Educational research on how best to teach spelling

[ReallyTired]

What is the most effective way to teach spelling. Anedotally look cover right check has not worked for my children. Is there a high quality spelling scheme that parents can use with their children that follow a logical progression. (Ie. systematically teaches them spelling rules)

Is phonics litterally compulsory in state schools or can they choose their own method?

@ checkmates

SP will be statutory from September 2014; along with teaching children in a literature rich environment (lots of reading & telling stories, poetry etc.).

SP is not a programme, it is more a set of principles. There are lots of different SP programmes which use a variety of approaches based on SP principles. Schools don't have to use a specific programme; they can knit their own if they want to, but why reinvent the wheel?

Does this bother you?

Really tired the Sounds~Write app would be perfect for a 4 year old if you have an IPad

I'm great at spelling (sorry, modesty wouldn't be helpful here) and would disagree with whoever said it's not a visual skill. It is very much so for me, aided by the fact I have a photographic memory - I can see any word once and pretty much spell it correctly thereon. Of my 3 dcs, only 1, my youngest, seems to take after me, sadly, on this. My elder two have been helped by learning common rules eg doubling consonants in verbs before -ed and - ing endings where the verb root has cvc or ccvc and the vowel is a 'short' one eg plan - canned/canning otherwise the e/ing would act like what I was taught at school to call the 'magic e', and will make the vowel a 'long' one eg ay not a. That's how you differentiate between canned and caned, or canning/caning, for example.

Sorry, not very well explained and I'm sure books cited above explain it better!

As well as the visual recall, I find that words in English do, in most cases, follow similar patterns. So if you can learn 'tongue', say, you can then handle other -ue words like vague without difficulty.

Knowing Latin also helps, as it enables you to understand that benefit is correct not benifit, as it derives from bene + fit (facere).

But I've not had to ever 'consciously' learn more than a handful of spellings, ever. Ones I do remember having to consciously learn include Wednesday, February, address, accommodation, separate and misled (well, the last one is pron not really spelling that I struggled with). Actually can't remember any others I struggled with apart from those ones!

I learnt to read largely by recognising whole words, once I'd mastered v basic phonics eg letter sounds and concept of magic e. Whilst this method is highly unfashionable now, I remain convinced that visual recognition of words is a far better way to learn to read if you value spelling skills as well. I don't know anyone who learnt to read by modern phonics methods who is a 'natural' speller. Whilst I can see that phonics is useful for eg dyslexics and those who would struggle with purely visual methods, I maintain that for most children, insistence on teaching reading through phonics is actually doing them a disservice.

"I'm great at spelling (sorry, modesty wouldn't be helpful here) and would disagree with whoever said it's not a visual skill. It is very much so for me, aided by the fact I have a photographic memory "-

But most people DON'T have a photographic memory, so why do you think your method will work for them? And indeed, since that was the method in practice for around 30 at least prior to 2007, we have good solid evidence that, as regards spelling, it in fact doesn't work for most people.

sorry, that should have been "30 years".

There is also the problem of how you would identify early enoughtime those children who supposedly don't need phonics for spelling in order to provide them with something different.

I learnt to read largely by recognising whole words, once I'd mastered v basic phonics eg letter sounds and concept of magic e. Whilst this method is highly unfashionable now, I remain convinced that visual recognition of words is a far better way to learn to read if you value spelling skills as well.

But how do you know who are visual, because I am not a visual speller. I learnt to read very easily back in the 60s, but have a DH and DS 18 who are dyslexic and thanks to phonics they learnt to read, but they still can't spell. DS can spell by sounding the word out loud, but it doesn't always get to the paper correctly.
I spell by learning rules and breaking words down, which is I think is called "saying it wrong". I remember Wednesday as Wed nes day and February as Feb ru ary, but I never see a word in my mind, I just hear the sounds.

If all else fails, I would also recommend the electronic spell-checker.

This little bit of research is interesting computers boost boys spelling

bruffin - I don't disagree with you. I agree that for dyslexic children and those who are not 'visual' learners, phonics is the best route for learning to read and learning spelling rules the best way to improve spelling.

But it will never create children who can spell properly - because in many situations there is no 'logical' reason why you would apply one rule and not another. eg you can be taught that ea and ee often sound the same. But not always. So how do you know whether to write each or eech? or reach or reech? when you have words like beach AND beech?

At the end of the day, there is no choice in English to engaging visual memory. My dh is dyslexic, sounds out words AND CAN'T SPELL.

If anyone knows a method that worked reliably to help dyslexics spell, then I daresay they would now be very rich indeed and this thread wouldn't exist. There isn't one.

Luckily, spellcheckers/dictionaries exist - so those who can't spell on their own can find the answers elsewhere.

unfortunately spellcheckers can't help if you write beach when you mean beech

I agree that for dyslexic children and those who are not 'visual' learners, phonics is the best route for learning to read and learning spelling rules the best way to improve spelling.

Unfortunately, the same as for reading, by the time you've discovered which children are struggling ('dyslexic') and which ones are 'visual learners', unless you have been using good, systematic phonics teaching from the very start, you've b*ggered up the ones who find learning to spell very difficult.

If you have any doubts about the effectiveness of systematic, structured phonics instruction on spelling skills have a look at this longitudinal data on one of the phonics programmes which meets the DFE criteria.

www.sounds-write.co.uk/pdf-downloads.aspx

S~W research report 2009.

I worked in secondary school. All the teachers reckoned that at least 60% of their pupils couldn't spell. ( Neither could a very significant number of the teachers) That is far more bad spellers than bad readers. Compare that with the S~W figures