Method of Marking Mistakes.
One mistake for a letter omitted.
One mistake for a letter too much.
One mistake for a letter substituted for another.
There may therefore be several mistakes in the same word, but the number of mistakes for any word cannot be greater than the number of letters in the word. A word omitted counts as many mistakes as it has letters.
The liaison of two words counts for one mistake. Failure to join the two parts of a word also counts one mistake.
It is to be noticed that we do not speak of grades of spelling—that is to say, of different phrases which the children of each age should be able to write without mistake. No doubt such could be found. But we have been content to count the mistakes; it is by the number of mistakes that the children of each age are distinguished.
The dictation given in February by M. Vaney in his school and corrected by the teachers there has enabled us to draw up the following table, which shows the number of mistakes committed, counted by the method indicated above:[8]
| Age of Children. | Class. | Course. | 1st Phrase. | 2nd Phrase. | 3rd Phrase. | 4th Phrase. | 5th Phrase. |
| 6 to 7 years | 1 | Preparatory | 13 | 22 | — | — | — |
| 7 to 8 years | 2 | Elementary (first year) | 6 | 15 | 32 | — | — |
| 8 to 9 years | 3 | Elementary (second year) | 2 | 10 | 19 | 20 | — |
| 9 to 10 years | 4 | Intermediate (first year) | 0 | 2 | 6.6 | 6.9 | 17 |
| 10 to 11 years | 5 | Intermediate (second year) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
| 11 to 12 years | 6 | Senior | 0 | 0 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 5 |
To show how we classify a child from the point of view of spelling, let us take an example. We shall choose Ostrow, the defective whom we have already tested in arithmetic. He writes the first phrase with one mistake, the second with one mistake, the third with eight mistakes; he is at the level of a child of nine to ten (vide Table, p. 54). He has therefore a retardation of three years. He must be reckoned as slightly feeble-minded.[9]