Spell checker software

Wouldn't life be easier if spell checking software could help our dyslexic students? Well, of course it can help many less experienced writers, but it doesn't help those who confuse 'flower' and 'flour', or 'their' and 'there', or 'practice' and 'practise'. In fact, Word might even insert an error: in some versions of Word, if a person types 'I am going to do my piano practize', the software will automatically correct the misspelling to 'piano practise', which is wrong. The spelling should be 'practice' for the noun, and 'practise' for the verb, and 'piano practice' is a noun phrase.

It's important for teachers to know that the spell-checking capabilities of Word are often poor when dealing with the spelling of a dyslexic student. Microsoft Word can help those whose spelling is reasonably good, but Word 2010 doesn't offer a correct alternative to any of the four misspelled words in this sentence: 'Fiziks is bootifl and it is my favrite supgekt' ('Physics is beautiful and it is my favourite subject').

So the moral is- use spell-checking software, but don't assume that this will trap all possible errors.