Product Description
This popular book helps eliminate basic spelling problems. Its format enables readers to proceed at their own pace with the aid of diagnostic test and review tests. Motivating and entertaining, it emphasizes drill over theory because it assumes correct spelling must become automatic.Addressing the basic words that account for the majority of spelling errors, the book employs a phonics approach while presenting words in sentence contexts to give them life and meaning. Focusing on word building, the book encourages useful spelling rules while ignoring rules riddled with exceptions. The fourth edition of Programmed Spelling Demons has been revised to include four new smaller chapters on demons, a single chapter on Words with Tricky Endings, and new proofreading exercises. Previous separate chapters on silent letters, troublemakers, and hyphens have been deleted.A valuable book for any reader who wishes to improve his spelling ability. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Most Expensive Primer in the World
Unless you are a grade school teacher in desperate need of a workbook, or are an ESL student -- be forewarned!I'm certain the information inside this text is excellent, but come on people.$100 to learn the difference between it's and its, which you should have learned in grammar school?!Not saying the content isn't good -- it's fine.It's the cost that is galling.This was a required text for me as a court reporting student, and I found the cost reprehensible.

Very Pleased and satisfied
The book arrived to me in very good condition.But, better than that, the seller was able to get the book to me much faster than originally guaranteed.Expressed the sense of urgency and they really went above and beyond to make sure it arrived to me with time to spare!!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Turns downtime into learning time.

Reinforces and enhances vital English/Language Arts skills.

Provides efficient review and practice in spelling, mechanics, usage, and grammar.

Helps students learn and remember effective spelling skills and grammar rules.

Helps students for national and state standardized tests. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Teaching Aid
As a substitute teacher, this book is helpful for short assignments when teachers don't leave enough work for their class! ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a rationale for the teaching of spelling based on the nature of the English language and the natural development of children's spelling ability. ... Read more

Product Description
Good spelling is fundamental to making the right impression with any type of writing; reports, homework, CVs, and letters all require correct spelling in order to get the message across in clear and straightforward English. Adaptable or adaptible? Independent or independant? Delirious or delireous? What is the difference between assent and ascent, dual and duel, or forbear and forebear? How do you make the plural of halo? Is it halos or haloes? Actually it's both, but not so for potato, the plural of which is potatoes. Knowing the difference between easily confusable words, making plurals, and adding endings are just some of the aspects of spelling that confront us with endless pitfalls. This easy-to-use A-Z guide does what no spellchecker can do, it gives immediate access not only to individual word spellings but also to general rules that will help you develop good spelling. The book covers the topics in simple and helpful terms and also offers advice on how to use apostrophes and hyphens, and the differences between British and American spelling. The core of the book is a list of over 2000 words laid out for quick and easy reference.Based on evidence of misspelling gathered from real situations, this guide is the most useful and comprehensive help on spelling available. ... Read more

Product Description
When should "whom" be used instead of "who"?What's a semicolon for?What's the difference between "farther" and "further"?Organized for quick reference, this guide covers every grammar issue, including:

• Parts of speech
• Subject-verb agreement
• Components of a sentence
• Punctuation
• Shifts in tense
• Commonly confused words
• Prefixes, suffixes, and roots
• Guide to avoiding offensive language

This handy and concise guide makes grammar and English usage easy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Quick Reference Desk Book
I use this book more often than not.It's a quick refernce book I keep by my desk.I also ordered a copy for my daughter-in-law as a quick way to hone up her English writing skills. ... Read more

Product Description
The national bestseller from Parade's "Ask Marilyn" columnist—the definitive book for anyone who cares about spelling. Like The Elements of Style and On Writing Well, The Art of Spelling has emerged as a writing manual for the ages, the backlist volume that will tell us everything we will ever want to know about spelling. Begun as a spelling survey in the "Ask Marilyn" column of Parade magazine, The Art of Spelling dispels the myth that good spelling is simply a measure of intelligence or education. With her trademark no-nonsense wit, vos Savant shows where good (and bad) spelling originates, provides personality portraits of all kinds of spellers, and offers the most effective methods of spelling improvement known. Also included are lively chapters on the turbulent history of English spelling and the pitfalls of computer spell-checkers and other writing tools. The Art of Spelling will appeal to scholars, students, and language lovers of all ages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Spelling Made Simple
As an English teacher, I enjoyed this witty book. It was very accurate and error-free, but what do you expect from a woman with the world's highest IQ? There were many logical rules that can be memorized. I used portions of the book in the classroom, and I highly recommend it for good or bad spellers. Christine Lundstrom

The book I was going to write - or something like it
I believe our culture lacks an appreciation of the goofiness of our spelling system, its history, and its value. This book does a fairly good job of providing a humorous, insightful, and helpful look at English spelling, without taking either a superior or a belittling attitude. Down-to-earth, a fun read, and maybe helpful for people who really want to improve. A little bit less history than I would have included, but probably just as much as most people want to hear. For geeks like me, there's always the Oxford English Dictionary.

Facile
Here is an author who is said to have the highest IQ ever recorded. Why, then, did she waste her time writing this book? This book is also a waste of time for the reader. If you're a good speller, it has nothing to teach you. If you're a bad speller, it won't help you any more than all the rules you were taught in school but never learned. If you want to spell correctly, consult a dictionary or a good speller.

The ART of SPELLING is spellbinding!
With Joan Reilly's illustration this lively, comprehensive & useful guide for spellers of all abilities takes a look at what our spelling reveals about our intelligence & personalities.

Marilyn vos Savant reconstitutes our turbulent history in spelling this language we call English, offering us insights about the use & misuse of spell-checkers - remember, computers won't know the difference between wave & waive or their & they're & she sketches some surprising portraits of all kinds of us spellers.

If spelling interests you in the least little bit, do give this book a go - you may very well find it a delight, I did! Do visit my site for my full review & editorials on the love of reading & writing!

The madness and the method
The Art of Spelling by Marilyn Vos Savant is a book to be read not an exercise manual. It summarizes much of the advice found in other books on spelling improvement and includes such things as a list of the most frequently misspelled words but contains no drills. As close as one gets to the usual content of a self help book on spelling is a personality questionnaire.

Nearly half of the book is devoted to the psychology of good and bad spellers so it makes sense to determine if the reader has the characteristics of either of these groups.

Unlike many books on this topic, the author has not only read the best books on the topic but has interviewed the authors.

It certainly makes sense to interview the experts but I have rarely seen this strategy used as effectively as it is in this book.

Although she interviews the Anglo-Saxon scholar who the president of the Simplified Spelling Society, she misses the opportunity to address any of the real solutions to the spelling problem.

She does identify the problem as "phonetic irregularity" -- many words are not spelled the way they are pronounced.

She follows up this insight with a misleading quote from author Edna Furness (p.119) "Research in linguistics has shown that the English language is more phonetic than we realize (approximately 85%)."

All languages are 100% phonetic. It is the writing systems that try to record meaningful sounds that go astray.

There is some statistical regularity in English spelling. Four spelling patterns for the 12 elementary vowels will account for 75% of the vowel spellings in the dictionary. [See www.unifon.org/uu-18ways.html].

Most writing systems achieve a spelling predictability rating of over 85% but not the traditional one used to transcribe English.In English, knowing how to pronounce a word will enable someone to come up with not one but a half dozen orthographically correct spellings. Since each sound in English is spelled 14 different ways, narrowing the spelling of a particular pronunciation down to 6 alternatives is an accomplishment.

There may be an 85% chance that one of these six allowable spellings is correct -- i.e., matches the dictionary.

Knowing the basic code does help narrow the field and Vos Savant lists up to five of the most common spellings for 39 of the 40 or so sounds in English speech. She also provides some useful mnemonic devices for selecting the best alternative in the group.

Other practical advice includes how to use a spelling checker without being overly dependent on it.

This is a book that anyone with an interest in spelling will enjoy reading. Marilyn Vos Savant is a seasoned writer and it shows. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

A GUIDE FOR WRITING IN TODAY'S WORLD
In our forgetfulness that English grammar and usage has evolved, Mary Embree makes a very common sense point when she says, "What matters, is that our meaning is clear." The Birds and the Bees of Words is an excellent reminder for those writers among us who cling to the old rules of grammar fearing ending a sentence with a preposition or dangling participle. No one can appreciate this more, than a writer whose main concern is to present their work as a pleasurable read. Most engaging, if not downright fascinating, is Embree's chapter on New Words and Phrases. Did you know the newest Eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary contains 10,000 new words and more than 100,000 new meanings? For instance, papaphobia, meaning fear of the Pope, or retrosexual, meaning a heterosexual male who does not spend a lot of time on his appearance and lifestyle, he uses tools and can fix things, he has old-fashioned graces such as opening doors for women, the opposite of metrosexual. This chapter alone is worth keeping Embree's book on my desk as a reference. I feel hip now.

The crafting of legible, literate sentences is a learned skill.
The crafting of legible, literate sentences is a learned skill. A skill that separates the amateur from the profession, the incoherent from the competent. "The Birds And Bees Of Words: A Guide To The Most Common Errors In Usage, Spelling, And Grammar" by Mary Embree (a freelance editor, successful author of six books, and founder of the Small Publishers Artists and Writers Network) was specifically written to provide aspiring authors and practicing writers to communicate clearly and correctly through the use of the written word. A thoroughly 'user friendly' instructional guide to 21st Century American English, "The Birds And Bees Of Words" covers frequently misused words, the parts of speech, word roots, common grammar mix-ups (and how to correct them), often misspelled words, as well as brand new words and phrases. The perfect antidote to a flawed or substandard public school English Department or classroom curriculum, "The Birds And Bees Of Words" is especially recommended for school and community reference collections, as well as anyone wanting to write professionally or personally with an authority and accuracy unmarred by blunders of spelling or grammar or usage. ... Read more

Product Description
A bind-up of the existing Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar Repair Kits, this book combines the humour of the regular Repair Kit characters - clever Zelda, swotty Colin and not-very-bright Steven - with technical help and clear advice on the English language. Contains spelling, punctuation and grammar exercises for the reader to work through. Illustrated throughout with humorous cartoons. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Not grammar or spelling
This book was a complete waste of money.The activities are silly busy work; they involve no instruction or learning.There are no lessons of any kind.Examples of activiities include: Write a sentence that uses every letter in the alphabet or Invent 5 words by spelling common words backwards to mean their opposites. Another gem is: Calculate how many scrabble points you would get for spelling your own name then think of as many words as you can that have the same point value as your name.

If you just want cutesy activities, the book may be of some use. For every 20 worthless activities there may be one activity that relates to grammar or spelling (1.e. Rewrite the following sentences so the pronouns relate to the antecedent). As a whole, the book is definitely not worth the money for me!

Great for BellWork!
This and the Critical Thinking Daily Sparks are great!I am going to be using them with "Caught'ya!Grammar with a Giggle for High School." ... Read more

Product Description
Editing—the next step in writing once the key ideas are put on paper—can be difficult to teach. For teachers, it is often difficult to find lessons to engage students in the process. For students, editing is frequently an afterthought. In Key Strategies for Teaching Editing, the authors present interesting meaningful ways to teach students good editing skills. Leochko and Rossi also show how students who use these editing skills can become good writers.Key Strategies is divided into three sections: punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Each section has several lessons. Each lesson includes:Reference Sheet — mini-lesson about rules and usage Editing Sheet — authentic piece of writing that gives students opportunities to apply writing conventions in meaningful ways Answer Key — answers for the editing sheet ... Read more

Product Description
Teaching Grammar and Mechanics provides whole-class diagnostic grammar and mechanics assessments, enabling 4th-12th grade teachers to differentiate instruction with 72 targeted worksheets. The book has a full year's curriculum of 15-minute interactive sentence lifting lessons to teach standards-based mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills. These no-prep lessons teach basic to advanced skills, using both error analysis and sentence modeling in the writing context. Quick teacher tips for the grammatically-challenged highlight this user-friendly curriculum. Throw away the Daily Oral Language and get this comprehensive curriculum that both improves student writing and prepares students for the most rigorous ELA standardized test questions. 314 pages ... Read more

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Detailed day-by-day lesson plans designed specifically for home schoolers. Includes scheduling information, record-keeping helps, and 170 daily lesson plans to save hours of preparation time. Lesson plans are divided into 4 sections: language, reading, penmanship, and spelling.(www.abeka.com) ... Read more