Orthographic Check
Spot the misspelled words
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What is the Orthographic Check?
An Orthographic Check asks one simple question: is this word spelled correctly? Tasks like this are often called spelling recognition tasks. Unlike writing a word from memory, you only need to judge a spelling you are shown, which tests how well you recognise the familiar written form of a word and notice when something is slightly off.
Researchers use spelling judgements to study orthographic knowledge, the stored memory of how words are written, and how readers recognise words from their spelling patterns. In the Neuroptimize game, you see one word at a time and decide within a 45 second session whether it is correct or a common misspelling, with the errors becoming subtler as your level rises.
How to play the Orthographic Check
- A single word appears on a card with the question "Is this spelled correctly?"
- Tap Correct if the spelling is right or Misspelled if it is wrong. On a keyboard, use the right arrow (or C or Y) for correct and the left arrow (or M or N) for misspelled.
- About half the words are spelled correctly and half are common misspellings. None of the misspellings is itself a real English word, so every answer is clear cut.
- After you answer, a misspelled word is crossed out and the correct spelling appears beneath it. A wrong judgement counts as a miss and breaks your combo.
- Each session lasts 45 seconds, so the aim is to judge as many words as you can accurately.
- At low levels the words are everyday ones and the errors are obvious, such as a missing letter. Higher levels bring notoriously tricky words and near-perfect misspellings, like swapped vowels or a single doubled letter.
Strategies and tips
Trust your first impression
Skilled readers often sense a misspelling before they can say what is wrong. If a word looks odd at first glance, it usually is, so avoid talking yourself out of that reaction.
Check double letters
Many tricky misspellings add or drop a doubled letter, as in "untill" or "tommorow". Look closely at every pair of repeated letters on the harder levels.
Watch vowel order
Swapped vowels, such as "freind" for "friend" or "beleive" for "believe", are among the sneakiest errors. Pay special attention to ie and ei, and to ou and ua.
Break long words into parts
Split a long word into syllables or familiar pieces, like "li-bra-ry" or "choc-o-late". It is easier to spot a missing letter in a short chunk than across the whole word.
Learn from the corrections
Every misspelled word is shown with its correct form after you answer. Glancing at the fix helps you recognise the same word faster if it comes up again in a later session.
The science behind the Orthographic Check
Orthographic knowledge is the stored memory of how words are written. Skilled readers recognise familiar words by their spelling patterns, and judging whether a word is spelled correctly depends on the accuracy of these stored representations.
Frequently asked questions
Does the game use British or American spelling?
The English word list uses American spellings such as "color" and "favorite" as the correct forms. British variants such as "colour" are never shown as misspellings, because every misspelling in the game is a genuine error rather than a regional variant.
What kinds of misspellings appear?
The misspellings are the mistakes people commonly make: missing letters, extra doubled letters, swapped letters and spellings based on how a word sounds. They are ordered from obvious to subtle, and the subtler ones appear at higher levels.
Is there a time limit per word?
No. There is a 45 second limit for the whole session, and you can spend as long as you like on each word within it. Faster answers simply let you check more words.