Students' responsibility:
Correct spelling of words they misspell

The only way to achieve correct spelling of words students actually use in their writing is to make students responsible for correcting their spelling errors.

Forget those lists of spelling bee words. The truly hard spelling words are those students misspell when they write.

Some misspellings don't confuse

Research shows that most people read by looking at the first letters of words and their length, not by the actual spelling.

So Sammy can get away with writing adress instead of address and Susie can get by with typing "thank you for brining that to my attention" because the readers understand what was meant.

Of course, the reader may think Sammy is dumb and Susie doesn't pay attention to detail, but that's not the same thing as not being able to understand what Sammy and Susie meant.

Moreover, if Susie and Sammy use spell-check, the reader need never see those gaffes.

Spell check and editing skills help

By the time Josh and Caitlin hit sixth grade they know the correct spelling of words like hear and bear, but when they hit college they are still using the wrong spelling in their written work. Teachers in California may be willing to "bare with" their students, but it's way too cold in Central New York for me to do that.

Instead of treating those homonym errors as spelling problems, treat them as editing issues. Most of the time, they are the result of sloppy editing rather than bad spelling. You must

• Teach students how to edit.

• Insist they edit their own work.

• Penalize failure to edit their work.

Don’t expect perfection, just competence. Even the best of editors lets a typo slip by sometimes.

"I don't correct your writing"

You may feel they you are not doing your duty if you don't circle every misspelling or count off for every typo. I used to feel that way, too. I spent a huge amount of time making corrections my students ignored.

I finally realized that the most effective way to deal with misspelling was to

• Limit my focus to a few selected spelling errors that crop up repeatedly.

• Hold students responsible for eliminating those errors.

This strategy was more effective in achieving correct spelling of words in student writing than correcting every misspelling myself.

Having less grading to do was a nice bonus.