Spelling etc'

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Spelling etc.

• What we need to realize about spelling development

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Something to think about

• Approximately 50,000 adult vocabulary
• Learn 20 spelling words per week
• Times 36 weeks per academic year
• Equals 720 words per year
• Times 12 years of school
• Equals 8640 words
• How did we learn the rest?

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Pop Quiz

• Youll need a blank sheet of note paper
• Number it 1-12
• Pick a partner to work with
• Both be ready to listen

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What strategies did you use to spell? Heres what
a small child does.

• Says the word
• Breaks off the 1st phoneme or sound
• Remembers how to form the letter
• Decides where the letter goes on the page
• Carries out the motor activity
• Remembers what word they are trying to spell
• Says the word again
• Repeats the process for the next phoneme
• Decides where the next phoneme goes in relation
  to the first one ( above, below, beside)

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How children learn to spell

• Hypothesizing or predicting
• Testing or having a go
• Confirming
• Relating new information to old
• Receiving feedback

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Basic assumptions about spelling based on research

• Cognitive learning theory spelling is a
  developmental process
• Spelling Complex, interactive thinking process
• Misspelling reveals students spelling stages
• Standards enhance written communication
• Absent of phonetic regularity English spelling
  difficulties

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3 basic patterns in English spelling

• Sound
• Function
• Meaning

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• 1. blue or blew
• 2. restlessness
• 3. (oxford) diarrhoea
• 4. (oxford) haemophilia
• 5. polychromatic
• 6. telekinesis
• 7. carbuncle
• 8. knurl
• 9. sergeant
• 10. miscellanea
• 11. paraphernalia
• 12. iconoclasm

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Pre-communicative Stage

• Babbling stage of spelling where letters are used
  for writing but randomly strung together with no
  sound symbol correspondence. Eg. The word monster
  might look like RTES

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Semiphonetic Stage

• Here letters are represented by sound in a type
  of telegraphic writing. Words are often
  abbreviated representing initial and/or final
  sounds. Fewer than half the sound are
  represented.
• Eg. Monster MTR U united JRS dress BT
  bottom H hiked UMhuman ELeagle KDclosed
  Bbumped TPtype

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Phonetic

• More than half the words are spelled like they
  sound. All the phonemes are there but
  unconventional spellings are used. E.g.
  MOSTERmonster UNITDunited JRASdress
  BODMbottom HIKThiked HUMNhuman EGLeagle
  KLOSDclosed BOPTbumped TIPtype

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Phonetic stage common substitutions

• A for short e so BATbet
• E for short I so BETbit
• I for short o so HIThot
• O for short u so BOTbut
• Position of the tongue determines the childs
  vowel plus their vibrated air through the mouth
• Tongue tenselong vowels
• Tongue relaxedshort vowels

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Transitional

• Visual memory or spelling patterns are not
  apparent in the spelling miscues. Conventions or
  English orthography are there more than half the
  time. Short vowels, consonants, digraphs are
  usually spelled correctly. Marker letters appear,
  but they are used incorrectly. E.g.
  MONSTURmonster YOUNIGHTE

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Transitional

• Visual memory or spelling patterns are not
  apparent in the spelling miscues. Conventions or
  English orthography are there more than half the
  time. Short vowels, consonants, digraphs are
  usually spelled correctly. Marker letters appear,
  but they are used incorrectly. E.g.
  MONSTURmonster YOUNIGHTEDunited DRESdress
  BOTTUMbottom HICKEDhiked HUMUNhuman
  EGULeagle BUMPPEDbumped TIPEtype

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Conventional

• The entire word is spelled correctly
• Reference book you should look for
• J. Richard Gentry Jean Wallace Gillet (1993).
  Teaching Kids to Spell, Portsmouth, NH Heinemann