The Importance of Spelling

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Spelling Teachers Chatboard

The Importance of Spelling

by Cara

Nov 4, 2010

This is a great, research based article on "The Importance of Spelling." What are your thought on it?

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arachgold You are missing the link.

On 11/04/10, Cara wrote: > This is a great, research based article on "The Importance > of Spelling." What are your thought on it?

Nov 5, 2010

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Cara Sorry! [link removed]

On 11/05/10, arachgold wrote: > You are missing the link. > > On 11/04/10, Cara wrote: >> This is a great, research based article on "The Importance >> of Spelling." What are your thought on it?

Nov 5, 2010

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Grace/IL It's a good article -- very legitimate. I met and frequently interacted with the author, Susan Jones, at several reading conferences in the late '90s. In fact, she wrote an early endorsement of my own first spelling manual, I'm very pleased to see that she is now affiliated with Spellingcity.com. She cites the work of Priscilla Vail who was an earl...See MoreIt's a good article -- very legitimate. I met and frequently interacted with the author, Susan Jones, at several reading conferences in the late '90s. In fact, she wrote an early endorsement of my own first spelling manual, I'm very pleased to see that she is now affiliated with Spellingcity.com. She cites the work of Priscilla Vail who was an early proponent of reading/spelling relationships and who had a really positive effect on my teaching, especially in creative writing.

Susan points out the two-way relationship between spelling and reading but fails to emphasize that the effect is stronger from spelling to reading than it is from reading to spelling.

I momentarily forget the source but in the early days of computers, research was done that showed that 85 percent of our language is phonics based. That means that this percentage of English vocabulary follows basic spelling rules.

Susan has omitted citing the whole realm of spelling research, done at the University of Virginia in the last quarter of the 20th century, that verifies what was always believed by the predecessors of the International Dyslexia Association.

Yes, teaching children to spell is important. I'm going to add a few references here (from my own research into the subject) to verify what Susan has said.

Findings from recent research indiate that specific methods of teaching children to spell have positive implications int ransfer to word recognition skills (Ehri & Wilce, 1987). M. Henry (1988) presents further evidence that once students learn the structure of English spelling (including letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, morpheme patterns, and word origing) and use this structure to analyze unfamiliar words, both reading and spelling improve. Marily Jager Adams (1990) concludes that "the growth of young readers' visual vocabularies depends integrally on knowledge of spelling-osound realtions" and that "it is because of their deep knowledge about orthography that skillful readers look and feel as though they recognize words holistically.

And, from "The Franklin Primer" (1830), comes this quote, "And if you can't read, pray endeavour to spell, For by frequently spelling you'll earn to read well."

I'm sorry to be so wordy but this just happens to be my soapbox, too. Yeah, Susan!

Grace

Nov 6, 2010

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Grace/IL On 11/06/10, Grace/IL wrote: > It's a good article -- very legitimate. I met and frequently > interacted with the author, Susan Jones, at several reading > conferences in the late '90s. In fact, she wrote an early > endorsement of my own first spelling manual, I'm very pleased to see > that she is now affiliated with spellingcity.com...See MoreOn 11/06/10, Grace/IL wrote: > It's a good article -- very legitimate. I met and frequently > interacted with the author, Susan Jones, at several reading > conferences in the late '90s. In fact, she wrote an early > endorsement of my own first spelling manual, I'm very pleased to see > that she is now affiliated with spellingcity.com. She cites the > work of Priscilla Vail who was an early proponent of > reading/spelling relationships and who had a really positive affect > on my teaching, especially in creative writing. > > Susan points out the two-way relationship between spelling and > reading but fails to emphasize that the effect is stronger from > spelling to reading than it is from reading to spelling. > > I momentarily forget the source but in the early days of computers, > research was done that showed that 85 percent of our language is > phonics based. That means that this percentage of English > vocabulary follows basic spelling rules. > > Susan has omitted citing the whole realm of spelling research, done > at the University of Virginia in the last quarter of the 20th > century, that verifies what was always believed by the predecessors > of the International Dyslexia Association. > > Yes, teaching children to spell is important. I'm going to add a > few references here (from my own research into the subject) to > verify what Susan has said. > > Findings from recent research indicate that specific methods of > teaching children to spell have positive implications in transfer to > word recognition skills (Ehri & Wilce, 1987). M. Henry (1988) > presents further evidence that once students learn the structure of > English spelling (including letter-sound correspondences, syllable > patterns, morpheme patterns, and word origins) and use this > structure to analyze unfamiliar words, both reading and spelling > improve. Marily Jager Adams (1990) concludes that "the growth of > young readers' visual vocabularies depends integrally on knowledge > of spelling-sound relations" and that "it is because of their deep > knowledge about orthography that skillful readers look and feel as > though they recognize words holistically." > > And, from "The Franklin Primer" (1830), comes this quote, "And if > you can't read, pray endeavour to spell, For by frequently spelling > you'll earn to read well." > > I'm sorry to be so wordy but this just happens to be my soapbox, too. > Yeah, Susan! > > Grace

Nov 6, 2010

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valid spelling instruction I'd add though that many spelling programs and many approaches to spelling aren't. Teachers don't always teach spelling but rather they have children memorizing the spelling of a list of words that are not in word families and behind which there is no shared phonic rule.

The newer method of randomly choosing words from a chapter and assign...See More

Nov 19, 2010

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