Case study assignment: An able writer who is a weak speller

How important is spelling?

The arguments about this emotive subject seem to revolve around a question of definition: is spelling merely a ‘surface feature’ of writing, or a fundamental aspect of the language? In Spelling: Caught or Taught?, Margaret Peters (1985) sets out ‘The case for good spelling’, arguing that if spelling correctly is not important why is so much attention given to the whole question? One of the reasons correct spelling is important, she writes, is the ‘....question of courtesy. Not to speak clearly, not to write legibly and not to spell correctly are marks of discourtesy. Weak spelling is just as bad in this respect as mumbling over a telephone.’

Weak spelling is blamed by some on falling standards in education, and is seen as a symptom of contemporary indifference to the finer points of manners and behaviour. This has been linked by some to a philosophy of education that places less emphasis on the technical aspects of reading and writing, and instead focuses on encouraging self-expression through and enjoyment of language. In ‘The New Orthodoxy Examined’, John Marenbon urges us to ‘reject every tenet’ of this ‘doctrine’ which favours ‘appropriateness’ to ‘correctness’, ‘discovery’ to ‘instruction’, and which treats spelling and grammar as ‘surface features’ of writing, to which teachers ‘should not pay too much attention’. The article implies that only rigorous and disciplined teaching, with emphasis on pointing out and correcting all mistakes, can enable pupils to read and write properly. In America, too, spelling is considered a ‘national priority.....Spelling is a form of etiquette’. Brian Cox points out how the ‘teaching of English language and literature raises crucial questions about our value systems and our concepts of national identity...’ While these political arguments may have their place, the fact remains that spelling remains a source of difficulty for many people, in childhood and into adulthood.

English spelling is difficult and more than half the population has problems with it. In a typical class of thirty pupils, five will misspell more than ten per cent of the words they write and another ten will misspell between five to ten per cent.

Presidents, professional writers, doctors, and other persons with advanced education can have spelling impediments that make them no more proficient than hod-carriers. As Harold Rosen of The London Institute of Education has said, "Any idiot can tell a genius he has made a spelling mistake."

Of all the encoding skills, spelling tends to be viewed by teachers and students alike as the most arbitrary, the most resistant to instruction, and the least related to intelligence (a myth that has comforted many bad spellers). It is the one area of writing where English teachers themselves will admit ineptness.

Why is spelling so difficult?

Problems with spelling, as with other difficulties in writing generally, arise from what Mina Shaughnessy (1977) calls ‘a central condition of ill-preparedness with formal written language’. Reasons for this include the fact that our use of English is founded in spoken rather than written language, and the fact that in speech we tend to use forms of English that differ widely from Standard English.

The ability to spell grows slowly out of a number of different encounters with words: with the sounds of words (phonological encounters), the looks of words on paper (visual encounters), the feel of words as the hand moves to form them in writing (kinesthetic encounters), and the meanings of words as they take their places in the contexts of sentences (semantic encounters).

The English language is noted for the irregularities of its spellings, which gives rise to the idea that there is only one way to learn most of them: by rote, or ‘serial memory’. There is also a widespread belief that spelling difficulties are inherited, passed down from generation to generation genetically. So, if a pupil has a poor visual memory and finds discriminating between different sounds difficult, as well as poor handwriting and parents who cannot spell, the odds appear to be against them as far as spelling is concerned. These factors must account in part for the fatalistic attitude of many poor spellers who accept their lack of ability and do little to remedy it.

Can spelling be taught?

In an essay entitled ‘A developmental perspective of formal spelling instruction through alphabet, pattern and meaning’, Henderson and Templeton challenge the notions that spellings in English are largely irregular, and that learning by rote is the only appropriate strategy to learn them. They identify three ‘ordering principles... alphabetic, within-word pattern, and meaning.’

‘Alphabetic’ means that ‘letters match sounds in a more or less orderly way from left to right,’ but it is the ‘more or less’ aspect of the system that causes learners problems, such as the varied pronunciations of the digraph ‘gh’ in ‘ghost’, ‘high’ and ‘rough’. However, there is a logic to the sequencing of letters in English that is predictable, which the ‘within-word pattern’ can supply. For example, ‘gh’ can represent an ‘f’ sound (as in ‘rough’) at the end of a word, but not at the beginning, where it can only represent a ‘g’ sound as in ‘ghost’.

The sound a letter or letters represent within a syllable depends on position and on the other letters that surround it... There are therefore patterns in English spelling...children can master these sequences when they know that such patterns exist and that it is pattern rather than simple alphabetic sequence that they must search out, attend to and learn.

Meaning, the third ‘ordering principle’, is simply that ‘words or parts of words having the same or similar meaning tend to be spelled the same’. This means that, for example, the word ‘meat’ is spelled the same in all contexts where it is a type of food, while ‘meet’ is spelled the same where it describes people getting together. In the same way, a ‘root’ word such as ‘finite’ does not change in a commonly misspelt word such as ‘definitely’ (to which it also has a semantic link), in spite of the difference in pronunciation. As Henderson and Templeton point out, ‘Because the meaning.. does not change significantly, spelling maintains this relationship visually rather than changing to represent the changing sounds.’

It would appear, therefore, that there are structured approaches to spelling which can be taught, and which make the teacher’s exhortations to ‘look it up’, ‘proofread’ and ‘learn it’ seem little more than ‘surface remedies’. Margaret Peters defines the ‘traditional’ approach to spelling errors (where pupils may be asked to write out a spelling correction three times, for example) as ‘rote correction techniques’. She recommends the use of what she calls ‘rational correction techniques’ which involve ‘associating words that look the same however they sound, and a systematic routine of learning and self-correcting’.

In Spel...is a Four Letter Word, J.Richard Gentry argues for a developmental approach to spelling from an early age, so that learning to spell can be an enjoyable process of discovery for the child, rather than an experience of failure which might inhibit future progress. Rather than describing good spelling as a form of etiquette, Gentry calls it ‘merely a convenience... expert spellers must have the knowledge and ability to honor (sic) certain conventions purely for the sake of correctness.’ He quotes Andrew Jackson, a ‘pitiful’ speller, as saying "It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word".

Gentry is not opposed to formal instruction in spelling, as long as spelling is not removed from the context of writing, where by isolating it, there is a risk of children becoming inhibited because of the fear of being wrong. Being wrong, says Gentry, is as natural in learning to spell as falling off in learning to ride a bike. ‘In both instances, learning cannot take place without error. Not only should spelling errors be tolerated, they should be expected. Very young children should be encouraged to invent their own spellings as a way of testing and modifying hypotheses about spelling. This is the way children learn’.

If we accept that merely pointing out errors and leaving the rest to the child is ineffective, how can we begin to address the problem of spelling?

Strategies for teaching spelling

Mina Shaughnessy describes how teachers can easily confirm a pupil’s belief that she is a ‘born misspeller’ by simply pointing out errors without introducing strategies and techniques to overcome them. By exhibiting confidence in our own ability to address and deal with spelling problems, we can generate confidence in our pupils, and help them to develop a positive self-image of themselves as spellers. For adult bad spellers, ‘the discovery that intelligent effort can reduce spelling errors significantly and that the domain of spelling is not quite as ‘unruly’ as it once appeared can generate a will to work on the problem.’

Another important tactic is to involve pupils in improving their spelling through encouraging them to ‘describe’ themselves as spellers, and to get them to participate in diagnosing their specific spelling difficulties. This involves supplying the pupil with a ‘spelling vocabulary’; the ‘technical’ terms which we use to break language down into its components. J. Richard Gentry includes a ‘spelling vocabulary’ in a list of things which he considers appropriate to ‘a systematic and logical program (sic) of word study’ as part of formal spelling instructions. The list also includes ‘phonics, prefixes, suffixes, word endings, compound words, homonyms, word origins, proofreading, and dictionary skills.’

In her chapter entitled ‘Teaching the catching of spelling for those who have not already caught it’, Margaret Peters emphasises the importance of ‘looking with intent’. Having proved that spelling is not ‘caught’ through reading alone, or through listening, she isolates the visual sense as the most important where spelling is concerned. She writes that we as parents and teachers are largely responsible for directing children to what we think is important in the world around them, and in a sense we teach them how to look. This applies to spelling, as we only ‘look with intent’ at a word if we need to or want to reproduce it, and so the way in which we are taught to look at the ‘interesting features’ of words relates to the way we learn and make sense of other words as our vocabularies expand. The proof that spelling is a visual skill is that as adults we often write a word down before we can be sure of the spelling. In summarising the importance of the visual mode, Peters points out that:

'Vision is our preferred sense as animals, just as a dog’s ‘frame of reference’ is smell.

We learn the ‘serial probability’ of words through visual familiarity with written language'.

Crucially, it is words which look alike however they sound that form meaningful connections, through being connected in groups according to their visual pattern.

Our habit of writing words down to check the spelling is a form of ‘active self-testing’ which is universally acknowledged as an effective way to learn.

We do not learn anything and we certainly do not remember what we have learned, unless we have actively attended to what we are learning. It is unlikely that the young child will attend to words unless an adult has specifically drawn his attention to them and to their structure.

Peters argues that by teaching children identify likenesses within words, they are able to ‘generalise’ to other words which have the same internal structure, so that they learn to spell by relating letter strings. By using ‘word banks’ where problematic letter strings in one word are identified in others, children learn to generalise, which is more effective than teaching rules, the application of which is beyond the developmental level of many children. This method is called ‘associative learning’.

‘...We implicitly associate structurally similar words. This is because the probability of words conforming to spelling precedent is very high, and it is by becoming familiar with spelling precedents that we become good spellers. In other words, familiarity with a coding system is half the battle in learning to spell.’

Peters is against the use of ‘sound’ (or ‘auditory syllabification’) as a way into spelling, as at each stage of spelling a word in this way a range of possible options are available, of which only one is correct. She favours learning the sequence of the word as a whole, ‘visually and kinaesthetically’.

One other very important aspect of spelling identified by Peters is handwriting, which is the first stage in acquiring the fluency that will ultimately enable a child to communicate and express herself effectively through writing. From being able to form letters properly, the child can then concentrate on letter pattern and word structure. In the first chapter of Spelling: Caught or Taught?, Margaret Peters points out how ‘good spelling is connected with freedom to write... it is only when we have achieved that machine-like spelling of which Schonell spoke (1942), spelling that is automatic, predictable, and infallible, that we are really free to write with confidence, with no backward glances to see if a word ‘looks right’, and with no offering of a less precise synonym or phrase because the right one is difficult to spell.’ Without the techniques at their command, she argues, ‘free’ or ‘creative’ writing cannot be fulfilling for pupils.

Much of what Margaret Peters writes about teaching spelling applies to pre- and primary school, and emphasises the importance of the role of the parents in developing an interest in written language. What about the role of the teacher in secondary education, where teachers will still encounter serious spelling problems in pupils who are not considered to have ‘special educational needs’?

Teaching spelling at secondary level

There is no question that the behaviour of the teacher determines, more than any other single factor, whether a child learns or does not learn to spell.... the child who has been talked to and read to tends to catch spelling within that network of linguistic abilities that is the heritage of the favoured child. It is the less-favoured child who vitally needs to be taught what he has not been fortunate enough to have caught.... attainment at nine years still bears some vestigial influence from home, family order and size, but at eleven this has disappeared and it is the teacher that is the determining factor.

Gentry advocates devoting ‘sixty to seventy-five’ minutes to formal spelling instruction per week, which, given the scale of spelling problems at the secondary level, may not be as extreme as it sounds. He suggests some teaching strategies to create an effective spelling programme. The first of these is that spelling should be taught across the curriculum, not just in spelling lessons

in English. This seems appropriate in view of the fact that pupils will encounter patterns of words, word families, roots of words and their derivations in subjects such as science and maths that are unlikely to occur in English. To be effective, however, a unified approach would be needed, where all teachers would use similar methods in teaching spelling. Also, it would mean that time would be taken up with language study in subjects with an already crowded curriculum, and so the prospect of cross-curricular spelling work seems unlikely.

Secondly, Gentry identifies frequent writing as important, because children develop, practice and consolidate their skills through constant use. Thus spelling practice occurs in formal contexts, and at other times. Both Henderson/Templeton and Gentry emphasise the importance of purposeful writing , as opposed to exercises and drills. Both writers highlight the significance of ‘informal’ spelling instruction, which ‘conveys to students an attitude of inquiry and a routine for analysing words’. To Gentry, the key to both formal and informal teaching is developing in young writers a ‘positive spelling consciousness’ which consists of an interest in words, an enjoyment of word study, learning of spelling skills, and posing questions about spelling.

Thirdly, children should be encouraged to invent spellings for words they do not know. The value of this is that it engages children in thinking about words, and also gives them a chance to demonstrate their existing skills, an aspect of valuing what a child can do rather than pointing out what it cannot. Gentry believes that ‘children who are encouraged to invent spellings will refine those spellings and progress developmentally towards correctness.... As a speller matures, emphasis on correctness should increase... there is no evidence that invented spellings become habitual.’ As teachers, he says, our role is to apply the criterion of appropriacy rather than correctness. For example, only ‘final drafts of compositions being readied for publication’ should have to be spelled correctly. We should take into account all the factors that may lie behind a child’s problems with spelling, and make allowances, while attempting to address them in our teaching.

Marking children’s work

When it comes to marking pupils’ writing, we should be concerned with ‘the quality, not the quantity of errors’. For example, where a child has spelled a word incorrectly but in a way that conforms to the ‘code’ (eg ‘sed’ for ‘said’), it should be of less concern than a word written in a way that does not conform to an English spelling pattern, (eg ‘w-a-h-t’ for ‘what’). Focusing on what Peters calls ‘the hard spot’ in a word, (eg ‘aus’ in ‘because’) and underlining it, rather than underlining or crossing out the whole word, is another way of recognising what the child already knows, and it identifies that particular string as one that the child is having trouble with.

Self-correction is another strategy that Peters suggests, where the child is encouraged to underline the words she knows to be wrong. The correct spelling can be written in the margin by the teacher and then written in by the pupil using the ‘look, cover, write, check’ routine. In this way the teacher can also identify words that the pupil is not seeing are wrong, and can address the error. Alternatively, instead of highlighting incorrect words, a teacher can tick all the words that a pupil has spelled correctly, which is another way of recognising what a child knows and can do.

She points out that repetitive copying of spelling mistakes does not help a child to learn them because copying does not involve the use of the visual memory. Both Peters and Gentry agree that it is essential that a teacher does not correct every error and cover a piece of work in red pen, because of the effect this will have on the child’s ‘self-concept’ of herself as a speller.

Reason and Boote make some interesting suggestions about marking. They stress that many pupils cannot give attention to both ideas and spelling/ punctuation/presentation when writing, so there may be times when a teacher should make it possible for them to concentrate on

expressing ideas without being concerned with technical aspects. They suggest that the teacher can write to the child’s dictation, or that the teacher can type out the child’s written work without having to correct it first, although a teacher in ‘mainstream’ education is unlikely to have time to work in this way. Now that IT is widely in use in schools, it is easier for pupils to produce written work that is more correct than what they can write by hand, but using IT is still laborious for those that lack keyboard skills, and in spite of advances in wordprocessing software, computers cannot eliminate technical error.

Another useful idea is that the teacher establishes a marking system that pupils can become familiar with. This can reduce the amount of ‘red pen’ that it is necessary to put on a piece of work, and it can also be used by the pupils when they are ‘self-correcting’ or marking each others’ work.

The teacher’s role

In discussing ‘teacher variables’ and how they relate to children learning to spell, Margaret Peters concludes that the attitude and approach of the teacher is crucial to pupils’ achievement. The ‘variables’ are as follows:

If teachers know how and what to teach in spelling, as long as they are ‘consistent in attitude’ (does she mean ‘persevere’?), then pupils will make progress no matter what level they start at.

If teachers respond to pupils’ ‘requests for words and production of lists stemming from their requests’ the teaching material will be appropriate.

If teachers find the optimal study time, pupils will benefit; research has shown that too much time spent on spelling can be detrimental.

If teachers use a ‘rational’ correction technique (including attending to the quality, not the quantity of errors, encouraging pupils to self-correct and participate in marking their work, teaching dictionary skills, and drawing attention to visual similarities between words) as opposed to a ‘rote’ technique, pupils’ spelling errors will be addressed more effectively.

If teachers encourage pupils to use ‘well-formed and swift’ handwriting, they can achieve fluency in technical aspects of writing as these become ‘automatic’.

If teachers are able to inculcate in a child a positive self-image as a speller, progress can be made even in the weakest spellers.

The testing and assessment of spelling

Normative tests such as Schonnell’s Graded Spelling Test are often used in schools. A normative test measures how well the child is performing compared with other children of the same age, and the result is a ‘spelling age’ which indicates whether the child is behind or ahead, by comparing it to its chronological age at the time of the test.

Academic and Personal History

Date of birth: 24/4/87

Spelling age: 10.1 (Tested on 20/9/98 at age llyr 4mo)

Reading age: Accuracy: 10.3 –11.5 (Tested on 8/12/98 at age 11yr 7mo)

Comprehension: 9.10 – 11.4

Classwork

He is achieving below his ability due to his behaviour and needs support to stay on task. He is described as having ‘average cognitive ability’, and has literacy skills and a reading age which enable him to work independently in class. It is his lack of concentration and application that cause him problems. He often has difficulty concentrating for even short periods of time. He lacks in organisational skills and his work is usually untidy.

He is keen to participate in class discussion, often has good, original ideas, and is usually eager to get on with his work. He has produced some excellent work which shows that he has an active, lively imagination and can engage with themes and ideas. As such he is one of the more able in the class, and makes a valuable contribution in whole class discussion.

He has a good vocabulary, and although he has problems with spelling he is not constrained by them. He would rather guess the spelling of a word than not use it, often producing phonologically plausible spellings of difficult polysyllabic words (such as ‘explonashon’ for ‘explanation’). Spelling is his main problem in writing, as his work shows very little evidence of difficulties with grammar and punctuation. He uses full stops, commas, speech marks and capital letters correctly most of the time, and uses tenses and first- or third-person narration consistently throughout a piece of work. No words in his written work present the reader with doubts as to legibility or meaning, in spite of errors in spelling, as mistakes are usually phonically consistent.His reading is good, and his knowledge of phonics means he can tackle most words. His confidence, articulation and extensive vocabulary means that his oral work can be very good.

Homework

Can be a problem; homework is not always completed or handed in on time.

Behaviour

He is extremely restless and therefore distracts and is distracted easily. Although he is capable of making a valid verbal contribution, his comments are often misplaced or inappropriate to the situation. He is statemented for behaviour and is allocated 20 hours with an LSA (Learning support assistant). He responds well to one-to-one interaction in the classroom. He has been on a ‘target contract’ which attempts to get him to follow normal classroom procedures such as putting his hand up, and behaviour at school is linked to rewards at home, with varying degrees of success. A tutor’s report described him as ‘undisciplined and lacking in normal social awareness and consideration of others. He lacks social graces and has a dishevelled appearance.’ Factors such as these mean that he is considered to have low self-esteem, which is something that a positive and productive relationship with a teacher could easily improve. Educational records indicate that he has personality clashes with some teachers who do not find his ‘lovable rogue’ persona as charming as other teachers do.

Social relationships

He does not seem to be a member of any close peer groups and generally does not integrate well into the classroom situation.

Personal background

He is the youngest child of a caring family, with a brother 10 years older and a sister 12 years older. He seems to be allowed a considerable amount of freedom out of school, which may account for his unwillingness to conform to the restrictions placed on him in school.

An overview of the subject’s spelling

He stands a good chance of becoming a reasonably competent speller, if a developmental view of his present ability is taken. Diagnostic assessment of his work reveals clear patterns in his errors 2which teaching strategies could attempt to remedy. In three pieces of work he made a total of 92 errors, but only two of these errors contained the wrong number of syllables; ‘rembers’ for ‘remembers’ and ‘juners’ for ‘juniors’. This indicates that he has a good phonological awareness and has ‘word attack’ strategies that enable him to ‘sound’ a word out.

The fact that the largest class of errors (20%) involve the ‘schwa’ or unstressed vowel supports the theory that he uses predominantly phonological strategies rather than visual memory to spell words. The frequent use of homophones (9%) is another indicator of an over-reliance on the sound rather than knowledge of the visual features of the word. Also, the next most common error (14%) is the omission of an unstressed vowel, and then (12%) the omission of an unstressed consonant, which indicates that his lack of awareness of letter strings and within-word patterns is causing spelling errors. In 71% of these errors, the first and last letter of the word is correct, which again points to good knowledge of single letter phonic equivalents, but uncertainty regarding within-word patterns.

In the case of errors with doubled consonants, (either doubled incorrectly or not doubled), 14 out of 16 errors of this kind occurred with mid-word consonants. Since errors within words are less readily susceptible to detection by visual scanning than those occurring at or near the beginnings or ends of words, it would seem likely that the subject has poor ‘final scanning habits and abilities’.

Just as contractions are uncommon, reversals or transpositions which result in a spelling which is not phonically consistent are rare (3%) in his work. This indicates that he has a good grasp of the ‘alphabetic’ nature of English spelling, which means that letters generally match sounds from left to right in a word.

Addressing these spelling problems

In my experience, most poor spellers have a certain degree of weakness in the visual recall of words but the most difficult children to teach are those whose weakness is predominantly auditory.

There is some evidence... that spelling and the ability to visualise are closely related.... creative writing and figurative uses of language certainly depend on the ability to communicate visual impressions... (therefore) a deficiency in the ability to visualise can produce both poor spelling and an unimaginative prose style.

The hypothesis in the second quotation is certainly contradicted by the subject in this case study, whose prose style is lively and imaginative; "When they finished they got his remains and danced with the skeleton, and played charades with him". It seems more likely that his visual recall, not his ability to visualise, is weak. If the first statement is true, then the prospects for improving his spelling are good, because he seems to have good auditory abilities, as his grasp of syllabification and the phonically consistent mistakes he produces prove.

Mina Shaughnessy describes several different causes of misspellings:

Unpredictabilities within English spelling

Pronunciation

Homophones

Unfamiliarity with the structure of words

Failure to remember or see words

All of these factors could be implicated in the subject’s difficulties with spelling. From what is known about him both in and out of school, it is possible to identify the ‘failure to remember or see words’ as the key factor in his spelling difficulties. Although he reads and speaks well, and is by no means an incompetent writer, it is obvious from observing him that reading and writing are not his pastimes of choice, and it is not likely that they are actively encouraged at home. Without this reinforcement, says Shaughnessy, it is very difficult to progress with written language; ‘...people who do little reading and writing are inevitably bad spellers, for without constant experience with written words, it is impossible to absorb the sound-letter correspondences that govern English spelling, to build a memory for the looks and feel of words, or to become a close observer of letters.’

Crucially for the subject of this case study, this inexperience with written words leads him to rely too heavily on the sounds in words when writing, but his ‘uncertain knowledge of the complete range of sound-letter correspondences’ means that he is unable to spell correctly with this strategy alone. His inexperience means that he has not developed ‘a habit of seeing.... (a) visual acuity with words and letters’ which also prevents him from identifying his own mistakes as he does not know how a word should ‘look’.

In terms of improving his spelling, therefore, it could be argued that simply reading more could help to establish a greater awareness of patterns within the language. Most writers on the subject seem to agree that teaching children rules regarding spelling can only be of limited use, as often they do not have the required level of concrete mental operations to employ them, assuming that the rule could be stated in an accessible form in the first place. For a child of his age, ability and nature, encouraging him to read is a difficult task, and would depend on introducing him to books that appeal, while reinforcing the value, importance and relevance of reading at all times. He is at the age when he might respond well to a male role model and a ‘buddy’ reading scheme or suchlike.

Other strategies that might be useful in addressing the spelling problems of this child could include:

Point out and reinforce all the things he does well in his writing. In particular, encourage him to continue using his extensive vocabulary, and to continue ‘inventing’ spellings.

Alongside this, create a ‘word list’ based on words he has used and is therefore more interested in; use them to show how there are, for example, ‘word families’, root words, and letter strings which are common to words which he is misspelling.

Since he is competitive and responds to a reward system, use testing and rewards as a way of consolidating knowledge about spelling that has been taught.

Get him to write (as well as read) more. Not only is his behaviour better when he has a task to do, but his handwriting (which is a spelling-related skill) needs practice to become fluent, and purposeful writing will give him the chance to use and thereby consolidate any knowledge about spelling that he has gained.

Choose teaching strategies that will engage him, such as team games, wordplay exercises, crosswords and wordsearches (doing and devising), and spelling games.

Get him to correct his own work and introduce him to simple diagnostic tools that will enable him to identify mistakes and make connections between words that he is misspelling.

Use a ‘rational’ marking scheme which he understands.

How researching spelling has altered my own perceptions

I chose to research spelling because as a competent and confident speller, I realised that this was an area in which my implicit subject knowledge was strong, but I did not have the theoretical awareness to underpin teaching strategies for improving pupils’ spelling. I had in fact begun to apply the ‘surface remedies’ of encouraging pupils to ‘look it up and learn it’, without looking at the deeper causes of their problems with spelling. One pupil had responded to my list of ‘five spellings to learn’ by writing them out three times, which my subsequent reading (of Spelling: Caught or Taught?) had shown was ineffective, since it does not stimulate the visual memory and is a form of ‘rote’ learning, not ‘active’ learning.

The case study, through the use of diagnostic assessment and the focus on one pupil’s specific difficulties with spelling, helped me to find a way to put the theory into practice, which is a form of ‘active’ learning in itself. The ‘critical moment’ in the process was when I came to analyse the findings of the diagnostic assessment. This was a moment of anxiety as well, when my doubts about my ability as a researcher were the greatest. However, by identifying patterns in the subject’s spelling, I was then able to think about teaching strategies to address his problem, which is common to many other poor spellers; that of a weak visual memory compounded by lack of experience with written language.

I decided to attempt to implement my findings and planned a lesson on spelling, which was based around a ‘list’ of words drawn from pupils’ work, as recommended in the literature. The strategy was to identify within-word patterns and letter strings which pupils have problems with, such as the ‘ie’ in ‘friend’, ‘field’ and ‘flies’, or the ‘mm’ in ‘commit’ and ‘immense’. At the beginning of the class, as I took the register, I gave each pupil a word and asked them to write it down in the back of their exercise books. It was a word that I had already drawn their attention to by putting it in a list of words that they needed to ‘learn’ as a ‘target’ for improving their writing. Next, I explained auditory syllabification and visual memory as two ways of remembering spellings, gave examples, and asked pupils for ways in which they remember difficult words. They came up with a surprising range, including mnemonics, rhymes and songs.

Then I organised the class into groups of between two and five, according to the letter string they misspell, and asked them first to identify the ‘hard spot’ that they have problems with. They went on to think of other words which feature the same letter string, working together to build up a list of words, and using dictionaries to check spellings where necessary. They seemed to enjoy the task, and I realised that they were ‘looking with intent’ at words that might otherwise be difficult to contemplate; that they were beginning to see order in what, to a weak speller, might normally be the chaos of written language.

Having generated a list of words collaboratively, I got them to work individually and in silence for the last 15 minutes of the class on a story, in which they had to use as many of the words on the list as possible. The objective was to get them to use their ‘own’ words in a story that they would enjoy writing, which is what I understand ‘purposeful’ writing to be. The less able, who also tend to be the weaker spellers, had the shorter lists and were able to produce a story in which all the words from the list were used, spelled correctly, and which was not simply a spelling ‘drill’. Naturally, the stories threw up plenty of new misspellings, which will provide the material for future diagnosis and spelling lessons!

The lesson gave me confidence that pupils are or can be interested in spelling, if it is presented in a way that challenges them, and convinced me that ‘rote’ techniques are too sterile and repetitive to be effective. I felt that pupils had begun to be aware of their own spelling problems, but had also learned some new vocabulary and ‘made it their own’ by using it in a story. Also, the experience of teaching spelling validated the research I have done, and convinced me of its value. I feel more confident about my own ability to teach spelling, and have a good general understanding of the subject to build on.

In terms of the needs of the subject of the case study, teaching alone will probably never make him a strong speller. He is one of those ‘less-favoured’ children who has not ‘caught’ spelling because reading and writing have never been important activities in his life. He needs sustained exposure towritten language, and constant use of it, to which work on spelling in a classroom can only ever supplement. However, there is certainly a place for ‘systematic’ teaching of spelling, if this can be done in a ‘rational’ way by a teacher with a ‘consistent’ attitude. However, while this might seem straightforward in principle, in practice it is rarely done. There seems to be resistance to the teaching of spelling throughout the English teaching profession, in spite of all the research that has shown it can be effective.

This seems to be for a variety of reasons: one of these is that the systematic/incidental debate is still alive and well; another is that the constraints of the curriculum do not allow time for it, certainly not 60 to 75 minutes a week to spelling alone out of a mere 180; another is that many English teachers do not believe that they have the ability to teach the subject, having never been taught themselves, and because they too might have problems with their own spelling which create insecurity; at the secondary level there are teachers who feel that teaching spelling is the job of the primary teacher, especially now that Literacy Hour is established and time for teaching ‘basic skills’ has been built in to the school day. This point of view is easy to understand, but there is a strong argument for reorganising English teaching around basic skills at secondary level, based on the number of school leavers whose problems with words are not adequately addressed. At least, teachers could incorporate more explicit spelling teaching into their existing schemes of work, and encourage pupils such as the subject of this case study to see that.... words are interesting!

Bibliography

Brindley, S, ed. (1994) Teaching English, Routledge

Gentry, J.R. (1987) Spel... is a Four Letter Word, Scholastic

Graves, D.H. (1983) Writing: Teachers and Children at Work, Heinemann

Newkirk, T, et al. (1989) Writing in Schools Reader, Deakin University

Peters, M.L. (1985) Spelling: Caught or Taught? Routledge

Pumfrey, P.D, ed. (1990) Children’s Difficulties in Reading, Spelling and Writing,

Falmer Press

Reason, R, and Boote, R. (1986) Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing: A Teacher’s Manual,

NFER-Nelson

Shaughnessy, M.P. (1977) Errors and Expectations, OUP New York

Wade, B, and Wedell, K. (1974) Spelling: Task and Learner in ‘Educational Review’, University of Birmingham

Wray, D, et al. (1988) Teacher Handbooks: Developing Children’s Writing, Scholastic

Also consulted:

Course notes on ‘Approaching Spelling’