IMPROVING SPELLING

IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL (written in 2000)

David Waugh

“Shakespeare himself did not spell the name the same way twice in any of his six
known signatures and even spelled it two ways on one document, his will, which he
signed Shakspere in one place and Shakspeare in another. Curiously the one spelling
he never seemed to use himself was Shakespeare.” (Bryson, 1990, p.116)

Whilst poor spellers may take comfort from the efforts at spelling of England’s most
revered playwright, it is certainly true that, in the twentieth century, poor spelling can
have a detrimental effect upon one’s career prospects. Many employers make no secret
of the fact that they discard application forms which are badly spelled. The heir to the
throne publicly criticised the spelling abilities of his (exclusively privately educated)
staff. Politicians and many journalists tend to associate poor spelling with so-called
trendy teaching methods and paint a picture of declining standards and urge us to get
back to basics.

In this section, some of the approaches to the teaching of spelling which have
traditionally been adopted in schools will be examined, and methods which some
researchers have found to be successful will be discussed.

It is often suggested that the English language has so many idiosyncrasies and
irregularities that accurate spelling is virtually impossible. Raymond Williams, in The
Long Revolution, relates how, when spellings were first fixed in dictionaries, many
spellings were altered “...by men ignorant of their origins, confident of false origins”
(Williams, R, 1961, p.244). ‘Island’, ‘scissors’, ‘scythe’, ‘could’, and ‘anchor’ replaced
‘iland’, ‘sissors’, ‘sithe’, ‘coud’, and ‘ancor’ without affecting pronunciation. However,
similar false alterations such as ‘fault’, ‘vault’, and ‘assault’ (which needed no l’s), and
‘advantage’ and ‘advance’ (which needed no Ds) have perpetuated their errors into both
spelling and pronunciation.

According to the Bullock Report (DES, 1975, p.181) a philologist found that, using all
possible combinations, the word ‘scissors’ might be spelt in 596,580 different ways!
Peters (1970) examined how 1,000 ten-year-olds spelt ‘saucer’ and found that fewer than
half did so correctly and that those who wrote it incorrectly gave 209 different spellings.

However, it is clearly unsatisfactory to point to the anomalies in English spelling and use
these as an excuse for inaccuracies. Many people spell accurately virtually all of the time
and those who do not may be disadvantaged in the world of work. Indeed, despite its
inconsistencies, the English spelling system does have a phonetic base and there are
patterns of letter combinations which are more likely than others and some which are
never found. It is, therefore, possible to teach children how to improve their spelling.
Peters (1975, pp.113-116) suggests that this might be done in three main ways.

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The teaching of word lists
Peters argues that the use of word lists may be counter-productive, since the teacher who
relies upon this method may assume that this is the only spelling teaching needed. She
maintains that, where lists are used, they should be appropriate to the children’s needs
“but extending and divergent” (ibid., p.114).

Word lists need to be compiled thoughtfully if they are to be useful as teaching devices.
Groups of related words might be included, with particular attention being given to those
which are likely to arise in children’s writing in the near future and those with which they
have experienced problems in the past. By relating these words to others with similar
structures, children may learn more about spelling generalisations. It is interesting to
look at the lists devised by Mudd for a class of 8- and 9-year-olds who had been doing
work based on a poem by Roger McGough (1983), First Day at School. The class would
be divided into three ability groups with lists as follows:

Above average
rough, cough, although, though, thought, McGough; photocopy, photocopies,
photocopier, computer, word-processor; excite, excited, excitement.

Average
McGough, rough, cough, thought; scared, arrived, turned; playground, sound, found,
fountain, mountain.

Below average
some, come, home, came, name, same, does, goes, friends, McGough.
(Mudd, 1994, pp.165-166)

Mudd suggests that children might add words of their own choosing to the lists. Her
word groupings are interesting, containing as they do clusters of morphologically related
words as well as others which are presumably included because they will be useful to the
children in the near future.

Schonell’s Essentials in Teaching and Testing Spelling (1957 reprint) included lists of
words based upon the written material of 7- to 12-year-olds. The words were grouped
according to common structures and Schonell believed that homonyms and homophones
should be separated to avoid confusion. Thus new and knew, him and hymn and there
and their each appear in different lists.

If teachers are to use spelling lists and tests it is important that the words not only reflect
the children’s needs, but also broaden their vocabularies. Therefore, a combination of
new (but potentially useful) words and words which arise in children’s work might be
used. As Schonell (1957, p.12) maintained:

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 “The first essential is that children should be taught words which they use frequently
in their written work and that they should not waste time learning words which they
seldom use.”

The development of children’s fascination with words can be fostered through a variety
of classroom activities. Despite criticism of the use of weekly word lists for children to
memorise for tests, many teachers persist with these. However, if used imaginatively,
these lists can provide a valuable learning tool. While it seems that some teachers merely
write the lists on the board and have the children copy them whilst they complete the
dinner register, others talk through the words, explaining meanings and roots and
discussing spelling generalisations which can be made. Dictionaries can be used to find
alternative meanings and sometimes alternative spellings. The lists can provide a starting
point for children to make collections of, say, homonyms and antonyms both in school
and at home with the help of parents.

It is the broadening of knowledge about words which will enable children to develop
their spelling abilities rather than simply the memorising of lists. How often do teachers
complain that children could spell the words in the test, but seem unable to do so a few
days later in their written work? Even if children learned ten spellings each week for
their entire primary school careers they would only learn around 2500, assuming that no
words ever appeared more than once. Estimates of the average vocabularies of different
age groups vary according to source, but, if we accept Bouttell’s (1986) view that by the
age of twelve an average child has a vocabulary of 12000 words, we can see that the
number of words he or she would have learned through spelling lists falls some way short
of this. The need to generalise from knowledge acquired is, therefore, crucial.

The teaching of principles

Learning spelling rules may present problems if the rules are couched in terms which are
beyond the child’s conceptual level. According to Peters, generalisation of probabilities
for spelling may be developed as we become increasingly familiar with the ‘“look of our
language in writing” (Peters, 1975, op cit., p.115). Teachers can point out similarities
between and within words, perhaps beginning with the child’s name. For example Ian
might learn that part of his name features in triangle and Martian. Peters maintains that
the essence of teaching children to spell lies in teaching them how to learn letter strings.

In considering the value of teaching spelling rules, we might ask which rules we actually
know ourselves. Inevitably, when asked this question, people reply, “‘i’ before ‘e’ except
after ‘c’”. This rule has a number of exceptions including their and being, words which
occur frequently in children’s early reading and writing. When asked to give examples of
other spelling rules many people seem to experience some difficulty. However, there are
many rules which, though often not taught explicitly, become internalised in good
spellers. These include the knowledge that English words do not end with ‘i’, or ‘v’
(words in common usage which do so are imports) and an awareness that certain
combinations of letters do not occur in English, for example ‘cz’. Similarly, we may
never have been taught a rule for doubling consonants when adding -ing or -ed, but most
of us are able to apply the ‘rule’ successfully.

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Perhaps one of the greatest problems encountered when teaching spelling rules to
children is the degree of complexity associated with the rules. For example, if we teach
children to double the consonant when adding -ing where verbs contain short vowels we
assume quite a sophisticated knowledge of linguistic terminology on the part of the
pupils. It may well be that by the time this level of knowledge has been acquired the rule
has already been internalised and it is unnecessary to teach it explicitly.

Mudd sums up the problem of teaching spelling rules aptly: “I have found that, though
these rules are generally of great interest to those who are already good spellers, they
need very explicit teaching to be helpful to most novice spellers.” (Mudd, 1994, p.159)
Mudd advocates the teaching of generalisations rather than rules, with exceptions being
pointed out. Gentry, too, sees problems in teaching spelling rules. He suggests that we,
“Teach only the rules that apply to a large number of words, not those that have lots of
exceptions” (Gentry, 1987, p.31). Significantly he does not include the “i before e except
after c” rule in his short list.

Teaching children how to learn to spell

Peters argues that visual perception of word form is crucial to learning how to spell.
Children should, she maintains, be presented with words used in the course of free
writing, supplemented by useful variants and be shown how to learn them by the
following routine: LOOK at the word; SAY the word; COVER the word; WRITE the
word from memory; and CHECK that the word has been written correctly. If the word is
misspelled the process should be repeated.

The evaluation of the first three years of National Curriculum English revealed that
although the look, say, cover, write, check approach was widely used at Key Stage 1, at
Key Stage 2, observers of classroom practice found “no instances” of its use, nor did they
find ‘irregular’ spellings being taught (SCAA, 1994, pp.77-78). Given the prevalence of
this method in text books and educational articles, this is a surprising finding.

Children need to develop a range of strategies for spelling just as they require a variety of
approaches to deciphering new words in their reading. One approach to spelling might
be to sound out the word using phonic knowledge to determine the likely structure of the
word. However, the inconsistencies of the English language limit the likelihood of
achieving success. For example, a child may wish to spell the word rain. He may well
have encountered a number of words which have the same vowel sound (pane, pain,
reign, champagne) and will need to decide which to use. In addition, he will need to
know when this strategy is appropriate and when it is unlikely to work. As Mudd
argued, “...’sounding out’ usually only works effectively if one knows the spelling
alternatives to be selected for particular words; for example, the good speller knows that
‘once’ may not be sounded out to produce the correct spelling, whereas he or she knows
that ‘went’ may be successfully sounded out.” (Mudd, 1994, p.138)

Goswami and Bryant (1990, p.53) have similar reservations when they maintain:

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 “Children’s invented spelling is often wrong because they seem to be using a
phonological code too literally when they spell. This of course is not really a surprise,
because it is impossible to spell English properly just on the basis of letter-sound
relationships. No one who relies just on a phonological code will ever spell ‘laugh’,
‘ache’, or even ‘have’ properly.”

However, the intelligent use of sounding out can help children to maintain the flow of
their writing before checking spellings and seeking assistance from the teacher. The
resultant misspellings can be taught and the reasons for the discrepancies between the
child’s attempts and the actual spellings explained. We all have oral vocabularies which
exceed our spelling vocabularies, but if children are encouraged to draw upon their oral
vocabularies without fear of reproach, safe in the knowledge that an understanding
teacher will help them to spell the words with which they have tried to enliven their
writing, they will be more eager to experiment and to broaden their spelling vocabularies.

Cripps (1978, p.7) suggests that associative learning strategies might be used to help
children to learn new words. These might include breaking words into shorter words and
learning them in parts (he gives examples of conscience being taught via science and
shoulder via should ). These techniques can, according to Cripps, also be supplemented
by the use of mnemonics such as The child would be an ‘ass ‘to spell occasion with a
double ‘s’. An examination of the words listed below, which frequently present
problems even to sophisticated spellers, might lead to the consideration of possible
associative techniques or mnemonics. In considering ways of learning the spellings it
may be useful to think most carefully about the most troublesome parts of each word. Is
it necessary to find a strategy for learning the whole word or are there parts which we
would always get right? Can we concentrate on part of the word?

supersede accommodation liaison correspondence embarrass

separate Mediterranean harass idiosyncrasy graffiti

One aspect of learning to spell, which has perhaps been neglected until recently, is the
investigation of words by children. The emphasis on knowledge about language in the
National Curriculum English documents has probably served to revive this.

While the grammar exercise books which were widely used until perhaps thirty years ago
seem dull and boring today, they did often provide lists of similes, synonyms,
homonyms, antonyms, collective nouns and so forth which induced a fascination for
words in some readers (the present author, at least!). I have made use of these lists to
encourage children to think about vocabulary. They have enthusiastically devised their
own collective nouns after reading and giggling over those in MacIver’s, The New First
Aid in English (MacIver, undated, pp.19-20). A crawl of caravans was apparently

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inspired by a long journey from the South of France by one pupil, while others came up
with a grumble of teachers, an irritation of younger brothers and sisters, and a defeat of
English footballers. In looking at the examples provided, the children were exploring
spelling and making use of dictionaries both to look up unfamiliar words and to find new
ones for their own use.

Peters maintains that handwriting can be a vital factor in influencing good spelling and
argues that the teaching of groups of letters through joined script reinforces the child’s
concept of the serial probability of letters within words. She argued that:

“There is no question that children with swift motor control write groups of letters...in
a connected form and this is the basis of knowledge about which letters stick together.
This is the crux of spelling ability, for handwriting and spelling go hand in hand.”
(Peters, 1985, p.55)

It will be interesting to see if the increasing number of schools which have begun to teach
joined handwriting at Key Stage 1 (cynics might argue that this is often a response to the
Standard Assessment Tasks rather than a move based on sound educational thinking)
discover that standards of spelling improve.

The notion that children’s spelling abilities improve as their reading improves is
challenged by Carless. She maintains that spelling and reading are quite different skills
and points out that fluent readers are sometimes very weak at spelling:

“A fluent reader will use semantic, syntactic and graphophonic cues in order to read
words. However, he does not need to look consciously at every word, as a swift reader
uses only partial cues to gain meaning, and so is highly unlikely to use all cues
available to him at once.” (in Pinsent (ed.), 1989, p.16)

Carless goes on to quote Todd’s view that “reading allows for intelligent guess work
from clues already on the printed page and from the child’s knowledge of language, but
guesswork is of little help in spelling” (Todd, 1982). Thus mistakes in reading, providing
they do not alter the sense of a passage, are relatively unimportant whilst a spelling
mistake reflects the writer’s skill in using language. Uta Frith (1980) studied good
readers who were poor spellers and found that the majority of their errors were phonetic
misspellings caused by a lack of close attention to the text “in order to assimilate serial
probability” (as described by Carless. p.17).

Although Carless concedes that reading must have some influence upon spelling, she
argues that spelling cannot be ‘caught’ through reading and writing activities alone and
must, therefore, have a place in the primary school curriculum.

Classroom Activities Designed to Foster Good Spelling

The creation of a literate environment in which children can develop language skills is
frequently one of the goals of the school language policies which I am often asked to
read. These documents tend to refer to a range of possibilities and it is the ideas derived

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from them, together with those of Carless (op.cit.) and Mudd (op.cit), and those which I
used during my fourteen years as a classroom teacher and my subsequent visits to
hundreds of primary classrooms as a teacher-trainer, which I have used in this section.
My visits to schools have been particularly revealing where spelling is concerned.
Children of the same age in different schools often have widely differing spelling
abilities, even when there appears to be no immediately obvious explanation such as the
school’s catchment area or the intelligence of the pupils. Indeed, I have also noticed
significantly different abilities and attitudes to spelling between classes within the same
school. Those classes which performed well tended to be characterised by their having a
teacher who took a keen interest in spelling and who made efforts to foster the children’s
interest in words and their structures. The children generally seemed to want to write
accurately, but were prepared to experiment knowing that their teacher would praise good
attempts at spelling. Spelling aids were usually readily available and the children, even
in some cases at Key Stage 1, made extensive use of dictionaries and thesauruses without
prompting.

Set out below are some of the activities which might be features of successful literate
classrooms. The age group of the children for which each activity might best be suited is
deliberately not suggested, since abilities vary greatly within classes and some activities
normally designed for younger children might be appropriate for older strugglers while
others, usually the preserve of older pupils, may be adapted for use with able youngsters.

Games which highlight sounds and letter strings

I-spy, rhyming games, tongue-twisters and work on alliteration all emphasise word
relationships. A particularly successful and amusing activity encouraged the children to
create their own spoonerisms beginning with their names. The children began to realise
that some names were more difficult than others because of the presence of letter and
sound combinations which do not feature in English.

Developing an interest in letters and words

Children can create collages of letters, make pastry letters, create patterns using groups of
letters, trace letters in sand or cut letters out of newspapers to make sentences (like
ransom notes). One teacher encouraged the children to add to her list of what she called
silly words (those which were irregular) and to find others which were called easy words.
Children can make collections of foreign words seen in shops and on television and can
be encouraged to look for deliberate misspellings on household products and businesses
(Kwikfit, Weetabix, Betabuy etc.).

The use of ‘Breakthrough to Literacy’

Breakthrough, though it has its critics, can facilitate early writing and may be used to
help children to recognise words which they need to use frequently. I have seen the
materials used imaginatively as aids to topic work with the folders acting as word banks
for children to draw upon when writing, using the look, cover, write, check approach.
The word building materials provide morphemes which can easily be shown in the
context of whole words so that children may see the function of letters, blends and
digraphs.

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Emergent Writing
Where children’s early attempts at writing are valued they seem more ready to attempt
spellings as they develop more sophisticated skills. Emergent writing can provide the
platform for teachers to introduce correct spellings and letter formation and can also
allow children to create their own reading material and begin to understand the function
of print.

The use of ‘environmental print’

Many teachers take children on literacy walks encouraging them to look at signs and
symbols in the environment. I have made use of photographs and slides to show the
proliferation of literature which exists all around us.

The use of dictionaries and thesauruses

In successful classrooms these are readily available and children are shown how to use
them. Teachers select dictionaries appropriate for their pupils and there is always a large
and more comprehensive version available for looking up words which do not feature in
the children’s dictionaries. There are many thesauruses available which are suitable for
use in primary classrooms and I have seen children become so absorbed in them that they
have gone off at tangents looking up several words as their interest grew. It is important
that children understand alphabetical order as early as possible if they are to be able to
use reference books successfully and without frustration.

The development of drafting techniques

For many teachers drafting involves the children writing a piece of work, having it
marked, and then copying it out. In classrooms where children are encouraged to develop
independence in drafting and see the teacher as an audience for their writing rather than
merely the marker of their work, writing tends to be more adventurous and better
presented. Children need to learn how to check their work. For some, being told to do
this leads to confusion, while for others it is an intrinsic part of writing which fosters
careful consideration of word structures and reference skills.

The use of word processors

The word processor enables the writer to amend and adapt work easily and produces print
in which, in my experience, children find it easier to spot their spelling mistakes than in
handwriting. Spell checkers can be useful, but children should be encouraged to use
them with caution (my own refuses to accept headteacher, offering the peculiarly apt
heartache as an alternative). The poem below, the source of which I have been unable to
trace, might serve as a warning and stimulate an interest in homonyms and homophones:

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 We have a spelling checker
It came with hour PC
It planely marks for our revue
Mistakes we cannot sea
Weave run this poem threw it
Wear shore your please to no
Its letter perfect in it’s way
Our chequer told us sew.

The Writing Session

For many teachers a writing session is a stressful occasion in which little time is available
for sitting with children discussing their work. Often, this situation could easily be
avoided. For example, the excessive use of personal spelling dictionaries tends to create
a dependency culture in which children become over-reliant upon their teachers for help
with every word which they do not feel completely confident of spelling correctly. Some
teachers encourage this by telling children that they expect accurate work first time with
no spelling mistakes. Besides being an unreasonable demand to make of young children,
this also negates much of what the writing process is really like for adults as well as for
children. Most adults draft important pieces of writing and try out spellings by writing
them down to see if they look right. Alternatively they continue their writing and then
check spellings at the end or when they reach a natural break.

Children in classes where the spelling book rules tend, in my experience, to produce
stilted and unimaginative work and actually do not spell as well as those who are
encouraged to attempt spellings and then check them. For some children the spelling
dictionary provides an excuse to stop work and join the queue which inevitably follows
the teacher ‘pied piper’ fashion around the room. Often, children reach the front of the
queue and have forgotten which word they were going to ask for or have not opened the
book at the right page.

If one argues against the use of spelling books in this way one may be accused of
devaluing spelling, but this is far from the case. In one of the National Writing Project’s
publications, Responding to Assessing Writing, a teacher describes how she refused to
help children with spellings and encouraged them to have a go. After some initial
reluctance, the children accepted the approach and the teacher reported:

“What has surprised me most is that this approach has actually led to a marked
improvement in the children’s spelling. I did not realise just how well they could spell
without my aid. I now feel I was holding them back and not giving them the
confidence they needed to attempt their own spellings. They had more experience and
knowledge than they or I had realised. It is especially significant that this
improvement was seen in the majority of children, representing a wide range of
abilities.” (p.15)

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It is this independence, allied to a programme of teaching spelling in a systematic way,
which, I am confident, serves children best and allows teachers time to spend with
children discussing writing and keeping them on task.

An alternative way in which individual children’s spelling might be monitored and

developed is through the use of spelling cards. Each child has a card which is kept on
the teacher’s desk or in some easily accessible place. Whenever a child has a word
corrected by the teacher, or asks for help with a spelling, the word is written on the card
by the teacher. The child looks carefully at the word and then returns to his or her place
and tries to write the word correctly. He or she then checks that the word is written
correctly and, if it is not, repeats the exercise. The cards are regularly given out to the
children and they spend time looking closely at the words before being tested on them by
classmates. Each child builds up a store of words which he or she uses regularly and
which can be referred to whenever necessary using the look, cover, write, check method.
The words may be copied, by the children, into personal dictionaries for easy reference.
This method has the advantage of being an individual approach to spelling and it does not
preclude the use of other spelling lists or tests. Children can achieve success at their own
levels and testing is less stressful when carried out individually rather than in a whole-
class situation.

Discussion
Spelling is a major area of concern for employers, politicians, parents, teachers and
children. It is not acceptable now, if indeed it has been at any time since Johnson
produced the Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, to disregard the need for
children to spell in the ways accepted as standard in English. However, in teaching
accurate spelling, teachers need not revert to dull drills and mundane exercises. There is
a variety of ways of developing children’s spelling and of encouraging their interest in
words and their structure. Success in spelling need not be achieved at the expense of
creativity and imaginative writing. Rather, it can be achieved through both systematic
teaching and the encouragement of experimentation. As Carty (1992, p.22) wrote:

“We must always remember that the goal of spelling instruction should be to develop
the ability of children to communicate their thoughts and ideas to others. It must not,
therefore, be seen as an end in itself”

Most importantly we should, as teachers, adopt a positive approach to the teaching of

spelling. Children need to see the importance of accurate spelling, whilst at the same
time feeling that mistakes are to be learned from rather than to be punished. Many
accomplished people experienced great difficulty in spelling. President Andrew
Jackson, a poor speller, maintained: “It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one
way to spell a word!” As teachers, we need to develop the sensitivity to know when it is
important to use errors as teaching tools and when to show tolerance of mistakes which,
if highlighted, might deter future attempts at writing.

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References
Bouttell, J The Guardian, 1986, cited in Crystal, D, 1990, The English Language,
Penguin.
Bryson, B (1990) Mother Tongue, Penguin, London.
Carless, S (1989) ‘Spelling in the Primary School Curriculum’, in Pinsent, P (ed) (1989)
Spotlight on Spelling, A B Academic, Bicester.
Carty, G (1992) Spelling: Conversations for change, Reading, vol.26, no.2.
Cripps, C (1978) Catchwords: Ideas for Teaching Spelling, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Group, Australia.
DES (1975) A language for life, HMSO, London.
DES/WO (1990) English in the National Curriculum, HMSO, London.
Frith, U (Ed.) (1980) Cognitive Processes in Spelling, Academic Press, London.
Gentry, J R (1987 Spel...Is A Four-Letter Word, Scholastic, Leamington Spa.
Goswami, U and Bryant, P (1990) Phonological Skills and Learning to Read, Lawrence
Erlbaum, Hove.
Maciver, A (no date) The New First Aid in English, Robert Gibson, Glasgow.
Mudd, N (1994) Effective Spelling, Hodder and Stoughton, London.
National Writing Project, Responding to and assessing writing, Nelson, Walton-on-
Thames.
Peters, M L (1970) Success in Spelling, Cambridge Institute, Cambridge.
Peters, M L (1975) 'Spelling - further thoughts', Education 3-13, vol.3, no.1.
Peters, M L (1985) Spelling: Caught or Taught? (A New Look) Routledge and Kegan
Paul, London.
Schonell, F J (1957) Essentials in Teaching and Testing Spelling, Macmillan,
Basingstoke.
SCAA (1994) Evaluation of the Implementation of English in the National Curriculum
at Key Stages 1,2 and 3 (1991-1993), SCAA, London.
Todd, J (1982) Learning to Spell, Blackwell, Oxford.
Williams, R (1965) The Long Revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

How well can you spell?

Which of the words below are spelled correctly? Can you correct the mistakes? Look up
the words in a dictionary to see if you were correct.

enviroment occassional aggressive paralell liason

concede supercede embarass acquisition definately

reccommend prehaps impostor intresting acommodation

beautifull skillfull separate pavillion appraisal

alot thankyou alright potatoe benefitted

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