Mary DeForest

Dr. Mary DeForest (PhD, Classics: University of Colorado) teaches Latin and New Testament Greek at Regis University and the University of Colorado at Denver. For the past six years she has graded Advanced Placement Latin Exams.

She has written about literature from Mary Poppins to Homer, with a special emphasis on Jane Austen, and was interviewed on the BBC's "Word of Mouth" program about her article on Latinate words in the novels of Jane Austen.

She has served as a judge in the Colorado Spelling Bee since 2001, where she was shocked to see that children memorized the spelling of words without learning their meanings. They could spell persuade and jury, but not perjury.

As a college teacher, she has noticed a precipitous drop in students' vocabulary. They like the sound of long words, but they don't know what they mean. They use them anyway, as
our ancestors once muttered incantations.

The StellarSpeller program arose from these experiences.

Dr. DeForest notes:

"I have broken down these words into their language of origin so that when you hear the word and spell it, the answer page brings up not only the correct spelling but also the word’s roots and relatives.

"This method teaches spelling by association. You will be surprised how often a strange word connects to words you have known all your life. Once you understand the patterns which govern the way word parts combine, you gain the confidence to spell words you have not even heard before.

"I especially want to thank Stelios Stylianou of
Chronos Interactive, who made this program attractive
and easy to use, and who devised the codes that make the interactive spelling tests possible - mining information about the thousands of words and tens of thousands of pieces of words from the data bases."

If you have questions or comments about the program,
please contact us.