Are there benefits of teaching spelling? How should spelling be taught?

Chelsie Lambert

Introduction

A topic that interests me a great deal is spelling. I wanted to know how spelling impacts

reading and writing and why students struggle with spelling. While student teaching in a fourth

grade classroom, I was asked how to spell this word or that word countless times during any

subject or task. It was especially prominent during free writing, or any writing lesson. I started to

question why my students were struggling with spelling to the point that they wouldnt even

attempt to spell a word, or they would constantly be asking me. I then took time to dissect the

observations I made on how spelling is introduced, taught, practiced and assessed within their

classroom.

My students would be introduced to a new list of 25 words each week. The words

covered a variety of different topics, an example topic is suffixes such as -ful, -ness, -est. After

the teacher says the word aloud the students would then repeat that word and underline the suffix

in that word saying biggest, e-s-t. The overall topics of each spelling list changed weekly and

the spelling words were from the Reading Wonders program. The spelling words often times

came up within the programs reading, but were quickly forgotten by the next week and seldom

found in future readings. Immediately after repeating and underlining the words they were giving

a spelling pretest which was given orally by the teacher and then graded right away and set aside.

The students switched their pretest with the person to their right to be graded, and after they

called out the score to the teacher so she could record it. This process didnt allow for the

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students to see what they did incorrectly, and didnt allow for the teacher to observe what each

individual student might need or any error patterns that could lead to moments of explicit

teaching. A few days later, on a Wednesday or Thursday, they were given a spelling worksheet

which consists of similar things each week such as adding the suffix to complete the word,

sorting words, picking the word that matches a definition, finding the four spelling words in a

paragraph that are spelt wrong and using those four to create their own paragraph, etc. I see that

this can be great practice, however they complete this worksheet within 45 minutes and thats the

only practice or exposure to their spelling words that they get for the week until they take the

spelling test on Friday. As I observed this, it was apparent to me that spelling is only taught one

way, and that is through rote memorization during a quick worksheet.

I then moved into a special needs class of kindergarten and first grade students. While in

this new environment I was able to observe what was taking place in this class compared to my

fourth grade class. I found that it wasnt different. The students are orally given anywhere from

16-26 words that they work on spelling for the entire week. The students dont learn rules or

identify or recognize patterns, but they do practice phonemic segmentation when the teacher says

a word orally and the students isolate each phoneme to create the word. I noticed with this that

they were given words that matched their Reading Wonders weekly stories and the words are

often times above their abilities.

With these being my only two examples of how to teach spelling within a classroom, I

began to question if there was a more effective way. Spelling is a large topic that is intertwined

into all other subject areas when writing is involved. In my fourth grade class the students

created a research paper on an animal of their choice. They typed their work on a laptop at

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school and I was able to teach them how to navigate and find the essential tools on the keyboard

including spell check. Some might view spelling as irrelevant to learn because of tools such as

spell check that make it so that you dont have to have mastered the spelling of all words. I saw

this to hinder their ability to be independent. My students would type and then click the spell

check and fix their words, unless in fact they were far from a correct spelling and the correct

word didnt come up. It was moments such as these that I understood that spelling is important

and spell checkers just arent enough.

The rest of my paper will consist of a synthesis of the literature in which I researched, an

application of what I learned and how to put it into practice, a conclusion of my research, and at

the end will be my annotated bibliography.

Synthesis of Literature

From the research, I discovered that there are benefits to teaching spelling. A study was

done to test if spelling and reading shared a close relationship and it provided evidence of a

strong correlation between reading and spelling ranging between 0.66 to 0.90 (where a

correlation of 1 would be perfect). The study showed that students knowledge of words improve

when learning to spell is taught as word study and simultaneously with reading rather than as a

visual and isolated task (Joshi 6). Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental

representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy

and accessible for fluent reading (Moats, 12). Henderson observed correspondences between

spelling and reading as well, he found correlations between spelling development and accuracy

and fluency of reading, between spelling and success in subsequent reading instruction, and even

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between spelling and comprehension (Schlagal and Hendersen 419). Spelling and reading

overlap and because of this, those who teach spelling will generally see improvements with their

students reading. This brings up the question, why is spelling taught in isolation and as a visual

and rote task? I learned that since the 1900s spelling has taken a backseat in order for more time

to be spent on developing students reading abilities and comprehension skills.

Teaching spelling not only correlates with reading, but writing as well. Noah Webster

stated, spelling is the foundation of reading and the greatest ornament of writing and the more

research I have done the more obvious it is that spelling teaches students how to both read and

write more effectively. This means that students who are poor spellers actual limit themselves to

fewer words when they write, decreasing their ability to express themselves and often with a

lower quality compared to those who are good at spelling (Joshi 9). When spelling is taught it

improves students writing because that student doesnt have to spend added time stressing over

what letters will make up a word, instead they focus on the message they are creating with the

words.

A large number of teachers teach spelling by requiring students to memorize the spelling

of a particular word list, research proved that memorization is not the most effective way. I will

address how spelling should be taught later on, but first, why do teachers teach spelling through

memorization if research has proven it to be less effective? Well, have youve ever heard

someone say English is confusing and irregular? English may seem irregular because we have

26 letters of the alphabet but around 42 different sounds. This plays a huge role in why English

seems confusing, take for example the letter k, it has the /k/ sound however can be spelt with not

only a k, but also qu, ch, c, and ck. Graphemes are numerous in the English language, for

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example; the graphemes aw, au, a, and ough, are all used to spell the single sound /aw/. With

over 250 graphemes its no wonder English is difficult to learn. Students are required to know

that king and cat are spelt differently although they have the same sound. Research proved

that emphasis needs to put placed on word meaning when teaching students to spell rather than

on sounds, because as was outlined above there is more than one way to spell one sound.

The reason for this, is because the English language has been influenced by other

languages such as Anglo- Saxon, Norman French, Latin, and Greek. Each language contributing

its own conventions for spelling speech sounds, syllables, and meaningful units of speech, the

spelling of a word is often related to, and even explained by, its history and language of orign.

(Moats 15.) Due to the combination of multiple languages, English also has more than one word

to describe something. Moats gives a great example to illustrate this, Anglo-Saxon contributed

sad, Norman French contributed morose, Latin contributed depressed, and Greek

contributed catatonic (16). The combination of multiple languages within the English language

is more challenging due to the larger number of words to express something, but this provides

students with a richer vocabulary than they would having only one language.

These are some of the reasons the English language seems irregular, however 84% of

English is predictable with knowledge of: origin and history, syllable patterns and meaningful

parts of words, and letter patterns. Knowing this brings up the question why is spelling being

taught as rote memorization in schools and how should spelling be taught? Well, knowing that

the English language is 84% predictable means that students should learn those three topics

outlined, and this should be done through a language-based instruction approach that is

linguistically explicit. Students must be required to think about language in terms of the origin

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and history, syllable patterns and meaningful parts of words, and letter patterns (the three topics

outlined that make English predictable). Joshi and his researchers found that, spelling is a

linguistic task that requires knowledge of sounds and letter patterns good spellers develop

insights into how words are spelled based on sound-letter correspondences, meaningful parts of

words, and word origins and history this supports orthographic memory (7). Moats said,

Spelling can be approached as an exploration of language (22) where students learn patterns

and rules of the English language. Students must learn these patterns as well as discover the

exceptions rather than having them rely on visual memory when a word is the exception.

Robert and Joy Schlagal agree that English spelling is principled and orderly, albeit

complex (418) and their research agreed with that of Joshi, Moats, and others that spelling

should be taught through explicit instruction to develop word knowledge. Schlagal also agreed

that spelling errors of students are not random, they change over time as orthographic concepts

mature. These concepts and patterns are not taught all at once, but each grade level should learn

specific concepts that build their foundation of the English language.

Spelling should also be assessed with a greater purpose than indicating correct or

incorrect spellings. The assessments must be there to determine each students understanding of

the sounds and patterns that were taught. Assessments are the only indication of where students

are at in their understanding of the language. It might take more time to explicitly test and

evaluate students spelling, but it is the only indication of their linguistic understanding and

should provide teachers with an idea of how to sequence their instruction to follow each

assessment (Joshi 13-16). Joshi states it beautifully by saying, Spelling is a window on what a

person knows about words. Learning about words and about the language will improve spelling

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skills (42). These words should speak strongly to how teachers can use this information gained

through research studies to better teach and assess their students to strengthen their abilities in

spelling.

Application to Practice

Through my research I have concluded that spelling should be not be taught through rote

memorization, but instead through explicit instruction that is language-based. In order to be

successful within the classroom, I must not fall into the trap of requiring students to simply

memorize the spelling of 25 words each week. Instead I want to require them to think about the

language as a base of how to spell and read, this will consist of a scope and sequenced

instruction including mastery of words used most often in writing and words that are misspelled

most frequently.

Something that I want to implement into my own classroom is word study. I plan to teach

my students the rules and exceptions to specific spellings, how to recognize patterns, different

word families, how to sort words, how to recognize common roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and

word meanings. I would also want to teach origin and history, syllable patterns and meaningful

parts of words, and letter patterns because these make the English language predictable. I would

also consider teaching my students words that they are interested in spelling and do not know

how to spell it yet because this gives purpose to the selected words rather than a predetermined

list that is taught to match a book. When the lists are predetermined oftentimes students are being

tested on words that they already know the spelling of and its a wasted opportunity to teach

them something new that they may find applicable in their writing. I would also implement

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assessments in which I can determine the error patterns of my students and I can align my

instruction to what they are in need of.

A challenge that I see within teaching spelling the way the research had proved effective,

would be that many schools have reading programs that include spelling. The issue here is that

the spelling isnt the main focus, reading is. When the focus is on reading, students arent being

taught the knowledge that should be gained through language-based spelling instruction. If the

focus is on spelling there will be a positive correlation connecting to both students reading and

writing abilities.

I believe that teachers today might not know how to teach spelling or why it would be

beneficial to teach. If teachers are not taught of this research in their education courses in

college, they most likely wont know how to go about teaching spelling within their own

classrooms and will revert back to how they learned while growing up, which was most likely

through rote memorization. Teachers need to be taught how to teach spelling and they must

know why spelling is important to teach. If teachers are unaware as to why spelling is beneficial

to teach, they wont strive to teach it as it should be taught.

Conclusion

I believe that educational research can be a tool for teachers to always be improving and

learning. Educational research is essential for teachers to develop effective research-based

instruction. I hope to study educational research often to always further my understanding and

better my teaching.

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 I have mixed feelings with my skills regarding reading educational research. When I

searched the topic of spelling there was a plethora of different articles, books, journals,

newsletters, etc., information was not difficult to find. However, it was more challenging to find

a source that was specific to what I was looking for. Once I found one or two resources that were

specific to what I was searching for, I checked their bibliography and found more sources of

information within these. The only other struggle that I was faced with was actually reading

some of the research studies. Many of the articles were very easy to understand. In contrast, the

academic language and wording used by some researchers made it more challenging to

understand what exactly was being discussed within the research.

In terms of conducting the research, what would have helped is to have more effective

filters on the search engines. With better filters, I could have scanned the actual documents for

specific things such as types of studies, types of strategies or interventions, specific age groups,

limitations within the research, specific groups of people such as special needs or other cultures,

and etc. this would allow me to find the exact information that I am looking for. I am curious if

there is a better way to go about doing this, as this is one of the first real research papers I have

had to do on educational topics.

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Annotated Bibliography
Davidson, Marcia, and Joseph R. Jenkins. Effects of Phonemic Processes on Word Reading and
Spelling. The Journal of Educational Research, vol. 87, no. 3, 1994, pp. 148157. Print.

The experiment done within this article consisted of forty kindergarten students and four
different treatments, blending spoken sounds into words, segmenting spoken words into sounds,
both blending and segmenting, and a control group with no explicit instruction. The results of
this test proved the segmenting and segmenting and blending groups to show as effective when
dealing with reading words and spelling. The conclusion I came to was that the more explicit
instruction, the more exposure they receive allowing them an advantage over the control group.

Delacato, Carl H. Spelling - A Five Year Study. Elementary English, vol. 32, no. 5, 1955, pp.
296298.

A study was done at Chestnut Hill Academy to determine better techniques to teach spelling
within their school. There was a two year study done on formal and informal methods of
teaching. The formal method consisted of books, 20-30 minutes per day to study, an emphasis on
amount of words, etc. while the informal group had no workbooks, the spelling words came from
students experiences, students spent about half of the amount of time the formal group did, and
emphasis was placed on the student's attitude towards language. The results showed that those
students who were good at reading gained four times as much knowledge through the
experimental method. The experimental method also brought a better attitude all together.

Fitzgerald, James A. The Teaching of Spelling. Elementary English, vol. 30, no. 2, 1953, pp.
7985. Print.

I learned from this article that students should learn things based on the scope and sequence
instruction where they master most common words and most commonly misspelled words. It
further explained that students shouldnt have a predetermined word list, they should learn words
as they come across a need to know how to spell a particular word. It also never hurts to teach
with multiple modalities such as seeing, listening, speaking, and writing.

Henderson, Edmund H., and Shane Templeton. "The Developmental Perspective of Formal
Spelling Instruction Through, Alphabet, Pattern and Meaning." The Elementary School
Journal 86.3 (Jan., 1986): 304-16. The University of Chicago Press. Web. 28 Jan. 2017.

This journal was informative on how the English language is more than something that should be
taught as irregular, or that students should learn spelling through rote memorization. The English
language is alphabetic, has within-word patterns, and meaning. Spelling needs to be understood

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linguistically in order for students to see the patterns found within the English language. This
knowledge is of value to teachers because they see that spelling should no longer be taught as
rote memorization.

Joshi, R. Malatesha, Moats, Louisa C., Treiman, Rebecca, Carrerker, Suzanne. How Words
Cast
Their Spell, Spelling Is an Integral Part of Learning the language, Not a Matter of
Memorization. American Educator Winter 2008-09. (6-16). Print.

This article taught me that spelling is the foundation of reading and writing. I learned rote
memorization and relying on visual memory are not the key to spelling. It taught me that the
English language is not all that unpredictable, only 4% of English words are irregular and should
be taught by memorizing. Teachers need to teach sound-spelling patterns for students to learn on
a deeper level. The article taught me that teaching students the meaning of words so students are
actively thinking about the language.

Moats, Louisa C.. How Spelling Supports Reading And Why It Is More Regular and
Predictable Than You May Think. American Educator Winter 2005/06. (12-22).
American Federation of Teachers. Print.

Moats shares knowledge that learning to spell and learning to read overlap in aspects and that
teaching spelling will in turn help students to better their reading. Spell checkers are just not
enough to rely on and they dont help students progress or put to memory specific spelling rules.
The English language is not as irregular as one would think, however there are multiple
languages combined to create English, making it seem irregular. This knowledge is of value to
teachers because they can learn the English rules and patterns, and then teach it to their students.

Peters, C. C., and C. C. McClure. Written versus Oral Method of Teaching Spelling.
Educational Research Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 4, 1923, pp. 5155. Print.

The study done in this case involved 104 students at a public school in Ohio. The experiment
tested which method of spelling was more effective, written or oral. This experiment lasted eight
weeks and used the same list of words for both the written and the oral. The results had shown
that the written group excelled more than the oral method in terms of achievement and attaining
a higher level. However it did explain that instead of generalizing about the best method,
teachers should teach students the way that works best for them and segregate them based on
learning styles rather than IQ. One way to do this was to do a red group and blue group.

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Russell, Alice Kelley, et al. A Symposium on Methods of Teaching Spelling. The Elementary
English Review, vol. 4, no. 4, 1927, pp. 122130. Print.

This article served as information on the purposes of a progressive lesson within teaching
spelling. It takes place it Detroit schools and the Detroit word list was used, this contained
essential words that students must learn in their grade levels. It was designed so students could
see the need to learn spelling whether in school or outside of school. It addressed the common
situation that within a classroom you have one student that will become lazy because they are not
being pushed hard enough, while you have another student in that same class that if they were to
be pushed along with the first student they would never progress.

Schlagal, Robert C., and Schlagal, Joy Harris. The Integral Character of Spelling: Teaching
Strategies for Multiple Purposes. Language Arts, vol. 69, no. 6, 1992, pp. 418424.Print.

Through this research I found that the English language is not as irregular as one would think,
although it is in fact complex. Information within this article provided me with plenty of ideas of
how to teach spelling using word study to further student's understanding of the English
language. It was obvious that students need to be taught the rules so that deep knowledge can be
formed rather than shallow knowledge. Another thing that must be taught is the structures so that
students can begin to generalize literacy.

Sister Evangelist Marie. A Study of Teaching Rules in Spelling. Elementary English, vol. 40,
no. 6, 1963, pp. 602647. Print.

Learning rules of spelling has been a controversial topic for quite some time. The study done in
this article was to determine which of the following methods would best help students; inductive
(where words and presented and a rule is given), deductive (where principles were stated), and
thought procedure (where words were associated with their meaning and discovery was used to
figure out the letters). The thought procedure method was most effective in the study, and this is
thought to be because the emphasis is placed on meaning. If students were to learn this way, they
would be successful because meaning gives them a deeper knowledge than being told a rule.

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