for example. Many of the poorest have not got any better. The Alphasmart series of Note takers still have a poor spellchecker.  Microsoft Word is still a decent spellchecker but not the best. The very good Franklin Elementary Spellmaster has been discontinued. However its alogorhythm has been incorporated into  the Write Out Loud talking word processor. very good, but still has some weaknesses.

Very few people are aware of these great differences. The CALL Scotland results can be viewed in the on-line document; http://callcentre.education.ed.ac.uk/downloads/swbook/swbook12-15.pdf

I have investigated  the spellcheckers in word processing software aimed at pupils with spoelling difficuluties. In some cases,  they have proved to less effective at identifying the intended word than MS Word. I feel that producers of these packages are being rather cynical.

It would be really good to have a basic word processing package with good spellchecker  running under Linux. This could be very useful if installed on the new range of Asus EePC/RM Minibooks. The spellchecker in the open-source Open Office is poor compared with MS Word.

So it all bad news then?  Not a lot has happened since the CALL SCotland report in 1999? Well, yes.  However yesterday I received an email from CALL Scotland about Ghotit;

This on-line spellchecker seems to very good. I hope that CALL Scotland will do a comparative review of Ghotit using the same  set of misspelt words that they used in the 1999 study. In the meantime you can judge it for yourself;   http://www.ghotit.com/

This new development really cheered me up. There is someone who cares about the quality of spellcheckers and recognises that dyslexics can benefit much more from a good quality spellchecker. It is not clear, from the website, where this devlopment is leading. I hope to a simple text editor with built in qulaity spellchecker – for Linux, Mac and PC.  Even a web only version would be very welcome.

I hope to find out soon. Watch this space.

There are many ways that Penfriend can be configured; various speech options and settings for the prediction.

I tend to set quite a large font size – about 16 pt. I turn off the speak as you type options and change speak the predictions to speak on right click. When you save the Lexicon, the settings that are in use at the time are saved too.

If a pupil is likely to enter incorrect words into the lexicon, one way is to un-tick ‘Learn new Words’ . Another is to do as I have done; untick Predict new words. Now, at the end of a session you can check the new words in the lexicon and weed out any wrong words. Now, choose Edit -> Approve New Words. They will be accepted as old words and will be predicted.

Here are some tips I’ve devloped after using Penfriend prediction in schools;

1. We want the user’s first experience of prediction to be positive. It really helps improve prediction, especially at the start if you make sure that PF predicts words that the pupil is likely to need. You can even type the text that the pupil needs, before he types it. That way it is bound to work. Another way is to use “learn Clipboard”. Find a text with similar content to what the user will be writing about. The Internet’s the best place. Mark the text ( Ctrl+C); In PF choose View -> Lexion; In Lexicon choose, File -> Learn Clipboard. Now Penfriend is likely to predict the better.
2. Minimise Penfriend when you are; Editing, you are likely to type in half a word; typing in a web address; doing anything other than typing. This will prevent unwanted words getting into the lexicon
3. Un-select the option – Predict new Words. Now you need to work in this way; After each session using Penfriend, the support person weeds out all the mistaken words and approves all the other new words. These become old words and these can be predicted during the next session.
4. Pupils may want to enter words that are predicted by typing them rather than by pressing the function key or clicking the mouse. This is to be encouraged as using a Predictive Typer alone does not make you a good speller. Typing the word can help improve spelling.

The space in the market below a full laptop running Windows is being squeezed more and more as the price of a Win XP laptop falls. The most successful device in this niche has been the minimalist Alphasmart range. From the original Alphasmart, the 2000, the 3000 and now the Neo (pictured above) they have been the device that offered the least in terms of features. The Dreamwiter had far better spellchecking; The more expensive Windows CE (Compact Edition) had the good quality spellchecker in MS Word; but these have Even the Alphasmart Dana with smaller text has not really caught on very well.

The Alphasmart 3000 could be bought with the predictive typer; Co: Writer, which made it a more useful tool for some pupils with literacy difficulties. The most recent model, the Neo has overcome, to some extent the problem of the small amount of text visible within the screen, by offering smaller text. The text that you could see on the screen has been 4 lines of 40 characters. The Neo offers a range of options – including 6 lines of 52 characters.

The Alphasmart range probably owes its longevity to its simplicity, long battery life and lightness. They give a good amount of work for three AA batteries.

All these devices have had a great advantage over al Windows laptop that they are ready to use very quickly. There is a start-up time of only a couple of seconds and you can be writing. In the school situation, this is a very important advantage.

There is a newcomer in the sub-laptop niche which may prove to be very useful long term.

The RM Asus Mini notebook. should be available from November 2007. It is a small laptop with a small screen 7 “, where a laptop might have a 12″ or greater screen.

How can it be so cheap? Well it runs Linux the cost-free open source operating system. The main software installed is Open Office – a free equivalent to MS Office. It will read and save files with the .doc (MS Word) , .xls (Excel) and ppt formats. The Firefox browser is installed and there is wi-fi connectivity. However, it is not clear how pupils will gain access to the internet through school networks.

Pupils will probably transfer their files to a standalone or networked computer using a USB memory stick (pendrive).

From the point of view of supporting pupils with literacy difficulties, there is not much good news in this development. The Alphasmarts have always had a poor spell-checker compared with MS Word – See the CALL Centre report. From a brief trial of the spell-checker in Open Office – it manages almost as well as MS word on the errors below by pupil with a mild spelling difficulty. On the other hand, using my favourite test sentence “I liyk to vist forin playsis”, it does not perform nearly so well. Also, there does not seem to be any way of having a talking word processor. There seems to be no option to add software that might become available.

The Mini Notebook reads SD cards ( used in many digital cameras) and comes with some picture editing and sound editing software. Useful for creative work!
The RM Asus Mini Notebook is definitely aimed at the almost the same price range as the Neo. It could gradually push the Neo out. However, if the Neo’s price is reduced, it may continue to survive in this niche. I’d certainly welcome that!

All the above comes from reading. More, if and when I get my hands on one. Any comments form anyone who had had some experience of one. Details of how much use you get between battery charges would be very useful.

The best review I have found is here; http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4044 

Certainly the screen looks really good. However the keyboard does not sound very good. The small size may suit children better than adults. One thing to note; what is being reviewed here is not the actual RM version which will be marketed at schools.  There may be significant differences – especially in terms of memory size. Take care before ordering.

Here is another piece of writing, this time by an S1 pupil. What do you think would be a good strategy for this pupil? 

My name is Mark. I live in a town called Hawick. I have a mum, dad, tow brothers. I have a pet dog calld Buddy, tropicol fish, Gold fish and a stick  insect. I was born in the BJH. I was born on the 3 Desember 1995 I thinck other people see me as funny.

My hair coler is blond. Myn eyes are green. I wode lock to chang my appearance

Continues …………………..