Making Literacy REAL for everyone!

Words! Literacy Club

Words! Challenges

As Melvyn Ramsden always says, “no-one makes a mistake on purpose”. So when we make a mistake there must be a reason for it. The following words have all been misspelled in the previous writings of students of “Words!”

Can you identify the nature of the misspelling, demonstrate the correct spelling and explain why it must be spelled that way? Email your investigation results to: 

wordsliteracy@bluewin.ch 

Be a Word Detective!

Being able to detect the reasons for the various spellings of words is a skill that makes us all better readers and writers.  If we can find the connections between our key word and other words then our vocabulary is enhanced and our knowledge of the world widened.

Some Big Fat Juicy Mistakes to Investigate

*definate

*cann’t

*specilly

*intresting

*glimps

*herd *roomers
(I herd roomers.)

*downstares

*sownd

*expretion

*onley

*beataful

*yosto
(I yosto live here)

*mest
(I mest up again)

*purpul

*determind

*clenleness

*maintun
(The man climbed the maintun.)

*whot

*drue
(I drue a picture.)

*sircul
(We stood in a sircul.)

*difrent

*eny

*similer

*idiars

(We had some good idiars.)

*posision

*supous

*instructinal

*sumptus

* sikeaye

We ARE in the process of  analysing these (and other misspellings) as part of our learning about the orthographic nature of English. If an analysis or some clue to the analysis of the word is available, the word will be underlined. Just click on that word to review our analysis.

Our Case Book

The following questions have arisen from student queries, reading discoveries and inquiries from parents and others interested in challenging the capabilities of our orthographic analysts. We have been working on these and have come up with some really interesting discoveries, hypotheses and interpretations. Do you agree with our results or do you have an alternative hypothesis? We’d like to hear from you if you do.

Why there is no custard in custody

Words! Literacy Club is copyright © Lesley Catterall 2003-2007 All rights reserved.

The Asterisk *

An asterisk before a word is a symbol used in linguistics to mark a known or possible misspelling or a spelling that is just not possible in English. 

Got any juicy mistakes of your own to share?

How about a challenge you’d like some help with?

Our Word Detectives are always on the prowl for new challenges—

 

Send them in!