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Especially
for Teachers - About English
Six
spelling principles
Many
educators believe that there are six important principles of spelling.
Principle
One - Spelling is learnt as we use it
Teachers
have an essential role in increasing students' interest in words and
in influencing their attitudes toward spelling. Students need to feel
they are able to succeed in learning to spell.
How
to translate this into classroom practice?
- Provide
frequent opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences
- Provide
a print rich environment that includes displays of letters, words,
and word patterns on Word Walls
- Encourage
students’ attempts to spell words. Let them approximate —
especially when they are trying to use new words. Point out the
parts they have spelled correctly. Use the parts they have misspelt
as a focus for teaching spelling
- Ensure
students proofread their
writing to identify possible spelling errors
- Select
words from their have-a-go
pad to put into their spelling
journal
- Respond
to the messages in children's writing by writing back to them. Make
use of words that are misspelt in order to model the correct spelling
Principle
Two - Learning to spell is part of the developmental process of learning
to write
When
teachers understand spelling development, they can match teaching
strategies to developmental needs. Records can be kept showing the developmental
indicators, strategies and skills that children are using by monitoring
students' writing. In this way, teachers can decide when and how it
is appropriate to intervene. Teachers are able to determine what students
already know about spelling and they can then build on that knowledge.
Principle
Three - Errors can be viewed as diagnostic and developmental signposts
Error
analysis provides information about how far students have developed
their understandings of spelling. Analysis of errors from students’
writing guides understanding of the strategies the students are relying
upon as they attempt to spell.
Principle
Four - Exploring words and vocabulary are part of learning to spell
Teaching spelling is an on-going activity. Whenever students come across
new words, they should be encouraged to analyse them and to look at
their structure and relate this to word meanings. Word
study is an important part of the literacy program.
Principle
Five - Independence and self-evaluation are essential in spelling development
How
to translate this into classroom practice?
- Teach
proofreading skills
- proofreading is different from normal reading. Encourage students
to proofread their work. Get students to underline words they think
might not be correct, even when they don’t know how to correct
the words. Knowing when a word looks wrong, is the first
step towards getting it right
- Encourage
students to evaluate their own progress, identifying goals achieved
and areas that need further work
- Teach
students how to learn words
and how to check spelling of words they have attempted
- Make
students aware of processes for trying to write new words
Principle
Six - Effective spellers use a number of different strategies interactively
in order to spell correctly
Students
need to be explicitly taught a range of strategies in order to internalise
them and use them interactively to produce correct spelling. There are
three major spelling strategies - visual,
sound/symbol and morphemic.
(The activities described below are colour-coded, depending on which
type of strategy is involved.) Other strategies used are: analogy
strategies (the ability to consider words they know when faced with
writing new words - ‘tree and duck can spell truck’);
and reference strategies.
Strategic spellers/readers/writers know the strategies and can describe
them as well as use them. Spelling is a thinking activity, not a rote
learning activity.
Teaching
Kids to Spell by Richard Gentry and Jean Wallace Gillet (Heinemann
1993) has a chapter on developing each of the three main strategies.
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