In version 1.3.9.2 (online now), we’ve redone the spelling practice. (Updating instructions found here.)

It’s a deceptively simple looking gizmo, and it’s based on experiments we’ve done building an as-yet-unannounced game and our experience with trying to teach a “phonetic” written language to Deaf students. I’ll walk through it then explain why it’s special.

Above: the text entry shows the hint where you type; I can type over that, spell out “birdie”, hit enter. If I enter it wrong, the correct answer in red fades in over it:

Simple enough. Next is where the methodology comes in. When a student spells a word wrong, the word is shown in red, then repeated later, and if the student gets it wrong again, it’s presented like this:

The letters can be typed over, like so…

It will refuse wrong letters, giving instant feedback in the form of a quick jolt (the letters shake), and if wrong letters are given repeatedly, it will clear the form. To continue, the player must type the word correctly, all the way through. Then, it will be pitched at the student once again to see if it stuck.

So why do it this way?

We observed long ago that with Deaf students, words are often jumbled, for example, “girl” is often spelled “gril”.

This is probably rooted in the way the cortex is designed to predict sequences. In English, G is often followed by R. Grill, ground, grizzled, grand, etcetera.

Second, it’s known that people will recognize a word (and not give it a second thought) if only the first and last letters are correct, as well as the length. So “gril” will be recognized as the correct word.

A hearing student can try to read “gril” out loud and see, intuitively, that this is not the spelling they’re looking for. A Deaf student, however, may not see that there’s anything wrong at all.

From there, one might write it wrong repeatedly, memorizing the wrong spelling.

At first we thought about how we can put a spotlight on the middle letters, but for the reasons above, we decided not to focus on trying to get the student to recognize the correct spelling, but instead to focus on training the student to write the correct spelling.

The “tracing” text box gives instant, clear feedback when those middle letters are mistyped, and presses the student to perform the act of typing the word correctly.

We’ve tested this experimentally, had very positive results and with this update, are trying it on a broader scale.

There’s also some theatrics. Martian fireworks! Why not?

Updating instructions can be found here.