What it marks

Mark spelling tests automatically, letter by letter

A handwritten test marker is usually working out what the word was meant to be. A spelling test is the one place that instinct is wrong. AutoMark reads the word as written — recieve stays recieve — marks it against your list, and shows you the handwriting for anything it can't verify.

Why spelling is a different job

Most handwriting recognition has a dictionary behind it — a feature everywhere except here. A plausible-looking wrong spelling is the whole point of the test, and software that tidies it up hands you a class of perfect spellers and no information. The near-misses matter most: a doubled letter, a swapped ie, a missing e. If the reading isn't literal, the mark is fiction.

So spelling questions take a different path. The word is read as a sequence of letters rather than matched to a known word, and that reading is checked back against the crop it came from. The check passes or it doesn't — there's no rating to interpret. Anything that doesn't pass is flagged with the student's own writing beside it.

Setting one up

Build the test as you would any other: the words, the marks, the correct spelling as the answer. Turn on "Spelling counts" for those questions in the editor, or start from the spelling-test preset — that's the switch that turns on the letter-by-letter reading. Then print the paper from AutoMark: the printed layout and the answer key are two views of the same test, which is how the marking knows which box holds which word (Your first test).

Afterwards the class set goes through the staffroom copier's feeder in one pass, as a single PDF. Upload it, tick the option saying it holds several students' papers, and AutoMark splits the pile into one paper per student, matching each to your roster by the name on it (Your first marking run).

What the review moment looks like

You see the word. That is the whole design: a flagged item is a card carrying the cropped piece of the actual paper, the letters AutoMark read out of it, and the spelling your key expects. If the reading and the ink disagree, the ink wins — O overrides so you set the mark, C confirms, E enlarges the crop when a letter is genuinely ambiguous.

Spelling lists produce repeats, and the queue is built for it: when several students wrote the same thing their crops fold into one card and one decision — still on the evidence, since every crop is on the card. A clean run gets one bulk confirm. Either way, you confirm every mark before it's recorded.

What a spelling page costs, and why

One credit marks one scanned page. A spelling page costs 3, for the honest reason: it gets read more carefully. The page is read, then each word is cropped out and read again on its own, letter by letter, and where that reading is uncertain it's read once more. That is what stops recieve becoming receive.

Worth doing the sum before a weekly routine — a Year 3 spelling test, one page, class of 25:

• One run: 25 pages at 3 credits a page — 75 credits.
• Weekly, over a month: roughly 300 credits.
• Included: every student's $1.10 a month brings 5 credits, so that class carries 125 a month.

Weekly spelling for a full class runs past that allowance, so plan for top-ups at $27.50 per 100 credits. Credits roll over, which is what makes it workable: the weeks you don't run spelling bank credits for the weeks you do, and a beta account starts with a one-time 100 credits on top. Pages are estimated against your balance before anything is read, so a run starts or tells you it can't. Numbers on the pricing page.

What you get afterwards

The useful half of marking spelling is not the total out of ten. Once a run is committed, the class view shows which words the class lost marks on — the ones worth reteaching — and who missed each. Each student carries their spelling results alongside every other test they've sat, so a pattern across a term is visible rather than remembered. Any run exports to CSV.

What it handles, and what it won't

• Cursive is read. Joined writing isn't a barrier in itself; what matters is whether the letters are separable on the scan.
• A heavily-corrected word may be flagged. Written over, scribbled out and rewritten, crowded into the margin — exactly the case AutoMark won't guess at.
• A letter the scan can't show is a letter it can't read. Faint pencil, a trimmed edge, a skewed page: the answer is flagged, never invented. Full page, straight, sharp and dark enough is most of the battle.
• Give each word room. Cramped boxes produce cramped handwriting.
• It won't mark spelling across free writing. Spelling is marked word by word, as the answer to a question — not as a sweep over a passage.

Questions teachers ask

Does it correct the spelling before marking it?

No, and that's the point. The word is read as written and marked against your list. If it comes back wrong, the crop is there to check the reading yourself.

Can spelling ride on a normal test?

Yes. Mark the spelling questions as spelling, leave the rest as they are — one paper, one scan, one run. It sits happily alongside multiple choice and every other format on the home page.

What if a word is genuinely unreadable?

It's flagged, not guessed. You look at the crop and decide, as you would with the paper in your hand — and the mark recorded is yours.

Can I use it as a stand-alone spelling test marker?

Yes. A weekly list, one paper printed from AutoMark, the class set through the copier, and each word is marked letter by letter with anything unverified flagged for review. No app on a phone, no answer sheet — the same scan-and-mark loop as every other test.

Does it work for other subjects?

Anywhere exact spelling counts — vocabulary in a language class, key terms in science. The general case: marking handwritten tests, and the FAQ.

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