Promoting spelling in education by HSR Psychology

Spelling strategies Dr. Rachael King

Educational and Child Psychologist

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Outline •What does the research say? •Spelling strategies •Reflective Spelling Group •Technology •Evidence-based interventions •Apps

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Spelling • The acquisition of literacy skills can greatly influence educational, vocational and life progress. • Limited research in how to learn word level literacy skills. • The National Curriculum that children follow in English primary schools places great emphasis on correct spelling. • Spelling ability impacts on other literacy skills, particularly writing. Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

A few facts …. • Spelling problems have been around since spelling started. • Spelling has been and continues to be endlessly assessed. • Spelling is a gradual process and different children learn at different rates.

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Spelling in the National Curriculum 2014

• A great deal of emphasis on correct spelling • A mixture of statutory and non-statutory word lists for different year groups • Spelling is assessed in Year 2 and Year 6 • Strong spelling is also a significant aspect of writing

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

What does the research tell us? ‘This research shows that children’s rates of acquiring spellings can be much enhanced by simply applied individual learning strategies used within their usual English and spelling programmes.’ (Brooks & Weeks, 1999)

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

What does the research tell us? • Schemes for children who struggle with spelling work best when highly structured. Implication: Children with spelling problems need schemes tailored to their preferred ways of learning and delivered systematically ‘little and often’. Such schemes work particularly well for enabling children to grasp relatively regular patterns of spelling. Brooks (2016) Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Reflection task – Spelling strategies

• Brainstorm in small groups the spelling strategies you currently teach to your pupils • Which strategies do you think are the most effective?

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Teaching strategies Strategies in each of these areas need to be explicitly taught Phonological strategies : how words SOUND Visual strategies: how words LOOK Morphemic strategies: the MEANING of words and how words can be CHANGED Etymology based strategies: the ORIGINS of words Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Spelling strategies Spelling strategies tend to fall into the following areas and an exploration of strategies needs to include a variety of each. • Phonemic awareness - a strategy to help students understand lettersound correspondence and the individual parts that make up words • Morphological awareness - understanding/recognizing similar chunks in words, word families, and word parts • Whole-word approach - memorising the spelling of a word without needing to understand the individual parts that make up the word • The rule-based strategy - teaching explicit spelling rules • Multi-modal teaching - which allows students to learn information through a variety of modes (e.g., seeing, feeling, hearing, creating).

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Margin Spelling (Hoyt & Therriault, 2008) My tenth birthday was quite an occassion. All of my family and freinds came and each came with a spectackulare gift for me. It was amazing to habe all the peepole I loved at my party. Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

occasion ocassion friends

spectaculare spectacular have people pepole Follow us @hsrpsychology

Explore Patterns—Spelling Inquiry Workshop

• Prep: Students keep track of difficult words or interesting words • Have a student share • Have class generate a list of words with the same _______________ • Make connections, find patterns

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Rules • According to Sandra Wilde, four spelling rules regular enough to be taught • ie/ei • Dropping e before suffixes • Changing y to I before suffixes • Doubling consonants before suffixes Wilde (1992) Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Student Word Lists • Short • Individualized • Evolving

My Word List • have • friend • occasion • their • there • they’re

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Individual spelling styles 10 key strategies : • Neurolinguistic Programming • Onset-Rime • Look-Cover-Write-Check • Own-Voice • Tracing

• • • • •

Simultaneous Oral Spelling Picture Association Mnemonics Phonics Look-Say (Brooks & Weeks, 1999)

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Reflective Spelling Group • 30 minutes a week • Introduce a strategy a week • Each pupil have a spelling strategy book – outline of strategy, space to practice, space for reflection • Use strategy at home and school for the week • Check in, individual reflection on strategy • Rank strategies (retain or reject) • Promotion of reading • Home – school involvement (bring book from home/get adult at home to give mnemonic) • Aim: individualised bank of strategies shared and encouraged with home and school staff Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Spelling Strategies • Generate a list • Monitor strategies

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Strategies for Spelling •Mnemonic devices •Copy cover check •Use a dictionary • Doublet spelling • Air spelling • Scratchpad • • •

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;As a laid back dude said to me, sitting on our respective surfboards outside the break, if you find a board that works for you don't look for something else. The waves don't change, they just keep rolling in.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

(EP, anon) Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Technology â&#x20AC;˘ Given the advances in technology, will spelling really matter at all? Reader Pen Speech to text/Text to speech Spellcheck Integrated dictionary Google tools Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

“Candidate for a Pullet Surprise” by Jerrold H. Zar I have a spelling checker. It came with my PC. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot sea. Eye ran this poem threw it, Your sure reel glad two no. Its vary polished in it’s weigh. My checker tolled me sew. Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Visit: www.hsrpsychology

Supporting KS1 • Phonics! - Matching phoneme to grapheme - Using ‘Sounding out’ - Phonic Spelling Dictionary https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/019273413X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&cr eative=6738&creativeASIN=019273413X&linkCode=as2&tag=oxfowl-21

- Play spelling games – hang man, boggle https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/kids-activities/games--1/

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Supporting KS2 Explore patterns and link to phonics Over pronunciation Individualised wordlists or dictionary Highlight tricky middle sounds Games with spelling – use colour, shape, multisensory methods • National Literacy Strategy Spelling Journals • Introduce spelling strategies • Reflect on what works, and encourage continuation • • • • •

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

KS3 and beyond • Review and share individualised spelling strategy list • Assistive Technology (AT) • Watch this space (need for more research)

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Evidence-based interventions • Acceleread Accelewrite www.dyslexic.com/acceleread • A.R.R.O.W (Aural-Read-Respond-Oral-Write) drcolinlane@yahoo.co.uk

• Cued Spelling

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/eswce/research/projects/readon/resourcesforteachers/

• Lexia http://www.lexiauk.co.uk/ • The complete spelling programme spgb12@yahoo.com • THRASS – particularly for secondary age www.thrass.co.uk https://www.helenarkell.org.uk/documents/files/What-works-for-children-and-young-people-withliteracy-difficulties-5th-edition.pdf

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

Apps There are lots, not evidence-based but another modality to use introduced strategies: • Mr.Thorne’s Spellbook (test based) • Spelling Shed (home and school) • Twinkl Spellpop (HFW and common words) • Spelling Whizz (look-say-cover-write-check) • Spelling Monster (game based) • Your Spelling (KS1 and 2) Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

References Brooks, P., & Weeks, S. (1999). Individual Styles in Learning to Spell: improving spelling in children with literacy difficulties and all children in mainstream schools. Brooks, G. (2013). What works for children and young people with literacy difficulties. The effectiveness of intervention schemes. http://www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk/media/downloads/49-greg-brooks-what-works-for-

(download only) Wilde, S. (1992). You kan red this!: Spelling and punctuation for whole language classrooms, K-6. Heinemann Educational Books. children-and-young-people-with-literacy-difficulties.pdf

http://www.iansyst.co.uk/technology/iansyst's-product-innovations/acceleread-accelewrite https://www.ldatschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ATchartENG.jpg

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk

The End

Thanks for listening!

Visit: www.hsrpsychology.co.uk