Spelling and the Web

Correct spelling is increasingly important in our technological world. We examined childrenʹs and adultsʹ Web search behavior for easy and more difficult to spell target keywords. Grade 4 children and university students searched for the life cycle of the lemming (easy to spell target keyword) or the ptarmigan (difficult to spell target keyword). Childrenʹs search strategies were more variable and less effective than were adultsʹ, especially when they could not spell the target word correctly. Our findings demonstrate the need for search programs to include a true dictionary to assist with spelling keywords as well as the need to teach children and adults more effective Web search strategies. They also begin to extend recent research and theory on childrenʹs strategy development to a new domain of Web searching.