On the day of writing, my son completed a spelling test online via Zoom while he recuperates from Covid-19. His teacher deftly managed the test with some children in the classroom and others at home, even marking his work as he held it up to the camera. He was delighted to receive full marks and felt proud that he had learned the spellings despite the upheavals that Covid brings to children’s lives and education.
For him, spelling tests are a challenge that suit. He finds learning them through repetition relatively easy and he retains them for long enough to do the test and get full, or almost full, marks week after week. But does this lead to the lasting memorization of words? I think he would be the first to say ‘no’, but what he is noticing is that the more he uses a word in his writing, the easier it gets to remember. Nothing new there.
It is not uncommon for children to remember spellings for the test, only to forget them soon after. Much like other learning for tests, spellings are not a special case. Some researchers suggest this may be down to being given words that are not yet age or stage appropriate but forgetting straight after a test is not restricted to spelling tests.
In its Guide to Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1, the EEF states that “Spelling should be explicitly taught. Teaching should focus on spellings that are relevant to the topic or genre being studied.”
But what does the EEF actually mean by this?
The Guidance document demonstrates that there are three common types of spelling error: phonological (errors that are not phonologically plausible such as frist for first), orthographical (errors which are phonologically plausible but not accurate such as gud for good) and morphological (errors which are due to a lack of awareness of morpheme such as trapt for trapped). For phonological errors the Guide suggests explicit teaching of consonant and vowel phonemes, practicing sounding phonemes all the way through words, and focusing on the identification of common digraphs in words. For orthographical errors it suggests looking at the pattern of letters and syllables with words and encouraging automatic recognition of whole words in conjunction with an emphasis on careful decoding and encoding, and for morphological errors it suggests focusing on prefixes, suffixes and root words and learning common rules, for example, most words ending in ‘f’ or ‘fe’ change their plurals to ‘ves’, e.g. ‘half’ to ‘halves’ and ‘knife’ to ‘knives’, and also to explore the relationship between meaning and spelling by looking at etymology (see Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)).
Education consultant, Aidan Severs. has written extensively on spelling (see Spelling (aidansevers.com). He wrote, “One aim of the teaching and learning of spelling is that children's encoding skills become more fluent, thus allowing them to focus more on composition when they are writing. For the same reason, most teachers care about children having good handwriting… in order for children to write interesting, thought-provoking, engaging pieces of writing they need not to be hindered by atroshus poor spelling skills. And if you agree with me up to this point, you'll probably agree that teachers need to do something about the teaching of spelling - for most, the ability to spell well does not come naturally.”
So, while great spelling may not come naturally, and while some children may develop successful strategies to get themselves through weekly spelling tests but not necessarily beyond, the bottom line seems to be that there is no failsafe way of getting children to learn spellings and to remember them accurately so that they can write with fluency once the spelling test has been and gone.
Spellings based on age might seem appropriate, but do they really ensure that each child is able to develop and build on prior knowledge at an appropriate pace? And for learning spellings at home, we tend to make it fun, and for words that just won’t stick, we repeat them over and over again in myriad ways. Is that an approach with technical validity? Repetition works in the short-run; can it work in the long-run with permanent success?
As I eavesdrop from a distance on a Zoom English lesson, I can hear how words that have appeared in my son’s recent spellings are finding their way into his speaking and writing, not always accurately, despite full marks in tests, but connections are being made and I hope in time they will cement themselves. On the issue of whether spellings still matter, I’d have to say, yes. But from the evidence out there and the individual experiences and challenges felt by children, it is clearly a matter of finding a path that works; something that skilled educators have done for centuries.
Find out more…
- Aidan Severs blogs on spellings can be found here: Blog | Aidan Severs Consulting
- EEF Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1: Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)
About the author
Elizabeth Holmes
After graduating with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Reading, Elizabeth Holmes completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London. She then taught humanities and social sciences in schools in London, Oxfordshire and West Sussex, where she ran the history department in a challenging comprehensive. Elizabeth specialises in education but also writes on many other issues and themes. As well as her regular blogs for Eteach and FEjobs, her books have been published by a variety of publishers and translated around the world. Elizabeth has also taught on education courses in HE and presented at national and international conferences.
