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6
AMERIcAN EdUcATOR | WINTER 2008-2009
By R. Malatesha Joshi, Rebecca reiman,Suzanne Carreker, and Louisa C. Moats
I
 1773, N W   “pg    g   g   wg.”
1
 wg. G pg    ,    w-g  —wg  w       v,      p    pp.B v  W’ “p” (w   w  p    p w   g pg  -g ) w       1900, p-g   v     g. T  -  pg  p g  g  w      p w    p  . A    p, wg  w pv  g  .
2
A , v g     p w g pg (  w  w  q g,
3
 gg  0.66  0.90, w 0 w   
How Words Cast Teir Spell
Spg I  Ig P  Lg  Lgg,N  M  M
 1 w   p ), pg   - g   g    ,    v .*Cv,     pp v g   xp pg pv  v  pv   pg, g,  wg.  pp w v    v , -g  g   p   w,     pg.        pg  g-g w-w  (.g., g f  vg w w 5  10 )   g      g w. W’v   pp-  pg   v      w   w  w  g— , ’    W’ p. W      1920:          v  pg w p  1926,      p v w p w    g xp.
4
B   ,   pp  p w      p  g v,  pp   g  p      . T,   pg  p  vp-  v   w w.
5
M  , wv,   pp    v      g pg.
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Sv v    v    g   w      w.
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I ,    
*
 
Throughout this articl, th rsarch and instructional stratgis discussd arabout splling in english; thy may not apply to othr languags.
R. Malatesha Joshi is professor of literacy education at Texas A&M Uni-versity, author of numerous books and articles on reading and spelling,and founding editor of 
Rg  Wg: A Ip J-
. Rebecca Treiman is Burke and Elizabeth High Baker Professor of Child Developmental Psychology at Washington University and author of dozens of studies on reading, writing, and spelling. Suzanne Carreker is vice president of program development at the Neuhaus EducationCenter, author of several language and literacy programs, and a former teacher and school consultant. Louisa C. Moats is consultant on profes-sional development and research initiatives for Sopris West Educational Services; author of several literacy programs, books, and reports, includ-ing the AFT’s
g Rg
Is
R S
 ; and a former teacher and school psychologist.
   I   L   L   U   s   T   R   A   T   E   d   b   Y   M   I   c   h   A   E   L   W   O   L   O   s   h   I   N   O   W
 
AMERIcAN EdUcATOR | WINTER 2008-2009
7
children make indicate that something other than visual memory is at work. I children relied on visual memory or spelling, regu-lar words (e.g.,
stamp
,
sing 
,
strike
) and irregular words that aresimilar in length and requency (e.g.,
sword 
,
said 
,
enough
) shouldbe misspelled equally oten. But they are not. Children misspellirregular words more oten than regular words.
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So, i words aren’t memorized visually, how do we spell? Tat will be thoroughly explained later in this article. For now, here’sthe short answer: Webster was right not just on the importanceo spelling, but on how to teach it too. Spelling is a linguistic task that requires knowledge o sounds and letter patterns. Unlikepoor spellers, who ail to make such connections, good spellersdevelop insights into how words are spelled based on sound-letter correspondences,
†
meaningul parts o words (like the root
bio
and the suix 
logy 
), and word origins and history.
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hisknowledge, in turn, supports a specialized memory system—memory or letters in words. Te technical term or this is “ortho-graphic memory,” and it’s developed in tandem with awarenesso a word’s internal structure—its sounds, syllables, meaningulparts, oddities, history, and so orth. Tereore, explicit instruc-tion in language structure, and especially sound structure, isessential to learning to spell.
Don’t Students Learn to Spell throughflashcards and Writing Words?
Given both the widespread belie that English spelling is irregu-lar and the previous studies that stressed visual memory or words, it’s no surprise that many teachers teach spelling by writ-ing words on ashcards and exposing students to them many times or by having students write words 5 to 10 times. Unortu-nately, the efectiveness o such methods is not well established.In contrast, studies show that spelling instruction based on thesounds o language produces good results. For example, to test whether a visual approach or language-based method is better,researchers taught spelling to typical second graders using twodiferent methods: a visual method and a method in which stu-dents ocused on correspondences between sounds and letters.
10
  Ater administering lists o words as spelling tests, these investi-gators drew the attention o the visual group to their errors, wrotethe correct spellings on ashcards, and showed children the cor-rect spellings. In contrast, the children in the language-basedgroup were given instruction on the sounds involved in theirmisspellings. Te group that received the language-based spell-ing instruction showed signicantly greater progress than the visual group. Similarly, another researcher, ater examining vesuccessul spelling instructional approaches or children withlearning disabilities, observed that the successul programs hadone thing in common: they were all based on structured lan-guage instruction that explicitly taught principles like sound-letter correspondences.
11
Researchers also have ound thatsecond and third graders at risk o literacy problems improvedtheir spelling (as well as their word recognition, handwriting,and composition skills) ater structured spelling instructionbased on the concept that speech sounds are represented by letters in printed words (i.e., the alphabetic principle).
12
And aseries o studies showed that training in phonological awareness(i.e., awareness o the sounds that make up language) improvedthe spelling and reading o children in low-income, inner-city 
†
in techncal terms, the smallest sounds of speech are known as phonemes, andthe letters and letter groups that represent them are known as graphemes. So whatwe are callng sound-letter correspondences, other authors may refer to asphoneme-grapheme correspondences.
 
8
AMERIcAN EdUcATOR | WINTER 2008-2009
scls. Te training was especially efective amng te lwest-perrming cildren.
13
In sum, tese and ter studies aveund tat efective spelling instructin explicitly teaces stu-dents sund-spelling patterns. Students are taugt t tink abutlanguage, allwing tem t learn w t spell—nt just mem-rize wrds. As a result, linguistically explicit spelling instructin imprvesspelling  studied wrds
and 
nvel wrds. w explratry spelling interventin studies cntrasted linguistically explicitspelling instructin wit implicit spelling instructin, and undtat te explicit instructin gave students te knwledge  spell-ing patterns tat tey needed t mre accurately spell nvel wrds. In te rst study, secnd- trug urt-grade students were taugt t spell Latin-based wrds tat ended in
tion
r
sion
.
14
Te students were divided int tw grups. one grup wastaugt t spell te wrds wit an empasis n te rtgrapicpatterns
tion
and
sion
, but witut discussin  te wrds’sund patterns. Instead, activities cused students n te wrds’ visual patterns. Fr example, students srted spelling wrds by te nal endings
tion
r
sion
. Te secnd grup, wic receivedlinguistically explicit instructin, was taugt t spell te wrds wit a simultaneus empasis n te rtgrapic patterns
tion
 and
sion
and te sund patterns /su˘ n/ and /zu˘ n/.* Fr exam-ple, students srted wrds by letter patterns and by sund pat-terns. Te rtgrapic and sund patterns  te ter syllablesin te wrds, in particular te syllables tat preceded
tion
r
sion
, were als empasized. Fr example, /su˘ n/ is mst requently spelled
tion
. hwever, ater a syllable tat ends in /l/, te ending/su˘ n/ is spelled
sion
, as in
compulsion
r
expulsion
. Cmpared wit te students in te ter grup, te students w receivedte linguistically explicit instructin were better able t dis-criminate te sunds /s/ and /z/, spell te wrd endingscrrectly, and generalize te spellings  te wrd endings tnvel wrds.In te secnd study, rst-grade students were divided inttw grups.
15
Bt grups were taugt t spell ne-syllable wrdstat ended in /k/. one grup was taugt t spell te wrds by using letter units suc as
ank 
,
ack 
, and
ake
. Te ter grup wastaugt t segment te sunds  te wrds and t tink abutte pattern tat wuld determine te spelling  /k/ (e.g., ater acnsnant r tw vwels, /k/ is spelled
k 
; ater a srt vwel, /k/is spelled
ck 
; ater a lng vwel, /k/ is spelled
k 
 wit a nal
e
). Testudents in te secnd grup spelled te wrds mre accurately and read tem aster.
Is English Predictable Enough for ExplicitSpelling Instruction?
Tis is a questin we ear ten. I Englis spelling were cm-pletely arbitrary, ne culd argue tat visual memrizatin wuld be te nly ptin. hwever, spelling is nt arbitrary.Researcers ave estimated tat te spellings  nearly 50 per-cent  Englis wrds are predictable based n sund-letter cr-respndences tat can be taugt (e.g., te spellings  te /k/sund in
back 
,
cook 
, and
tract 
are predictable t tse w avelearned te rules). And anter 34 percent  wrds are predict-able except r ne sund (e.g.,
knit 
,
boat 
, and
two
).
†
I terinrmatin suc as wrd rigin and wrd meaning are cnsid-ered, nly 4 percent  Englis wrds are truly irregular and, asa result, may ave t be learned visually (e.g., by using ascardsr by writing te wrds many times).
16
Far rm being irregular and illgical, t te well-knwn lin-guists Nam Cmsky and Mrris halle, Englis is a “near pti-mal system r lexical representatin.”
17
hw culd tey pssibly make suc a claim? Tey understand tat written language is ntmerely speec written dwn. Te majr gal  te Englis writ-ing system is nt merely t ensure accurate prnunciatin  te written wrd—it is t cnvey meaning. I wrds tat sund tesame (i.e., mpnes suc as
rain
,
rein
, and
reign
) werespelled te same way, teir meanings wuld be arder t di-erentiate. Fr example, i we regularize te spelling, ten tesentence
Tey rode along the rode and, when they reached thelake, they rode across it 
wuld be ard t understand, wile
Tey rode along the road and, when they reached the lake, they rowed 
Researchers have estimated that thespellings of nearly 50 percent of English words are predictable based on sound-letter correspondences that can betaught. And another 34 percent of wordsare predictable except for one sound.
*
To d the reder, souds of the letters re represeted wth / / rther th usgthe symbols from the itertol Phoetc alphbet. Thus, / 
∫
 / s 
 sh
p srepreseted by /sh/, d /t
∫
 / s 
ch
 s represeted by /ch/.
†
note tht the excepto ws for oe
 sound 
, ot oe
letter 
. For exmple, oly oesoud s wrog f
automobile
s spelled
automobeal 
or f
bite
s spelled
bight 
.
(Continued on page 10)
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