Students must seek, assess, edit
To achieve correct spelling of words

If you want students to have the correct spelling of words they use in their writing, you have to teach them how to avoid the errors that spell check won't find: correctly spelled but wrong words.

There are four categories of these misspellings:

• Typos — such as a dress instead of address or whore instead of where.

• Misheard words — as in "it’s a doggy-dog world."

• Homophones— words that sound alike but are spelled differently, like war and wore or its and it’s.

• Homonyms — includes homophones and words spelled alike but pronounced differently, like read and read.

Helping students to eliminate these errors and achieve correct spelling of the words they regularly use requires two different approaches.

1) Treat typos and misheard words as editing issues, not as spelling problems.

In most cases, typos are careless mistakes that students should find when they edit their work. Penalize typos in a final draft as writing errors since editing is an important part of the writing process.

As long as students still have an opportunity to make changes to achieve correct spelling of words in the final draft, do not penalize them for spelling errors.

Sometimes however, students failure to produce correct spelling of words stems from failure to hear correctly the words they are to write.

Just as you should encourage students to ask "does that make sense?" as a check on their reading comprehension, you ought to encourage them to ask "does that make sense?" about things they hear.

When I heard McDonald's advertising its "99-cent plastic cheeseburger," I was pretty sure what they were saying wasn't what I was hearing. When I heard the ad the third time, I realized the promotion was for the company's classic cheeseburger.

Students often hear different words than speakers use because their experience is limited. For example, my students have told me about "the wind chill factory" and assured me that "a bird in the hand is worth two of George Bush."

Although these misunderstandings are more creative and possibly more accurate than what was said, the fact remains that the students did not understand correctly what they heard.

It's good practice to introduce students to references like dictionaries of idioms so they can check out things that don't make good sense. Using references is part of the editing process. It's also a literacy skill.

Collaborative editing is also useful as a check on misunderstanding of oral expressions. If you have students whose first language is not English, working in pairs or teams with native speakers may make them comfortable asking about expressions they don't understand.

2) Treat mistakes in use of homophones and homonyms as writing mechanics errors.

Students usually can spell homonyms, but they get them mixed up when they write. The problem is not the correct spelling but identifying the correct word to spell.

Teach students how to distinguish the uses of the easily confused words by concentrating on a few errors at a time, perhaps three to five a year.

Homonym errors are highly resistant to correction, so prepare to spend as much as a year on a handful of errors.

Remember that telling students isn't teaching. You need to use more than just words to make the spelling-meaning connection for students who are not highly verbal. Look for ways to use colors, pictures, hands-on activities, or music to make those connections.

Make students responsible for eliminating the errors until they disappear entirely from all students' final drafts.

Grading habitual misspellings

If students misspell words on your "points off" list, they should have their grade reduced or capped at a certain level for failure to measure up. However, if you want students to continue trying to write better, don't fail a student for just writing mechanics issues.

Correct spelling of words is important, but the content of the writing should always be the focus of your grading. When any error prevents readers from understanding content, then the error is a problem.