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My sense is that people who research spelling expect the answer will be 'yes,' which is what I expect, too.
Much about spelling is puzzling. Our society expects that any educated person can spell, yet literate adults commonly characterize themselves as poor spellers and make spelling mistakes. Many children have trouble spelling, but we do not know how many, or in relation to what standard, because state accountability assessments seldom include a direct measure of spelling competence. Few state standards specify what, exactly, a student at each grade level should be able to spell, and most subsume spelling under broad topics such as written composition and language proficiency. State writing tests may not even score children on spelling accuracy, as they prefer to lump it in with other “mechanical” skills in the scoring rubrics.
Nevertheless, research has shown that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge — such as the relationships between letters and sounds — and, not surprisingly, that spelling instruction can be designed to help children better understand that key knowledge, resulting in better reading. Catherine Snow et al. summarize the real importance of spelling for reading as follows: “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.” In fact, Ehri and Snowling found that the ability to read words “by sight” (i.e. automatically) rests on the ability to map letters and letter combinations to sounds. Because words are not very visually distinctive (for example, car, can, cane), it is impossible for children to memorize more than a few dozen words unless they have developed insights into how letters and sounds correspond. Learning to spell requires instruction and gradual integration of information about print, speech sounds, and meaning — these, in turn, support memory for whole words, which is used in both spelling and sight reading.
How Spelling Supports Reading by Louisa Moats (pdf file)
I briefly told my own story of C. beginning to read again after starting Megawords. Until 4th grade, C. had been a terrific early reader, years ahead of grade level. He was one of those kids who more or less taught himself to read.
Then, going into 5th grade (I think), he had stopped reading, right on schedule. Apparently it's not uncommon for good readers to "lose interest" around that age, or so I had read. Google isn't giving me a reference to good readers experiencing a 4th grade slump, so memory will have to serve; I think I'd read about a "good reader slump" in a book on the subject of making your child into a lifelong reader, or some such.
C. was also, and I don't think this is a coincidence, a terrible speller. Excellent reader, terrible speller.
That is an interesting thing about spelling, btw.
It is possible to be an excellent reader and a poor speller.
It is not possible to be an excellent speller and a poor reader. (I think I have this on the authority of Moats; will have to check.)
Not long after we started work with Megawords, he began to read again.
My guess is that perhaps Megawords helped him focus on decoding syllables instead of letters. He'd just started the series, so he hadn't learned the various syllables, suffixes, prefixes, that Megawords teaches.....which is why I think Megawords may simply have pushed him to start focusing on natural breaks in words. I'm guessing, too, that he was such a good "natural" reader (I feel pretty confident making that statement) that once he'd been told, by Megawords, to look at syllables instead of letters, he picked this skill up quickly.
Fifth grade was also the year he had the brilliant Ms. Duque as his teacher. In class, she had the kids read out loud by syllables. They used their fingers to cover up each syllable in a word as they went along.
So he had Megawords at home, and "syllabic reading" at school..... and he is today, in 8th grade, a good reader.
My feeling about spelling and reading is: better safe than sorry.
If it's even possible spelling may support reading, it's irresponsible of schools not to teach it.
16 comments:
Spelling seems to support reading with regard to vocabulary/context/understanding. When a reader hits an unfamiliar word, he's got three strategies if he can spell:
1. Phonetic decoding
2. Contextual decoding
3. Recognizing/relating to similarly-spelled words
To do #3, you've got to know how to spell "vary" to recognize the "var-" connection in "variety" and "various." You've also got to know how to spell those two words to relate them to "variegate," etc.
Why do I think spelling is so important? Mainly because learning how to spell one word allows you to know the meanings of 20 others, assuming you're taught to find/make those connections.
The writing road to reading by Mary E. North looks like it might be quite interesting:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/93n732m201713463/
Abstract This paper traces the theoretical foundations of The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda B. Spalding (1990) from the beginning concepts taught Mrs. Spalding by Dr. Samuel T. Orton through its validation in current cognitive science and learning theory.
This is the "Spalding method" as to spelling:
*phonemic awareness
*phonics with handwriting
*dictation of high frequency words
*rule acquisition and application
When my oldest was in first grade, she was in a Carden school and they spent a great deal of time teaching "rule acquisition and application". It was amazing how well she could spell words she had never written before because she knew the rules. Of course, in second grade we moved to another state and the public school didn't "teach" spelling, they just had spelling tests. Not the same thing at all. Over time, she lost that grasp on the rules of spelling that really made a world of difference.
I think that may be the missing link with many spellers, not knowing and being able to apply the rules.
wow
very interesting
I've got to get these things up front.
Without quite knowing how to reason it out, I've assumed these things to be true ever since I first read the Megawords rationale.
It just made sense.
We've been serious about spelling ever since.
My district put in a spellling curriculum, finally, a couple of years ago.
Too late for C. --- and, as usual, no apologies will be offered, nor any remediation made.
The many kids who didn't learn to spell will carry on not being able to spell.
no consequences!
It was amazing how well she could spell words she had never written before because she knew the rules. Of course, in second grade we moved to another state and the public school didn't "teach" spelling, they just had spelling tests.
I don't know how 1st, 2nd, & 3rd grade handled spelling here, but since that time C. has never been taught spelling systematically by anyone other than me.
(It's possible his 6th grade teacher did some systematic instruction, but I assume she didn't. I assume she gave spelling tests of words linked to books they were currently reading.)
A rule I've been following all my life is that no letter is really silent. Sure, when you produce the sound with others they sound the same, but in the mind it doesn't.
Often, silent letters weren't silent in the first place. The "gh" in "high" represents a special consonant in Old English that has since been lost in most dialects. Some dialects in England though, still produce it ...
I strongly suspect that if the relationship is directional, it's reading that affects spelling, and not the reverse. I know lots of good spellers -- I am one -- and in six decades, I have never met a single good speller who does not rely on visual memory (that is, every good speller I have met knows how to spell a word not because he learned some silly rhyme with a thousand exceptions, but because he can see the word in his head -- and the reason he can see it is because he is well-read).
I'm trying to remember the argument....
I think your comment may be correct for proficient readers.
I'm pretty sure Moats & c. are talking about spelling "supporting" reading amongst students who aren't yet proficient.
One of the other factoids I picked up along the way is that grade school kids can't read grammatical, pollysyllabic nonsense words, such as namrit, for instance.
I've seen that in C. for years. He's just now, in 8th grade, starting to be able to read out loud a polysyllabic word he's never seen before.
The Megawords books teach syllables.
Two programs I use to tutor struggling readers are: Phonics for Reading and then Rewards. Both of these are scripted, and include spelling with each lesson even though they are not spelling programs. My young children that use "Phonics for Reading" are generally amazed and thrilled that finally they can spell what they call hard words. Spelling reinforces the reading especially once spelling by syllable comes into play.
Visual memory is the main reason I can spell (well, not so much lately.) Words look wrong to me.
However, my math head son has a difficult time even though he has no IQ deficits. He is more well-read than I was at his age.
His ability to think abstractly is well beyond his years, but his visual cues are clearly weaker than mine. I've even tried to teach him by saying things like "Does that LOOK right to you?" but it doesn't work. He needs more practice using specific words before they are automatic.
In fact, my Sp-ed child's visual sense is stronger than his gifted brother's. He can actually tell me when something is spelled wrong even though he can't spell it himself.
His testing was typical of most truly special ed kids: Bottom 3%. But when the spelling test given was a pick-the-correct-spelling one, he would score in the upper percentiles. This always amused his teachers since his main LD problem is writing.
...uh, was writing.
I still miss Wiki
Susan-We have the exact same situation here. Megan scores very low on standardized tests and hasn't met standards on NLCB tests since 3rd grade. But she always gets around the 80th % on spelling though she has no idea what the words mean or how to use them. My 2nd grader scores very well on standardized tests but can't spell at all, and the school doesn't really teach it.
I started tutoring in 1994. (One month with whole word methods before I realized I had only taught my student 3 words in a month. I called my Dad, a teacher at the time but now retired, he has a lot of common sense and ignored the Ed School propaganda.) Dad said "phonics," so I found the only phonics book available at the time, an old Hay and Wingo "Reading With Phonics" I found at an Air Force base library. I started reading and researching everything I could find about reading, spelling, language, and learning. Early on I became convinced that spelling and reading were related.
I found my first proof of that in a PhD Thesis at the UNM Library, Spelling as a correlate of reading ability in underprepared college freshmen: measures and error types by Sandra Jean Kelton Pitts, 1984. It talks about the correlations between spelling and reading and breaks them out into errors of orthography vs. phonology for good, average, and poor readers. I'll just quote her main conclusions for now:
1. There were significant relationships between total reading score and the number of orthographic and phonological errors produced
2. Capable readers made significantly fewer orthographic errors than adequate or disabled readers and significantly fewer phonological errors than disabled readers, and
3. Capable and adequate readers made significantly fewer phonological errors than orthographic errors. There were no significant differences in the types of errors made by disabled readers.
Pitts also suggests spelling tests instead of reading tests to determine people who need remedial language arts help and phonological and orthographical spelling training as a means to improve both spelling and reading abilities.
I didn't want to use baby-ish material with my student, so I developed my own lessons based on Hay-Wingo, but I started my first lesson with poly-syllable words.
Since many spelling rules seemed to have phonetic components, I also incorporated spelling rules and sound spelling pattern teaching into my lessons.
With poly-syllables early and spelling rules, most of my students progressed at a very fast rate, much faster than the students who I taught with just regular phonics books. My 3rd student, a very bright little boy who was about to be put in special ed by a very poor school district, went from reading at the 3rd grade level to the 6th grade level in only eight 45 minute lessons. I kept a journal of his progress (and the schools unfortunate, but alas, predictable response): http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/johnnysjournal.html
Learning phonics also helped my own spelling. I had learned the short vowels and consonants with phonics readers in kindergarten, but had Dick and Jane in 1st grade. I was a good reader, but not a great speller. I did great on my weekly tests of random spelling words, but would forget them all a few weeks later. I averaged 6 misspelled words per typewritten page. (I was cheerfully informed of this fact by my spell checker.) Learning the sound spelling patterns of English and the basic phonics rules and syllable division rules improved my spelling. I now misspell maybe 1 or 2 words every 2 typewritten pages. (It’s harder to get an exact count with autocorrect.)
There is also historical evidence of a spelling/reading link: In his 1851 intro to his First Reader (which separated all words of more than one syllable with dashes to enable to reader trained in the study of syllable sounds of Webster's speller to correctly sound out words way above the grade level in any 1st grade reader today), R. G. Parker states,
"I have one remark, however, to make, which, though it may seem at variance with the plans proposed and carried out by some with apparent success, I have little doubt will be found true, and that is, that it is scarcely possible to devote too much time to the spelling book. Teachers who are impatient of the slow progress of their pupils are too apt to lay it aside too soon. I have frequently seen the melancholy effects of this impatience. Among the many pupils that I have had under my charge, I have noticed that they who have made the most rapid progress in reading were invariably those who had been most faithfully drilled in the spelling book. A good hawk is better than a whole bag-full of game; and the fable of the hare and the tortoise applies as forcibly and as closely to the child's first endeavors as to any subsequent efforts. In the earlier stages of education, no better advice can be given than that which is conveyed in the quaint adage, Make haste slowly. Fruits and flowers produced by forcing in hot-beds rarely possess the raciness or the value of those which are properly and naturally matured. It is in vain to endeavor to sweeten or to gild the pill. The roots of learning are undoubtedly bitter, and the rudiments of letters possess few attractions to the child. Let him then advance boldly to the task. Let him learn, in the onset, that he has labor to undergo. There is no royal road to learning. Plunge him at once into the thickest of the fight. Teach him at once how to overcome difficulties, and his subsequent contests will be less discouraging, and his success will be complete."
Reading involves converting symbols into sounds and spelling involves converting sounds into symbols. As Paul Hanna explains in his book Spelling: Structure and Strategies, “But spelling involves more than sensory memories and motor responses. The ability to spell is also related to the development of the concepts about orthography--i.e. how the writing systems reflects, or fails to reflect, speech--so that phoneme-grapheme [sound-symbol] relationships can be grasped.”
Marcia K. Henry’s excellent book “Words: Integrated Decoding and Spelling Instruction Based on Word Origin and Word Structure” shows by its title the integrated nature of phonetically taught spelling and phonics. (This book is well worth the money, by the way. It is an excellent study of both spelling and Greek and Latin basics. Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon based words each have their own system of spelling rules.)
Webster’s Speller was, to quote Webster’s 1828 dictionary, "n. A book for teaching children to spell and read." Based on reports of literacy when Webster’s Speller was used, this integration was very successful. I have found it successful with my daughter. Webster’s Speller is also, like megawords, based on decoding syllables.
Rightwingprof- I was well-read while a poor speller. I have read 100+ books a year since 2nd grade. It was only after learning the rest of phonics and some spelling rules that I became a good speller. Interestingly, I scored 99% on my IOWA spelling tests—given 4 choices, I could pick out the correct one. However, when having to produce a word on my own, I could not do it for many words—especially Latin words. My physiology teacher in college gave points off for each of “his physiology” words spelled incorrectly. I could have gotten a grade level higher in his class if I had started tutoring with phonics a little sooner!
Can't wait to read - thank you!
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