We live in a society that expects its children to acquire a competent level of reading and writing. Despite the fact that we are now in the technological age, it is still necessary that our children will be able to write what they want, when they want. To achieve this, the acquisition of spelling skills is crucial.

This work grew out of my 1992 research, which showed that more than 50% of the children surveyed, were experiencing spelling difficulties. Based on my fifteen years experience as a remedial teacher, this book attempts to improve this situation. It focuses on the centrality of children's spelling needs and recognises the huge part that parents have to play in helping children to improve at spelling. It urges change in the parents' role from one of signing the corrections from the weekly test, to that of being actively involved with the child in the learning process. It also advocates a change in the teacher's role from one of giving spellings to one of teaching spellings.

There are many reasons why children have difficulty with spellings, and Chapter One examines these. Chapters Two and Three examine the development of spelling ability, and the disadvantages of list learning. Chapter Four offers a variety of workable strategies to assist and promote spelling development in poor spellers. We should be moving away from using spelling in isolation, and the role that dictation may play in providing controlled context for writing is considered in Chapter Five.

Every school should have a policy for spelling so that children are helped to understand that the correct spelling of frequently used words is important. Central to any whole school approach would be a policy on handwriting. This interrelationship of spelling and handwriting is examined in Chapter Six. The next two chapters look at how spelling is assessed and how careful diagnosis of errors will help to improve spelling performance. Chapter Nine offers a variety of practices and games which make the spelling process much more enjoyable to the poor speller. My list of Corewords and dictation exercises appear in the Appendices, along with the results of my survey.

The purpose of this book is to make children better spellers. There is no "quick fix" solution to a child's spelling problems. To achieve progress, it is important that the work done with the child is systematic, consistent and positive.

Since the turn of the century many researchers have been grappling with this question and offering their definitions and conclusions. Many spelling reformers have offered various suggestions as to how children's spelling ability could be improved. The Futility of the Spelling Grind (Rice, 1897), argued that spelling received too much weight in the curriculum and timetable. However, one of the most significant outcomes of Rice's work was that it helped raise educational awareness of children's spelling ability. In 1980, Venezky argued that thinking on spelling was not very far advanced beyond where Rice brought it in the 1890's. Exactly one century later, it does hold true that some of Rice's suggestions for improvement of spelling ability are still very relevant; for example, he advocated the use of spelling strategies; he argued that precedence ought to be given to common words; and he stressed the importance of the teacher's role in bringing about such an improvement.

Following on from Rice's investigations, many researchers dedicated their time to two questions:- firstly, the vocabulary children ought to focus on, and secondly, if children had or had not the capability of catching spelling. In more recent times those to the forefront in this particular area have been Peters, Cripps, Torbe, Bradley and Bryant (Britain), Arvidson (New Zealand) Adams, Lerner, Templeton and Henderson (United States), each with very sound and powerful research but more importantly, each one propounding strategies and learning techniques.

Gentry (1981) stated that learning to spell is not simply a process of memorising words, but rather a consequence of developing cognitive strategies. According to Peters (1985), spelling is caught by certain "favoured" children and less favoured children need to be taught rationally and systematically. Martin (1985) refers to this latter grouping as the strugglers. Both these terms, favoured and strugglers are widely referred to throughout this work. It is quite common in every classroom to find children with little or no difficulty in reading but who experience great uncertainty in the writing process. We are very fortunate that so many children are extremely capable in their written output with only minimal supervision. Unfortunately, there are many who experience great difficulties and it is vital that these children are given as much assistance as possible.

The Bullock Report (1975), states that children who are finding spelling difficult;

We will now examine these three causes in more detail, and then address eight other reasons why children may be experiencing problems with this particular aspect of the curriculum.

The relation between poor linguistic ability and poor spelling ability is a very strong one, and research shows that approximately 60% of children with linguistic difficulties will also have spelling difficulties. Linguistic ability is also believed to be a very strong predictor of spelling ability, and this writer's research (1992), which shows children from socially disadvantaged areas not performing as well as children from socially advantaged areas, supports this.

However, if one looks at the child's intelligence level as it may appear on a psychological report, it is important to remember that this score is only an indication of the child's level of ability and, more importantly, that it is not immutable. If such children are introduced to a favourable learning environment from early schooling, considerable gains may be made. In the area of spelling, as in any other area of curriculum, the child who is immersed in correct procedures and given strategies that work, will become a better speller.

If the child's visual imagery is poor, it is possible for the teacher to compensate for its deficiency. Attention will need to be focused on word structure, this will include being able to read and recall the word, recalling the initial letter or letter string and then reproducing the whole word in correct sequence. By presenting spellings visually on spelling cards, white boards, sand trays or with magnetic letters, children may be trained to look meaningfully at words, pick out the difficult parts and get a mental picture of the word in question. This training will move children away from a letter by letter copying habit and spelling words aloud letter by letter. Such training will also lead the child to decide whether a word looks right or not, when it is written from memory.

The potentially good spellers in a class do not have to attend to what Bullock calls, the serial probability of letter occurrences. They know that if a word begins with "b" that certain letters cannot come next. They are familiar with word-endings and know that words cannot finish with particular sequences of letters. It also means that if they are familiar with the letter string gar as in garden, then they can generalise to garage, Gary, and sugar, etc. Canadian, British and American studies also indicate that children who receive training in analogy, show significant gains in reading ability from those who were not trained to use analogies. White and Cunningham (1990) believe that reading by analogy is very appropriate for children who are slow in beginning to read.

Could the same be true for spelling? Would children benefit more from putting words into spelling categories based on letter strings, e.g. done, gone, bone, etc., rather than into sound categories, which commercial spelling books usually do? This writer has no doubt that children would benefit more if words were grouped according to spelling patterns as this would allow them to explore words, and be trained in analogy. For those who are struggling and produce bizarre attempts at spelling words, it is something that must be focused on very early in their schooling. Such visual awareness training should begin in Infant classes where children could be trained by using plastic letters or Scrabble letter tiles. Thinking that children will be confused if we introduce analogy training that transcends phonics, (that there is an ear in Bear), is to underestimate their ability. This type of reasoning results in children not being trained to look at, or examine, word components. Rather than confusing children by telling them that every teacher has an ache, or that every street has a tree, it would be an incentive for them to look more intently at words. In my spelling investigation, 90% of the children could spell teacher correctly, but only 32% were accurate with ache. The reason why more than 700 children failed to use this letter string (ache) could be, that it did not sound the same in both words, or because they were never trained in generalising or in visual awareness.

Children with visual sequential difficulties may have a very good idea of the word components but get baffled when they need to use it, as they find it difficult to remember what the word looks like. More likely than not they may have all the letters required but they may appear in any order, and furthermore, the child will see nothing wrong with the final product, e.g. piocle for police.

The child with poor memory will encounter much difficulty and this will continue unless there is some purposeful intervention to assist the child in getting the word from short term memory into long term memory. In order for children to improve at spelling they must first be helped in this area, and words must made as meaningful as possible for them. For example, many children struggle with the spelling of the word eyes, however if it was pointed out to them that the word eyes is just e + yes, then the result may be more rewarding and permanent.

m Weak Auditory Analysis

The children with weak auditory analysis are very different from those with poor visual memory. There may be difficulty in hearing differences in words such as van / fan, cold / gold, etc. In such instances it is critical that the child's hearing is checked. These children usually make wild guesses at words, and not only that but there will not be any consistency in their attempts, for example, owan for own may very easily be written as oin the next time it is used. Sometimes these attempts will be unrecognisable, like the following attempts which are taken from my spelling survey, someter for scar, nitaes for aunt. Pupils with a high percentage of bizarre spellings are the most difficult to remediate and if such children are not identified at an early age, then in all probability they will always be poor spellers. This category of children spell irregular words as if they were regular, e.g. sed for said and bizzy for busy.

There will also be occasions when we encounter children who have dual weaknesses, that is, they experience difficulties in both the auditory and visual channels. Schonell (1948) mentions two types of indecisive spellers:

(a) those who pay great attention to visual patterns, and disregard auditory aspects and

(b) those who reproduce almost solely the auditory form of the words and ignore the visual patterns

If this is the case, then the teacher has to ensure that the child with dual weaknesses, is taught to use as many senses as possible and that a tactile / kinaesthetic approach is followed. The child must be able to work with plastic letters or sand trays when using his strategy. The child will have to learn and constantly revise these high frequency words with as many types of imagery as possible, while teachers will teach and reteach with as wide a variety of strategies as are necessary.

m Faulty Pronunciation

This cause of spelling failure seems to be on the increase. More and more we find children unable to determine differences between are and our or between were and where, etc. It is not this writer's intention to fly in the face of freedom of expression and creativity, but these problems need to be tackled. The teacher of Infants is the first to encounter such inaccuracies in school, and if these mispronunciations are not tackled, then the problem is passed on to the next teacher. There is a need for children to be precise in their language and to articulate clearly.

m Meaning

Meaning is a very important element of the spelling process and its role should not be overlooked. Words that are similar in meaning tend to have similar spelling patterns, e.g. ear / hear / heard, or sail / sailing / sailboat / sailor /etc. This needs to be pointed out to children as the meaning of what they wish to communicate may be affected. This is especially true in the area of homophones, (words which have the same pronunciation but different meaning and spelling). Has the child who writes there dog, made a spelling mistake? Is it not more a question of meaning than spelling? Children who do not understand the difference between there / their / they're, or to / too / two will need to have these differences taught and taught again, as pupils do not and will not catch them without help. With the suffix "ed" we encounter similar problems. With the words provided, pushed and loved, we get three different sounds but only one clear meaning, that is, the action has taken place — it is the past tense. This generalisation is true more than 90% of the time. The suffix "s" also throws up similar difficulty for those relying on sound, e.g. dogs, hedges and caves, three different sounds for the one letter which in this case means more than one. If it is pointed out to the children what these suffixes mean, more success will be achieved.

Similarly, if we do not take time to explain contractions to the struggling children, for example, if we do not teach them how to contract was not to wasn't, such attempts as wasent or wasint will continue to be found in children's writing.

Personal observation persuades this writer to believe that phonetic spelling in many instances may not be due to basic failure in visual perception at all, but to flawed practices that may have been adopted by the children themselves, owing to the lack of an initial strategy. Many come to school already proficient in their knowledge of the alphabet names but find it very troublesome to have to call them by something very different, i.e. sounds. Some find it extremely difficult to understand that sounds of letters are not always consistent, for example, look / boot.

As already stated, a child with poor visual memory will quickly forget what the spelling in question looks like and this leads to all sorts of confusion during the writing process. A child who relies entirely on sound will in all probability have great difficulty with spelling all his life. It is vital that these children are identified at a very early stage and are given a strategy that will help them see for themselves that it is possible to have some degree of success. Hopefully, this will be the start they need to extricate them from the vicious spiral of failure and low self-esteem. Failure to accomplish this at an early stage will subsequently have deleterious consequences.

My investigation of the spelling ability of ten year old children and the analysis of the errors/miscues, shows an almost total dependence on sound in word composition. The eleventh sentence (See Appendix C) provides concrete evidence, that for many children, the visual imagery or the internal word structure is largely disregarded for sound in the spelling process. Only 47% of the children were accurate with the word scar, and the following 98 alternatives were found for the word which after all, is nothing more than s + car)

      	
	care		sca		scaure		sear		skine
	ckar		scae		scear		seare		skir
	crare		scaeu		scer		seay		skre
	sacar		scaf		schar		senate		sligr
	sacare		scaier		sciee		sentf		snich
	sacr		scair		scir		sere		someter
	sain		scaire		sckar		sewn		sone
	sakr		scald		scour		sfar		sorw
	sanran		scanr		scra		sgar		srace
	sar		scarce		scraf		sget		srar
	sare		scard		scrafe		shart		srce
	sarcaw		scare		scrafend	shor		sriws
	sarh		scarf		scraner		sike		staer
	sarom		scarg		scrar		sirt		star
	sars		scark		scraur		skafe		stare
	sarta		scaron		scraw		skair		starger
	sarw		scarr		scrs		skar		stear
	sase		scart		scur		skare		ster
	sathr		scarw		scure		skarf	
	sauer		scaur		seak		skear	

Continued reliance on sound as an approach to learning or teaching spelling is detrimental, and unquestionably will not benefit the under-achiever.

In so far as a child is experiencing failure in spellings and is in need of a strategy to promote achievement, it is of little value if it is only temporarily beneficial. It is true to say that one would not have much confidence with prescribed medicine if told that it would only be of short term value, or trouble oneself with some consumer goods that may just operate periodically. However, this is what is happening with spellings when children are told by either teacher or parent, to sound out the word. Research shows (Smith 1971; Peters, 1985), that using phonics for spelling is very unreliable, and persisting with this ineffective procedure is another reason why children continue to fail. Cripps (1989), states that despite the evident problem of using sounds, teachers are so accustomed to equating spelling with phonics that they cannot think of the activity of spelling being other than that of sounding out a word.

If a young child was asked to spell dog it may be argued that he could arrive at the correct spelling by using his phonics. How is a child expected to sound-out words like chemist, laugh or busy, with any degree of accuracy? Using phonics, there is an instantaneous dilemma ... does it begin with "c" or "k"? If the child proffers kat or laf or kemist to teacher or parent, what indicates that the words are incorrectly written? Sound won't tell you, but still you perceive them as incorrect because they don't look right. As Cripps (1990) professes so forcibly, it's vision that tells you if a word is written correctly ... not sound. Spelling strategies need to be explained to parents because it is very probable that in their own school days they too sounded them out or broke them into bits. If we had success at spellings in our own school days it was merely because we had the inherent competence to catch spelling, or as Peters (1985) would assert, we were the favoured children. Expecting children to be the architects of their own progress is fine, if indeed they are favoured, but we must not treat the less-favoured in similar fashion. We ought not continue to assume that teaching to the average ability group, or having each child, regardless of ability, learning the same list of words is the formula for a successful approach to the teaching of spelling.

For the under-achievers, poor recall is a gigantic stumbling block. For those who genuinely endeavour to succeed, this is most frustrating as they perceive their efforts to be of little benefit. It's obvious that these words have not passed from the child's short term memory into his long term memory. The child who sees whose as just five meaningless letters may, more often as not, reproduce the five letters inaccurately and then see nothing wrong with the final product. However, if he was to perceive the word as w + hose the result may be very different.

There are also environmental reasons which may impact on children's spelling. Prolonged absence from, or frequent change of school are two of these. These two are outside the teacher's control. Another, and much more contentious reason may be faulty teaching practices. There is no doubt that there is an over reliance on programmed lists / kits, where children are asked (compelled?) to learn lists of words regardless of whether these are relevant to their writing needs. There is no denying that these lists do indeed serve a purpose as research shows that the best spellers need lists of some sort, but research also shows that these lists do little or nothing for the strugglers, as more often than not they are required to learn these words without context or purpose.

Spelling is a visual and an associative process and therefore any spelling activity ought to be a written one. Children should be given an opportunity to experiment with words, making them visually aware to see how words are similar, to see words within words. This ought to commence informally and incidentally in Infant Classes, and the best starting point is with their own names, family name, other family members' names, addresses, friends' names, etc.

Parents and teachers sometimes intervene too quickly with spelling attempts. Correcting spelling must be both meaningful and informative and certainly ought not be seen as a punishment (See Correcting Spelling).

Finally, there is what this writer describes as the "Five - a - night and the test on Friday Syndrome." One cannot assume that children are improving at spelling just because they may get a good result on Friday, instead one will only be able to judge such an improvement from their free writing. What this system does is to continue to isolate spelling and separate it from the rest of the curriculum.

These play a major part in promoting better spelling. Poor spellers often have a very low self-image of their own capabilities. To extract them from this spiral of failure teachers must make sure that they are presented with experiences which are relevant and stimulating. For those who really struggle, teachers and parents will have to lower their level of expectations, find out the stage of development they are at, and work at a slower pace until the children can see that they can do it. Teachers need to view children with spelling difficulties in a different light. In Catchwords - Ideas for Teaching Spelling (Cripps & Peters 1978), state that progress in spelling occurs when teachers' attitudes are consistent and when they are systematic in their teaching. On the whole, it seems that spellings are not being taught to those most in need and this practice needs urgent redress. Peters (1970) aptly summed up the situation when she stated that there is no question that the behaviour of the teacher determines, more than any other single factor, whether a child does or does not learn to spell.

Guidelines for Parents:

« Be positive all the time and praise every effort.

« Talk with other parents, exchange ideas, etc. Remember you are not the only parent with this problem.

Having considered some possibilities of why children are failing at spelling, the following chapters will offer strategies and practices that will make the spelling process easier for many children. It is widely acknowledged that there are children whose difficulties are so severe that spelling will always be problematic. While it may not be feasible that every child will be proficient at spelling, this writer has no doubt that poor spellers can be guided to become better spellers. Before explaining methodologies and offering some solutions that have worked for children, let us first examine the development of spelling ability, and thus raise further awareness of the spelling process.

Brendan Culligan currently teaches in Bayside Senior School, Verbena Avenue, Dublin 13, Ireland, where he has specialised in Remedial Education for fifteen years. He is a designer and tutor of teacher inservice on Learning Difficulties - Literacy. He has lectured on the teaching of spelling throughout the country and is the author of numerous articles on Reading and Spelling.

(home telephone number) (00353 1) 8312133

(school telephone / fax) (00353 1) 8393682