Writing Technology & ClaroBy Dave StevensClaro Software Ltddave.stevens@clarosoftware.com

ClaroRead Pro, Plus & Standard

Speech Output For Proof Reading• Poor spelling, grammar and lack of sentence structure can

make text difficult to read. Speech output may help the writer to identify mis-spelled words, and remind and help him or her to add punctuation and capitals at the correct points.

• Improved writing achieves better results, or poor writing can cause bad results.

Assisting Spelling And Literacy• Many speech output tools let you easily adjust the text font

and size, and text and background colours, plus spellchecking and thesaurus facilities.

• Word predictors analyse words as they are written on the computer and try to ‘predict’ the words from a dictionary.

Speling

References• Mitton 1996 ‘Spellchecking by computer’ and ‘English spelling and

the computer’– Where most of the misspellings for testing come from.

• Church 2007 ‘Compressing Trigram Language Models With Golomb Coding’– Explains that Word 2007 had context/trigram checking.

• Draffan and James 2010 – ‘Spell checking when working online’– Says how great Ginger is and illustrates our target market.

• McArthur 1998 ‘From illegible to understandable’– Poor spellers benefit from word prediction, not spellcheck.

• Pedler 2007 ‘Computer Correction of Real-word Spelling Errors in Dyslexic Text’– Grammar analysis mechanism, needed because inflection/plural errors

and homophones are so common.• Spooner 1998 ‘A spelling checker for dyslexic users: user modelling

for error recovery’– Says dyslexic misspellers are phonetic, but spelling engine built on this

assumption didn’t work because spellings for users are so inconsistent.

Spelling errors 1• Real-word

– The cat is their.– It’s hair was black.– You May like may, I don’t.– Grammar are a problem for many person.– Every body like alot of correct Ness.– I like are cat.– Its about 50% for its that its apostrophe is right.

(From review in Mitton, 1996)

Spelling errors 2• Non-word errors, or nn-wrod erurs.

– Homophones/phonetic misspellings – ‘Phonetic’• I enteard a compertision.• I reant in juan it.

– Non-phonetic non-word errors – ‘Garbage’• Ablatross, akbatross• Scors, sicer, sliemer• Bady, abays, badies, bayds

Spelling errors 3• Real-word errors 40%• Phonetic misspellings 35%• Garbage misspellings 25%

• (Probably fewer real-word errors if you ignore apostrophes – then about 30%? Sterling 1983. Brooks, Gorman & Kendall 1993, 29% real-word errors. Wing and Baddeley 1980, 26%.)

Real-word

Phonetic

Garbage

(Assumptions) About Spelling Errors• 93% (!) of the time the first letter is correct.

– Exceptions: when there’s a common odd rule, like ‘written’, so you get ‘wright’ instead of ‘right’

• Poor spellers make lots of mistakes.– They won’t be using spellcheckers – word prediction and

speech synthesis (what about non-English?)• If the spelling is too bad you cannot read the text.• Reading and writing are possibly different processes.

– Kids can spell things they can’t read, and read things they can’t spell

– We mghit wirte pohtciallney, but we dno’t raed taht way.• Words that are uncommon, when encountered, are

probably correct – with important exceptions (‘wont’)

(Assumptions) About Spelling Errors• Frequent words are better-spelled.

• 80% of errors (for most people!) are one only:– one letter omitted albtross– one letter wrong akbatross– one letter inserted alabatross– an adjacent pair transposed ablatross

High-frequency but irregular = better spelled than low-frequency but regular – so much for phonetics?

Some examples…

Spellers 1: Good• It was a small school situated on the outscirts of Cambridge. There was a

large field behind where we held our sports and at dinner hours played football or in summer cricket. There were not many pupils, so it was rather quite at times. There were mostly women teachers although I clearly remember Mr. Heron who occassionly took us canoeing on the river. Each day we had a french lesson and we used cartoons, and we also acted these out. I had great pleasure in this, as it was a change from every day school work. We had many plays, a may play, a christmas play and other ones during the year. The may play particularly stands out. We used a cricket net and this was full of flowers intertwined about the netting. There was a long grand procession, and fortunately it was a very beautiful day. I can always remember our sports day, as it was one of the special occassions in the year. There was rosettes, and drinks although they were not free. We had the traditional sports, the sack race etc. At school we used to do modelling, making planes which most of us did. We used to try them out on the field but many were unsuccesful. In the early part of my primary school we used to go to a seperate building, not far away and situated behind a church.

Spellers 2: OK• At my primary school our head master was Mr skart he was very nice. Me

and my friend Doreen yourst to wash the teaches cup up after school. Every year we had a sports day I was in Yellow and Blue teams. The first Second and Firld year I was in Blue. The forft year I was in Yellow. I enteard a panting compertison I didnot come any were. But every body who enteard got a packet of sweets. I sat near my friend Doreen in class. When I was in the firld year our class would lean somethink to say in the hall and we would say it in the hall. For a tearm I had french. I did high Jump some dinner times. Every week we had to copey a pitcher then pant it. Neally every year I was in the hope race at storts day and also others.

Spellers 3: Bad• That my school I live it and a men come to the school and tine to tiece me

to rend and he life and than a lade and the lade life as will so I that to tine and rend my still. Mr home was are techer and he was needs and we play game. We did feirne. And we did and History and nut ball and roundosy, and I reant in juan it. and Be for I life are pase me 14 summer pasecart and I was ferod paret indored. and Mr home cave same Boys and girl 6d for pasecart.

Lots more examples in the Oxford Corpus, which we have.

About Dyslexic Spelling Errors• ‘Phonological processing disorders’

– Can’t tell ‘floop’ from ‘foop’– Can’t turn words into constituent phonemes (hence to

letter groups) nor vice-versa.– So misspellings are less phonetic? Right? BUT

• No spellchecker helps very poor spellers.– They need word prediction, word banks or speech

recognition – or something else?

How do you spell join?

JoineIt’s not phonetic, but that’s what some people could describe

it as (based on observations)

ClaroRead V6 Approach• Spelling Error Identification• Need 100% synch with MS Office otherwise inconsistencies

appear – people know red underline from a young age!• Layered with Spelling Exceptions and Customisable• Homophone Visual Identification in Word• Homophone Checking (One by One or choice)• Homophone List Exclusions and Customisations• Dynamic Word Choice – Not just prediction• Success mostly depending on student study skills support

process and training

ClaroRead Spelling Error Checking

ClaroRead Customised Spelling

Homophone Identification

Homophone Alternative Check

Choosing Words (aka ‘Prediction’)

ClaroRead 6: Dynamic Word Choice – Not simply Word Prediction

ClaroRead 6: Dynamic Word Choice – Custom Word Lists Easily Created

EB Word Banks• Word banks are grids or lists of whole or part words, or

phrases, that are presented on-screen. • Many word banks have speech output so that the writer can

listen to the word to confirm it is the

Apps – News from Claro!• ClaroSpeak TTS App for iPad launches shortly• Visit Claro Stand to see more• How does Writing support technology change for the

tablet.....