Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less ...

'Believe', 'separate' and 'surprise' are some of the most commonly used words in the English language yet they are commonly misspelt. Why is that? What's so difficult about spelling English words that ...

If you're a kid learning how to write, or an adult speaker of a language with sensible spelling, English spelling can seem like a cruel prank. And even if you're a completely literate adult native ...

Many people were spellbound as they watched the newest Scripps National Spelling Bee champions — Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar — correctly sound out scherenschnitte and nunatak in order ...

Analysis: Here's the reason why you've problems with words like 'equipment', 'occurrence' or 'accomodation' ...

My 11-year-old student sighs. How can the same letters make so many different sounds? We are looking at the letter combination “ough”, which can be read in seven different ways: “through”, “thorough”, ...

Some parents give up helping their children with spelling long before they get to spelling bee words like "psychagogic" (attractive) or "fewtrils" (things of little value). That may be especially true ...

English, whatever its merits as a language, is a bitch to spell. There are so many rules, and so many exceptions, and yet in the end you have to learn a lot of words on a case-by-case basis. If future ...