The length of the document below is: 13 page(s) long
The self-declared author(s) is/are:
The subject is as follows:
Subject: Original authors did not specify.
The original URL is: LINK
The access date was:
Access date: 2019-04-09 14:13:49.547990
Please be aware that this may be under copyright restrictions. Please send an email to admin@pharmacoengineering.com for any AI-generated issues.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab The content is as follows:
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 havetroublespelling, but we do not know how many, or in relation to what
standard, because state accountability assessments seldom in-clude a direct measureofspelling competence. Few state stan-
dards specify what, exactly, a student at each grade level should
be able to spell, and most subsume spelling under broad topicssuch as written composition and language proficiency.Statewriting tests may not even score children on spelling accuracy,
as they prefer to lump it in with other ÒmechanicalÓskills inthe scoring rubrics.Nevertheless, research has shown that learning to spell and
learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowl-edgeÑsuch as the relationships between letters and soundsÑ
and, not surprisingly, that spelling instruction can be designed
to help children better understand that key knowledge, result-
ing in better reading (Ehri, 2000). Catherine Snow et al.
(2005, p. 86) summarize the real importance of spelling for
reading as follows: ÒSpelling and reading build and rely on the
same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of
aword makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for
fluent reading.Ó In fact, Ehri and Snowling (2004) found that
the ability to read words ÒbysightÓ (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 memorizemore
than a fewdozen words unless they havedeveloped insightsinto how letters and sounds correspond. Learning to spell re-
quires instruction and gradual integration of information
about print, speech sounds, and meaningÑthese, in turn, sup-
port memory for whole words, which is used in both spelling
and sight reading.
Research also bears out a strong relationship between
spelling and writing: Writers who must think too hard about
how to spell use up valuable cognitive resources needed for
higher level aspects of composition (Singer and Bashir, 2004).
Even more than reading, writing is a mental juggling act that
depends on automatic deployment of basic skills such as hand-
writing, spelling, grammar, and punctuation so that the writer
can keep track of such concerns as topic, organization, word
choice, and audience needs. Poor spellers may restrict what
they write to words they can spell, with inevitable loss of ver-
bal power, or they may lose track of their thoughts when they
get stuck trying to spell a word.
But what about spell check? Since the advent of word pro-
cessing and spell checkers, some educators have argued that
spelling instruction is unnecessary. ItÕs true that spell checkers
work reasonably well for those of us who can spell reasonably
wellÑbut rudimentary spelling skills are insufficient to use a
spell checker. Spell checkers do not catch all errors. Students
who are very poor spellers do not produce the close approxi-
mations of target words necessary for the spell checker to sug-
gest the right word. In fact, one study (Montgomery, Karlan,
and Coutinho, 2001) reported that spell checkers usually catch
just 30 to 80 percent of misspellings overall (partly because
they miss errors like
here
vs. hear), and that spell checkers iden-tified the target word from the misspellings of students with
learning disabilities only 53 percent of the time.
Clearly, the research base for claiming that spelling is impor-
tant for young
children is solid: Learning to spell enhances
childrenÕs reading and writing. But what about middle-school
students? Does continued spelling instruction offer any added
benefits? Here the research is sparse indeed. Yet, the nature of
the English languageÕs spelling/writing system provides reason
to believe that there would be significant benefits to older stu-
12AMERICAN EDUCATOR
WINTER 2005/06How Spelling
Supports Reading
And Why It Is More Regular and Predictable
Than You May Think
By Louisa C. Moats
Louisa C. Moats is advisor on literacy research and professional de-
velopment for Sopris West Educational Services. She developed
Lan-guage Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling,aprofes-sional development program for teachers, and Spellography,aspelling curriculum for children in grades 4 through 6. She has
written several books and reports, including the AFTÕs
TeachingReading IsRocket Scienceand Speech to Print: Language Essen-tials for Teachers
.This is her fourth article for
American Educator
Please note all content on this page was automatically generated via our AI-based algorithm (BishopKingdom ID: 1fpOwI3jC5rJ10DIfPrq). Please let us know if you find any errors.