Spelling was never my strong "suit" any way and that has become even more apparent since using text to sppech software now daily. I recently ran into a free software program called Ginger http://www.gingersoftware.com/ now I'm quoting from the site because I think the software is significant, good for students and I simply don't want to get the facts wrong.
"It doesn’t correct just spelling mistakes. It also corrects misused words, basically words that are spelled correctly but not in that context. How we do it is we look at the context of the sentence. The software uses breakthrough technology that looks at the context of each sentence and works out what the writer or the user was trying to write according to the context.
At the moment we correct spelling and misused words, but in the beginning of next year we’ll also be correcting grammatical errors which will make a huge difference to people making not just spelling mistakes but say, people for whom English is a second language who make a lot of grammatical errors.
What the software also does by correcting the whole sentence, it’s making the whole way people work a lot more efficient. Instead of going back and looking word by word, it is much faster to correct full sentences. So, if it takes someone an hour to write, and this is the feedback we’re getting from users right now, instead of it taking them a half an hour or an hour to write a few sentences before, it’s very quick and very efficient. you click one button and it corrects all of the mistakes within that sentence. You click another button, it corrects all the misused words and you just continue working.
It’s just a much better way to use the time and the accuracy is a lot higher than any other spell checker. If you really have difficulty writing and you make unusual spelling mistakes, which a lot of people who have learning difficulties or who have dyslexia do, normal spell checkers can’t correct the unusual mistakes that they make. Our software, because it looks at the context of the sentence can correct these unusual mistakes at the sentence level. It’s much more accurate and it’s much faster and easier to use. "
This a plug in for Microsoft Word, easily the most-used word processing program in schools and, best yet, is is free.
I am using it my self daily, have helped put it use for 4 students now (thank you parents for letting me show it and try:) )
I also thank you Ron for sharing this with me.
