Skip to main content

English · Spelling & Proofreading

Spelling Surgeon

Sweep the magnifier along the sentence. One word is spelt wrong, so tap it, then operate.

Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

Why this works

"posible" should be "possible". A letter has gone missing after the letters "pos": the spelling needs "s" there. Possible ends in -ible, the same as terrible and horrible. Only the two ss are doubled. Proofreading is not reading faster, it is reading slower: one word at a time, letter by letter.

Helping a child through Spelling Surgeon

Hints, least revealing first

  1. Read it slowly under the lens, one word at a time, and look at the letters rather than at the meaning.
  2. The poorly word has 7 letters. Copy it out and compare it letter by letter with the spelling you know.
  3. A letter has gone missing after the letters "pos": the spelling needs "s" there.

When they finish it: “Patched up. Good eyes, surgeon.

11+ skill this exercise practises

It has its own page, with a worked example on it.

All english 11+ skills

You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes

Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.

Embed it
Put the exercise inside your own page with the code above. It stays playable, and it keeps working when we improve the engine behind it.
Print it
Print the page, or print the exercise off the screen, and hand out the copies. No limit on how many.
Use it in class
One child or a full set, in a school, in a tutoring session, in a homework club, or at the kitchen table.
Put it in something you charge for
A paid course, a paid tutoring session, a paid workbook, a members-only site. You owe us no fee and you do not need to ask.
Reuse it in your own writing
Quote it, rewrite it, translate it, cut it up, or build something different on top of it. Treat the wording, the worked examples and the question ideas as yours to work with.

The one thing we ask is a link back to the page you took it from, so a reader can find the live, playable version and the rest of the 11+ skills next to it. That is a request, not a condition: nothing above depends on it.

This covers the interactive exercises and the teaching notes on these 11+ pages. It does not cover the Trace Learn name or logo, and it does not let you present your version as something Trace Learn published.

Embed this exercise

Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.

The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.

Spelling Surgeon practises one skill. English has 41 of them

A free diagnostic covers every english skill and the other three subjects, and comes back with a shortlist rather than a list.