Project Unspell will allow people to:

1. Learn to read and write English quickly and easily without having to learn how to spell

2. Pronounce all English words correctly without memorization

3. Look up the meanings of unfamiliar words upon hearing them without guessing how they are spelled

4. Achieve perfect spelling without having to learn how to spell

Now that most text is electronic, the time has come to tackle the problem of English spelling—by auto­mating it. The ubiquitous use of spell-checkers is a relatively tiny step in the right direction: at least we know that the words we type actually exist. Unspell will take us the rest of the way: it will tell us how to pronounce each word correctly, and how to spell it correctly as well. Most importantly, it will allow us to avoid having to learn English spelling, saving a lot of time and effort.

There are two apps, one called unspell, the other called respell. The first app takes English text and, quite literally, “unspells” it, rendering it phonetically using a special set of phonetic sym­bols. When unspell gets confused (by spellings such as “tear” and “bow,” which are ambiguous), it prompts you to pick the correct pronunciation. The other app, respell, takes unspelled English and respells it back to English text. When it gets confused—do you mean “ewe” (sheep) or “yew” (tree)?— respell prompts you to pick the correct spelling, based on its intended meaning. Here's how it works:

English spelling poses a huge impediment to learning. Functional illiteracy rates in English-speaking countries run as high as 40%. English orthography was haphazard to start with; then, in the 18th century, the spellings of English words were fixed for all time, mistakes included. Since then, spoken English has evolved, but written English hasn't.

In the U.S., children spend eight years memorizing the spellings of words to achieve basic competence in written English. But eighth-grade-level reading and writing skills are too limited for most practical uses, such as understanding law, science, medicine, technology or commerce. In contrast, schoolchildren in countries where the national language has a regular, consistent orthography achieve adequate literacy in just a year or two, by memorizing a small set of rules, and are then free to learn other things. It is little wonder that many of these countries are surging ahead while English-speaking countries are falling behind. Unspell can level the playing field.

Unspell is designed to benefit the following categories of people:

• The many adult illiterates and semi-literates who speak English fluently but who, for one reason or another, never learned to read and write well enough to be able to enjoy reading. They can learn to read Unspell by taking a brief on-line course. This will allow them to start reading any materials which they can understand when they are read to them.

• Special needs students who, because of various learning difficulties, are unable to learn English spelling. Unspell uses simple, easily distinguished, easy to draw shapes which were specifically designed with them in mind. Unspell avoids the use of flipped, mirrored or rotated shapes that give so much trouble to dyslexics, such as p/q/d/b, u/n, y/h, w/m and s/z.

• Home-schooled kids whose parents are pressed for time and want to get them reading anything from books on farming and animal care to masterpieces of world literature on their own quickly and without a lot of coaching.

• ESOL students who currently have to face the hurdle of learning English spelling even though everything they need to read is available in their native language and the English skills they need are primarily oral.

• Professionals around the world who already know how to work with written English. Many of them, being pressed for time, have never learned how to pronounce many of the words they use. They then find themselves having to participate in discussions or give talks in English. Unspell can make them sound polished with minimal effort.

• English native speakers who would like to improve how they sound and lose their class or regional dialect in order to better integrate into society. By reading in Unspell, they will be absorbing one of the prestige dialects: Standard American English or British Received Pronunciation of news broadcasters, Hollywood actors and Masterpiece Theatre.

• English native speakers who are not entirely comfortable working with written English, especially when it comes to spelling. A spell-checker can tell them whether something is a word, but it can't tell them whether it is the right word. Unspell can let them capture the meaning, and then they can use the respell app, which will spell most of the document automatically and guide them in choosing the correct spellings of words where necessary.

• People with impaired vision whose eyes are strained by reading regular English text. The symbols of Unspell are specifically designed to reduce eyestrain.

• Anyone who has ever made a fool of themselves by not knowing how to pronounce a word or a name, or by pronouncing it incorrectly.

To learn more, please visit http://unspell.it

The purpose of this fundraiser is to raise seed money, which will be used to create a functional demo of the software during the first quarter of 2014. The demo will be used to raise venture capital to complete the project.

Perks

By contributing, you will get:

• All Unspell.it downloads for free—fonts, tools, software, training materials—everything!

• Option to request any printed materials published by Unspell.it at cost—for the price of printing and shipping

• Chance to be an alpha-tester for Unspell products, shape their development and help make them better

• Your name, organization and a Web link of your choice at Unspell.it/contributors