Back to the on-screen lesson ·
Check a finished form, check or label against its source, one field at a time, with numbers read aloud in chunks and a tick for each field.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will check a copy against its source field by field, read numbers aloud in chunks, tick each field, and look at blank and last fields on purpose.
The last lesson searched a shelf along a path. This one turns the same habit on a page you have just filled in: a form, a check, a label. It is practice with invented forms, not a test and not treatment. If you notice that reading or copying has become harder in a way that is new for you, tell your own clinician.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Source | What you copied from: the letter, the bill, the email. |
| Copy | What you wrote: the form, the check, the label. |
| Field | One place on a form that takes one answer: a name, a date, a ZIP code. |
| Chunk | A short group of digits or letters, read aloud together, such as 3 or 4 digits. |
| Slip | A small copying error: a swapped digit, a skipped line, a blank field, a misspelling. |
Three things sit on the table. The source, open beside the copy, never tidied away before the check. An index card — or a ruler, or a folded envelope — laid under one line, first on the source and then on the copy, so each line is seen on its own. A pencil for a small tick beside each field once it has been compared.
For numbers, add your voice. Read them aloud in chunks of three or four digits, once from the source and once from the copy.
When you check your own work, you already know what you meant to write, and the eye tends to see that instead of what is on the page. Studies of proofreading (for example Daneman and Stainton, 1993) found that people catch fewer errors in text they wrote themselves.
So a check has a fixed order and a fixed partner. The partner is the source. The order is the search path from the last lesson, one field at a time: card under the line, compare with the source, tick, next field, down to the last one.
Two places deserve deliberate attention. Blank fields, because nothing there catches the eye. And the last field, because it is checked when attention is lowest and the job feels done.
Another way: story
A bank teller counting cash does not glance at the stack and say looks like five hundred. She counts each bill aloud against the slip. A form check is the same kind of count, one field at a time.
Another way: steps
A long number is hard to hold while your eyes move from the source to the copy. Short chunks are easier: a US phone number is already printed as 3, 3 and 4 digits, and an account number can be read four digits at a time. Say each chunk aloud from the source, then from the copy. Four-four-seven-one against four-four-one-seven sounds different in a way that a quick look often misses.
The working memory course explains why chunks help: only about four pieces can be held in mind at once (Cowan, 2001). A check that holds three or four digits at a time asks no more than that, and the tick after each chunk means nothing has to be held for long. If you lose your place partway through a long number, go back to the last ticked chunk, not to the start.
The ACRM review of rehabilitation evidence (Cicerone and colleagues, 2019) supports attention practice that comes with a strategy a person uses and then checks. Checking a page in a fixed order is that kind of strategy. The items here are fictional forms. Finishing them shows the check was done, not anything about how well anyone sees or attends.
A check done this way also leaves evidence. The ticks show which fields were compared, so if you are interrupted you can see where the check stopped.
Paper checks are still used for rent and some bills in the United States, and two facts about them make a careful check worthwhile. The routing number printed at the bottom has nine digits and identifies the bank. And when the amount written in words and the amount in figures disagree, the words prevail (Uniform Commercial Code § 3-114).
Picture Walt, a fictional retiree, paying a water bill of 62.40 dollars. He lays the bill beside the check and slides a card down both. Date: before the due date, tick. Payee: City Water Department, copied from the bill, tick. Figures: he reads six-two, four-zero from the bill and six-four, two-zero from the check. They differ. He voids the check and writes a new one, then checks the words line — Sixty-two and 40/100 — and the signature, the last field. Four ticks, one fix, one stamp.
"I'll just read it over." Reading over follows the meaning, and the meaning is what you already know. Checking follows the fields, one at a time, against the source.
"I know my own address." Familiar words are exactly the ones the eye fills in. Compare them too.
"It looked fine at the end." The last field is checked when attention is lowest. Give it its own tick, and look at the blanks on purpose.
Lay the source beside the copy and a card under the first line of each.
Email (source) | Label (copy): line 1 under the card.
The source stays open, so nothing is checked against memory.
Compare the name and tick it.
Ava Lindqvist | Ava Lindqvist ✓
An unusual spelling is compared letter by letter.
Read the house number aloud on both.
two-seven-one-eight | two-one-seven-eight ✗ → fix to 2718
Spoken digits make a swap audible; the fix comes from the source.
Finish with the last line and count the ticks.
Springfield, IL ✓. 62704 | 62704 ✓. Ticks: 3, fixed: 1.
Every line has a mark, so the whole label was checked.
Card under field 1 and work down in order.
Name ✓. Date of birth ✓.
The order makes every field a stop, not just the full ones.
Stop at a field with nothing in it.
Emergency contact: (blank) → fill from the notes.
A blank has nothing to catch the eye; only the order finds it.
Keep going to the last field.
Signature: (blank) → sign now.
The last field is the one most often left when the job feels done.
Count ticks against fields.
Fields: 6. Ticks: 6. Blanks left: 0.
Equal numbers mean the check reached every field.
Split the source number into its chunks.
Source: (555) 013 – 2468 → 555 | 013 | 2468
A phone number already comes in three chunks.
Read each chunk aloud from the source, then from the copy.
Copy: 555 | 013 | 2486
Saying both, chunk by chunk, keeps only a few digits in mind at once.
Which chunk differs, and what is the fix?
A fictional library card application, just filled in. Check it field by field and mark the one field that was left empty.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
A fictional tax form has 19 fields. On a first pass against the source papers, Kai ticks 13 fields as matching and marks 2 as different, then realizes he stopped early. Complete his worked count for the second pass.
Write down what the first pass covered.
Ticked: 13. Marked different: 2.
Every field that was looked at has a mark, so the marks are the record of the first pass.
Count the fields the first pass never reached.
Not reached: a
A field with no mark at all was never compared with the source, so it cannot be trusted.
Count everything the second pass must cover.
Second pass: fixes + not reached = b
The fields marked different need correcting from the source, and the unreached ones need their first check.
Four slips found on fictional forms. For each, write the checking tool that would have caught it: **card under the line**, **read it aloud in chunks**, **tick each field** or **check the source**.
| Tool | |
|---|---|
| A line of the address skipped | |
| Two digits of a number swapped | |
| A field left blank | |
| A name spelled from memory |
A fictional change-of-address form with four fields, copied from a letter. The third field has a slip in it. Check every field against the letter, fix the slip, and finish the check, without ever calling the form done after a glance.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
A fictional account number has 16 digits. To check the copy against the statement, you read it aloud in chunks of 4 digits, first on the statement and then on the copy. How many chunks do you read on each?
Chunks read on each: a
A fictional water bill says: *Pay to City Water Department, 62.40 dollars, by May 1.* Here is the paper check written for it. Check each part against the bill and write **ok** or **fix**. - Date: April 28 - Pay to: City Water Department - Amount in figures: 64.20 dollars - Amount in words: Sixty-two and 40/100 dollars
| Status | |
|---|---|
| Date | |
| Pay to | |
| Amount in figures | |
| Amount in words |
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A fictional email gives the address for a birthday present: *Ava Lindqvist, 2718 Birch Lane, Springfield, IL 62704.* Maria has copied it onto a shipping label. Compare each line of the label with the email and write **matches** or **differs**.
| Label says | Against the email | |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Ava Lindqvist | |
| Street | 2178 Birch Lane | |
| City and state | Springfield, IL | |
| ZIP code | 62740 |
Next time you fill in a form or write an address, keep the source open beside it and check it with a card and a pencil, one field at a time. From memory, say the two places on a form that most need a deliberate look. Next: noticing when attention has gone. This is optional practice at home, not treatment and not a test of attention. If anything about your attention, energy or eyesight is new or changing, tell your own clinician. Stopping is always allowed: close the page, and the lesson reopens where you left it.
12. Your turn: checking a copied phone number, step 3
Chunk 3: 2486 ≠ 2468 → rewrite as 2468, then tick.
The last two digits are swapped; the fix is copied from the source, not from memory.