A question that teachers sometimes wonder is: should we explicitly teach spelling or are spelling skills a byproduct of skilled reading? It might seem like some kids easily pick up on spelling conventions without explicit instruction. Does this mean it’s not necessary? And I’m sure you’ve heard someone, maybe even yourself, say, “We don’t need to teach spelling. We have spell-check!”
The truth is: explicit spelling instruction deserves a dedicated place in our curriculum. It might seem ineffective and unnecessary if you’ve been teaching weekly lists of unrelated words and feeling like your students are not benefitting. If you’ve felt like this was not the best use of your time, it’s because teaching spelling this way does not align with the research! Unfortunately, many big-box curricula still promote the teaching of unrelated weekly words even though the research tells us there are better ways.
This post contains affiliate links.
First, let me convince you that spelling instruction is necessary.
In her 2012 publication titled Why Teach Spelling? Deborah Reed, Director of the Tennessee Reading Research Center, provides ample evidence that spelling needs to be explicitly taught. Reed reports that teaching spelling has a strong effect on reading fluency in first through seventh graders. She also notes that teaching spelling has a strong effect on word reading skills in first through fifth grade.
She explains that “reading and spelling can be mutually beneficial if taught together, rather than separately, because they create additional opportunities to practice applying common patterns.” More on this later.
Additionally, Reed describes a synthesis of studies on lower elementary developing readers that confirmed that combining reading and spelling instruction “led to significant gains in phonemic awareness, alphabetic decoding, word reading, spelling, fluency, and comprehension.”
Furthermore, it is reported that “first graders directly taught the six syllable types outperformed their peers who received implicit phonics instruction on measures of reading and spelling.” Why is this? The patterns found in each syllable type help students read and spell increasingly complex words with more ease.
Have I convinced you yet? The research certainly supports the idea that spelling needs to be explicitly taught! That leads us to the next question:
How should spelling be taught?
First, let’s remember that your spelling instruction should be directly related to your reading/phonics instruction. Those weekly lists of unrelated words are not going to provide the benefits that Reed described.
What does it mean to align your reading and spelling instruction? Your reading and spelling instruction should be intertwined to teach your students how to both read and spell words with the skill that you are focusing on. If your second graders are working on consonant -le syllables in reading, then their spelling instruction should also focus on consonant -le words, and consequently, their spelling test should be on consonant -le words.
Not sure how to do this? Reed says of the Dolch list, “It may be useful to separate the list for… phonetic instruction purposes for both reading and spelling.” Reading Rockets has a helpful article about teaching high-frequency words by phonics patterns. You can also use a word family approach, which I explained in detail in a previous blog.
Diving deeper into instructional strategies
According to Reed (2012), it appears that there is not one single approach to teaching spelling that is superior to others. Rather, there is value to whole word, phonemic, and morphemic spelling instruction. Additionally, just as with our reading curricula, spelling instruction can be sequenced by “letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, morpheme patterns, and strategies for long unfamiliar words.” This means we don’t just pick some random words from the weekly story, we carefully select words from a developmentally appropriate scope and sequence.
I disagree with Reed when she briefly notes that there is value in whole-word spelling instruction. In Why Teach Spelling? she notes that whole-word memorization “can never be completely avoided” because of irregular words like come. However, the spelling of come can be easily taught by making connections to the regularly-spelled sounds of c and m and then a quick discussion of the word’s etymology. Students find scribal o fascinating and, in my experience, knowing the reason for the o glues the spelling into their memory like no other strategy!
Kilpatrick (2016) also supports the idea of avoiding whole-word memorization, even with words we consider irregular: “Most ‘irregular’ words have only one irregular letter/sound connection. Only a tiny fraction of ‘irregular’ words are off by more than one phoneme… only a few of these rare exception words happen to be words children need to learn early in their careers (one, none, once, of).”
Kilpatrick also suggests using “the normally performing letter-sound combinations to ‘anchor’ those irregular words into memory.” He explains that researchers refer to this as a “phonological framework” that helps the reader notice and anchor the regularly-spelled portions of words.
I’ve gone a bit off-topic here but I want to emphasize that with so few words being truly and fully irregular, whole-word memorization should be used very sparingly. If you’re looking for specific ways to teach those tricky or irregular high-frequency words like come and of, read my recent blog post, Teaching “Sight Words” the Science of Reading Way.
Is English spelling too weird for us to effectively teach spelling patterns?
To those who say that English spelling is too unpredictable to master, know that “about 50% of English words are spelled in a way that is grapho-phonemically predictable and another 34% are predictable except for one sound within the word. When considering only single-syllable words, about 69% of the words have consistent sound-symbol correspondences” (Reed, 2012). In fact, the International Dyslexia Association (2011) reports that “only 4% of English words are considered ‘truly irregular.'”
I really enjoyed learning the next facts that I’m going to share with you. The facts illustrate how learning basic spelling skills lay the foundation for ever-increasing accuracy:
- “At the syllable level, beginning consonant sounds can be predicted 91% of the time and final consonants 82% of the time.” Example: you can decide if a word starts with k or c based on the next letter.
- Although vowel spellings can only be predicted 53% of the time, “knowing the beginning consonant(s) in a syllable increases the odds of spelling the vowel sound to 65%, and knowing the final consonant(s) increases the odds to 82%” (Reed, 2012). Example: if you hear the long a sound and there is no final consonant sound, the word is likely to end with –ay.
With statistics like this, it is clear that learning English spelling rules will have a notable payoff.
So all this data establishes that focusing on letter-sound connections, or phonemic spelling, is important. However, it’s not the whole story. We must remember that spelling is more than just writing down letters to represent sounds. Phonemic spelling is an essential skill, but students must also learn morphemic spelling strategies.
What is morphemic spelling?
Morphemic spelling involves encoding (spelling) with morphemes, or meaningful units of language. These morphemes or meaningful units include prefixes, root words, and suffixes.
Reed (2012) reports that “A growing knowledge of morphology… leads to improvements in spelling accuracy” and that “students who reported making a morphological or meaning connection when determining how to spell a word had higher scores than those who only used phonological . . . or memory-based retrieval strategies.”
She also reports that “explicitly teaching the morphological components of words to students ages five to eleven improves their knowledge and use of spelling strategies.”
If morphemic spelling strategies sound complicated, consider the suffix -s. When students learn the simple strategy of using the suffix -s to pluralize a word and that the -s may represent the /z/ sound, that’s morphemic spelling! We start with developmentally-appropriate concepts and work our way up from there.
Still not convinced that morphemic spelling instruction deserves a place at the table?
“Explicit instruction in morphological structure significantly improves the spelling ability of adolescents identified with dyslexia as compared with students matched by age and by initial spelling performance. Moreover, the improvements were maintained two months after the intervention ended, and students generalized their new knowledge to untaught words” (Reed, 2012). The teaching of morphemic spelling strategies clearly provides notable payoffs in spelling accuracy across age levels!
Looking for ways to incorporate morphemic spelling in your phonics instruction? I have several resources to help you teach the reading and spelling of suffixes! Whether your students are ready for simple suffixes like -s, -es, and –ed or they are ready to tackle multisyllabic words with common suffixes like –able and –ly, you’ll find something helpful here!
Reminder: The goal of spelling instruction is much greater than simply passing the Friday spelling test.
The International Dyslexia Association (2011) reminds us that spelling instruction should have a purpose broader than enabling students to pass their weekly spelling tests. The goal is for students to transfer their learned skills into their everyday writing tasks. We’ve all read a student’s sentence or paragraph-level writing and wondered why their spelling fell by the wayside despite their ability to pass the weekly tests. If we want these students to develop the ability to notice and correct spelling mistakes (or not make them in the first place!), then explicit phonemic and morphemic spelling instruction, combined with explicitly taught proofreading skills and frequent opportunities to practice will help them apply their learned strategies across settings.
Can’t we just teach students to use spellcheck?
We cannot allow students to rely on spell-checking devices for more than one reason. First, spell-checkers are not able to identify all errors. Next, knowledge of basic spelling skills is required for a student to interact with the spell-checker and determine which option is correct. If a student is trying to edit their work and the spell-checker offers words that the student cannot adequately decode, or if the student cannot differentiate among similarly-spelled words or homophones, they will still struggle to correct their spelling even with the use of spellcheck.
Where does handwriting come into this?
Many school settings have allowed explicit handwriting instruction to fall by the wayside. It’s important to note that handwriting supports learning in several ways. First, handwriting instruction facilitates letter recognition, which will help lay the foundation for future reading skills. Further, the mental processes used for handwriting also support other brain functions, including the storage of information in memory, retrieval, phonic manipulation, and letter-sound correspondence (Gentry & Graham, 2010). This means that there is good reason to incorporate handwriting into our spelling instruction rather than relying on word processing, even if word processing feels more convenient.
What are the key takeaways about spelling instruction?
- Yes, explicit spelling instruction is still necessary!
- Spelling instruction is proven to support growth in phonemic awareness, alphabetic decoding, word reading skills, spelling, reading fluency, and comprehension.
- Spelling instruction should be intertwined with reading/phonics instruction.
- Whole-word memorization is rarely the most effective strategy for learning to spell, even with tricky words.
- English spelling is not that weird once you know the rules.
- Spelling is more than just connecting letters to sounds. We must also teach morphemic spelling.
- The goal of spelling instruction is to transfer skills to everyday writing tasks.
- Students cannot simply rely on spell-checkers instead of learning to spell.
Do you want to receive posts like this right in your inbox? Sign up below!
Sources:
Gentry, J. R., & Graham, S. (2010). Creating Better Readers and Writers: The Importance of Direct, Systematic Spelling and Handwriting Instruction in Improving Academic Performance. Saperstein Associates.
International Dyslexia Association. (2011). Just the Facts: Spelling.
Kilpatrick, David A. Equipped for Reading Success: A Comprehensive, Step-By-Step Program for Developing Phoneme Awareness and Fluent Word Recognition. Syracuse, NY, Casey & Kirsch Publishers, 2016.
Reed, K. (2012). Why Teach Spelling? Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction
