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With the Spelling Converter on this page. You can submit a block of text in traditional English orthography (TO) and get the same text back in simplified ALC Fonetic or Cut Spelling orthography.
You may copy an entire book from one of the free book sites on the Web (listed below), paste it into the window below, and convert it to a consistent form that is much easier to teach and learn. The entire process takes only a few seconds. For a hard copy, cut and paste the converted text into your favorite word processing program and print.
ALC Fonetic
and ITA
ALC Fonetic is very similar to ITA
(Initial Teaching Alphabet) a teaching tool that was very popular
in the 1960's and early 70's. Children were able to master
reading and writing with ITA very quickly and sound out all of
the words in their extensive speech vocabulary. The most
striking gain was in the quality of children's writing because
the child's logical invented spellings would usually be
right. Invented spellings are right only 40% of the time
when the traditional writing system is used.
The basic problem with ITA was that teachers had to rely on publishers to supply books in the special ITA font. With the converter, you can create your own reading, spelling, and writing materials. Additional tools such as a speaking remedial spell checker are available from the American Literacy Council (ALC) in New York City.
The purpose of an alphabet is to represent distinctive speech sounds. Spelling that is simplified by the removal of superfluous letters and rendered consistent is superior to chaotic unsystematic spelling. Regularized spelling provides a better guide to pronunciation than TO (traditional orthography). Since those learning to read and write have to learn less than 50 ways to spell English speech sounds instead of over 400, systematic spelling is much easier to learn than traditional spelling.
Why not write
using the dictionary pronunciation guide?
Why not teach the
easy system first?
Better spelling is little more than
teaching how to match the spelling guide in the dictionary rather
than the inconsistent traditional spellings that do not match
pronunciation. The spelling guides are consistent and do
not contain superfluous letters: debt = det give = giv enough = enuf. Eventually, a student will
have to cope with both systems so why not teach the easy system
first. Let the child experience some early success.
The ALC Converter is also useful for research. It could be used to settle age old questions such as ...
How Regular is English? To answer the question regarding the level of consistency or phonemicity of the traditional English writing system (TO), Copy and paste at least three paragraphs of text in the window, press convert, count the number of words that were not converted (i.e., respelled), and divide by the number of words in the passage.
In a 200 word passage, approximately 120 words will be respelled in a fully regularized phonemic notational system. This will indicate that English is 40% phonemic. (200-120) * 100% / 200 = 40%. There are other measures of the regularity of phoneme grapheme correspondences but this one is simple and easy to confirm.
Many European languages (Finnish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, ...) are over 80% phonemic. This level consistency was achieved thru a series spelling reforms.
The automated converter is a collaborative product composed of contributions by several authors [Alan Mole, Steven Bird, Steve Bett, ....]. It is freeware and available to anyone who has a good application for it. It can be installed on your website as long as you credit ALC and provide a link back to our page. We are giving away the spelling converter but we have other literacy products, books, and teaching aids that we would like to sell. Contact Steve Bett or Joe Little for details.
For texts, see Online
Books Page, Project
Gutenburg, KJV Online.
There is more than one
consistent way to spell English. ALC Fonetic attempts to
preserve the "look and feel" of the traditional
orthography. CS simply eliminates superfluous letters, it
is neither consistent nor systematic but does eliminate about 60%
of the spelling problems. Checked Spelling is consistent
but looks more like European spelling than English spelling.
A sentence in six orthographies
New Writing Systems for EnglishTrad. Orthography TO the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog ALC Fonetic info the qik broun fox jumpt oever the laezy daug Cut Spelling info th quik brown fox jumpd over th lazy dog Truespel info thu kwik broun faaks jumpd oever thu laezee daug New Spelling thu kwik broun faaks jumpd oever thu laezee daug Checked Spelling info x kwi.k braun fo.ks ju.mpt o'vr x lezi dog info
For a working version of this page go
to http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/sb/orthography/convert.cgi
I am trying to get this automated converter up on as many spelling related websites as possible. It is an adaption of BTRSPEL that Steve Bird and I did for a summer course he taught at the University of North Dakota. You already have most of the pieces on your server, all you need is a workable CGI script to tie them all together.
I can't send you a working converter but I can give you the URL for one site where it is in operation and where you can check it out http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/sb/orthography/convert.cgi
I can also send you the CGI script which will probably have to be adapted for your server software. By the way, what do you use?
The text below is adapted for the ALC website. It would have to be altered slightly fo r the SSS site.
Steve
Spelling
Converter autbtrspl.html