We, the authors, have varied experiences in education but have worked in concert with one another for twenty-five years. Historically, we have subscribed to a philosophy of fitting programs to the needs of students, in addition to examining, learning, and applying new research-based approaches and techniques. Our experiences have led us to understand that when language skills are secure, students are confident that they are able to learn new and more complex concepts and subject matter.

We have undertaken the challenge of creating this website because we have only been able to provide the advantage of secure written-language skills to relatively few classroom students, to relatively few students who manage to obtain individual help in school, and to relatively few individual students whose parents have the means to provide private tutoring.

We have taught other teachers what we had learned for almost all of our twenty-five years. In The Spell of Language, we expanded our technological knowledge and expertise in order to help other teachers learn more efficiently and effectively through the use of a website-based program.

Rather than prescribe what is to be taught, we help teachers by providing them with curricular material to be used in crafting their own teaching. The program enables them to determine what their students have learned, what more needs to be done to meet objective(s), and what steps to take.

Our work builds on the contributions of Elizabeth Haughton who co-authored Essential-Word Knowledge Skills.