Spell Check - What a Tool!

Students, through guided practice, become familiar with how a spell check program works and learn to use it effectively. They will then be able to use it independently as they word process on their own.

A lesson plan for grades 2–5

By Mary Rizzo

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Learning outcomes

In order to properly use a spell check program, it is beneficial for students to first be given a teacher directed lesson on how the program works. They will learn that the program cannot always know which word they meant and that it most often considers proper nouns to be misspelled words. Students learn how to make the proper choices for a correction, how to edit it themselves, and even how to use the program to help them to spell a word they may need help spelling.

This lesson may be done with students as young as second grade and continued through fifth grade (or even older).

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

30 - 45 minutes

Materials/resources

None

Technology resources

• Word processing program with a spell check tool (such as Microsoft Works, Microsoft Word, Writing Center, etc.).
• Teacher created document. A sample is included in this lesson.

Pre-activities

The classroom teacher will create and save a word processed document (either a list of sentences or a paragraph) that contains several misspelled words. The number you choose will depend upon the length of the time you plan for the lesson to last and the grade level of your students. You may choose to include words from a current spelling/vocabulary list and/or words your students frequently misspell. Misspell at least one word more than once. Include at least one name and a misused homophone. Purposely forget to space after a period and/or a comma. This document will need to be accessible to your students either from a floppy, loaded on the hard drive, or available on your network.

A sample paragraph might be:

Activities

Discuss with your class the purpose of the spell check tool and that it is only as good as the person using it. Discuss how some less powerful programs cannot check for correct grammar usage and they cannot always find and correct missused words such as homophones (there, their, they’re). Spell check programs do not always recognize proper nouns as real words. Emphasize that quality proofreading is still one of the best editing tools a person will ever use.

You may want to demonstrate first how the spell check program they will be using works. Once the program detects what it thinks is a misspelled word, the user has the option of choosing Ignore, Ignore All, Change, Change All, etc.

1. Students open the word processing document you have created. The teacher may choose to read the paragraph (or sentences) aloud.
2. Students should add their first and last name (and date) to the top of the document.
3. Show the students how to access the spell check tool either from a button on the tool bar, from a drop down menu, or maybe from a keyboard shortcut.
4. The first word the program detects will probably (and hopefully) be the student’s first or last name. Double checking that they have spelled their name correctly, they will then choose to ignore any changes. If the first word detected was their first name, it may then stop on their last name next. Note: Do not let students go on ahead of you as the purpose of this lesson is for you to guide them through each ‘misspelled’ word.
5. Once students have seen what to do when the program wants to correct their name (or other proper noun) because it does not recognize it as a real word, the program should then stop on an actual misspelled word. In the sample paragraph above it would stop on the word ’skool.’ Hopefully the program has the option ’school’ for the students to click on (select). They would then click the ‘Change’ button to make the correction. Although ’school’ is misspelled twice in this paragraph, this time only have the students select the ‘Change’ button and not the ‘Change All’ button.
6. The program will then stop on the next word it wants to correct. In the paragraph above, it will again stop on the word ’skool.’ Show how if a student knows they have misspelled the same word more than once, that clicking the ‘Change All’ button will same them time. They will have an opportunity to do this later in the paragraph. Click ‘Change’ to correct the word. When they later come upon another word that has been misspelled more than once, show them how to use the ‘Change All’ button.
7. Continue checking the document. When you come upon a mistake that is missing the proper spacing, show how to edit within the spell check program by adding the needed space(s) and clicking ‘Change.’ In the above paragraph, students will need to add a space after the comma after the word ‘now’ and two spaces after the period after the word ‘enough’.
8. Depending on how your spell check program works, the spell check may notice that a word is not in its dictionary but does not have any suggestions for corrections. Discuss stratgies for help if the students do not know how to correct the word. Options may be to raise their hand and wait for teacher help.
9. Go back and look at the missused homophone and note that the program may have not picked up on this mistake.
10. Once the whole paragraph (or all the sentences) has been checked, you may want to discuss the importance of saving. It is a good habit to save before you begin spell check and then again after you have finished making all your corrections.
11. If time permits you may choose to show students how to use spell check to help spell a word they are not sure how to spell but are trying to sound out. Have the students do their best at typing the word they are not sure how to spell. You may decide to choose a word for them. Students will then select only that word by highlighting it. Then click on the spell check tool and the program should check only that one word.

Assessment

Whether to assess the lesson is optional. Choices include walking around to each student and reviewing the document on the screen. You may also choose to have the students print their corrected document from which you can see if they were able to make indicated corrections.

Supplemental information

None

Related websites

N/A

Comments

I have found that a teacher led lesson on spell check helps students to learn to use it effectively. Left to their own discression without prior guidance, students seldom know how to correctly use the program. With younger students, the first time they use the spell check independently, it may be a good idea for them to ask you to watch as they use the progam on their own. You will then know whether they have mastered the concept.