Exorcising Demonolatry

Abstract

Since the rise of college-level spelling instruction, pedagogies have been few, based primarily on “demon lists” of spelling words and injunctions to students about developing “informed doubt.” This study examines spelling instruction historically, then describes a large-scale analysis done in 1986 of the spelling errors found in 3,000 nationally gathered and stratified student essays. The result of this research is a new and somewhat unusual “demon list” indicating that the most commonly misspelled words are homophones, spellings based on pronunciation, and visual errors. The study then examines the changes wrought in student spelling by the advent of word processing with and without associated spell-checking, examining 100 word-processed essays with and 100 without spell-checking. This research indicates that word processing greatly increases the number of spelling errors unless spell-checking is used. The study concludes by exploring the question of what the future may hold for spelling pedagogies.

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