Written for The Chartered College of Teaching to Support my Workshop on Supporting Poor Spelling through Assessment at the #ThirdSpace Conference in Bristol 04.11.2017

‘Spelling is an area of concern for Billy. He can spell single letter sounds now on an oral cue (i.e. sound to symbol) although he does confuse some similar sounding letters such as j/g and b/d. He can also spell some two and three letter regular words from a list of the ‘hundred most used words’ including some high frequency irregular words such as like, but he finds spelling any other irregular unknown words very difficult, and uses phonetic approximations for example, said (sed) and what (wot). This is particularly obvious when Billy is writing independently and this has the effect of slowing down his creative thought processes resulting in frustration and upset. It also means that his finished written text is often difficult to read or decipher by either Billy or his teacher/parent’

(Diagnostic Assessment BA, November 2015)

Billy is not in year one, he is ten years old and in year five of a mainstream school. The diagnostic report in describing what Billy cannot do in terms of spelling highlights that for his age he has a significant spelling difficulty and his teacher is concerned. Billy is simply frustrated and cannot understand why he cannot spell well, like his friends.

To a good speller, poor spelling can be one of the most striking elements of a handwritten piece of writing; a piece of writing containing multiple spelling errors can distract from the content and mistakenly convey an image of the writer as being less capable than their peers. Commonly, the ability to spell has often been linked to ‘signs of intelligence’ as survey undertaken by the Telegraph newspaper found (The Telegraph, 2014) and not only that but half of the respondents reported that they misspelled familiar words they also admitted that they judged others on their poor spelling. Judgments about poor spelling are not unique to readers of the Telegraph though. Advice given by the website, The Undercover Recruiter, suggests that poor spelling can limit opportunities in the workplace and can be the difference between being offered a job interview or receiving a letter of rejection.

Due to the rise in mobile devices less hand-written material is being produced, however spelling errors are still being made. Poor spelling is not being eradicated by spell checkers or predictive text programmes which can be ineffective as they fail to recognise misspelt words. Locating the correct spellings for a word such as amanuensis, for example, is a challenge if the speller is unable to identify the first few letters correctly.

Electronic spelling aids if mastered can be useful, but if there is little difference between them and using a dictionary where there is the same reliance on knowledge of the English sound system., then they are equally useless. Ultimately if the speller is unaware what the correct spelling should be, they may not recognise it when the doy see it and therefore select one which is out of context and incorrect.

Most children learn to spell without incident and good spellers develop a range of strategies, which help and support them to recognise the words they want and need, which they can apply to the spelling of unknown words or use to learn new unfamiliar word, techniques such as

• Chunking the component parts of a words
• Sounding out a word out phonically
• Breaking a word into syllables
• Breaking a word into morphemes
• Using knowledge of existing known patterns or knowledge of word families.
• Applying knowledge of morphology
• Using known spelling rules
• Recognising words within words
• Knowledge of similar letter strings
• Making use of mnemonics
• Remembering a critical feature

Poor Spellers, like Billy, will have struggled to acquire these skills and one suggestion might be that he, and others like him, have not moved as quickly through a continuum of spelling development as their peers. A continuum model such as the one proposed by Rees and Rivalland (1997) could suggest that Billy is functioning at a semi phonetic stage of spelling development and a revision of an earlier stage of the continuum which would be recognisable in Key Stage one is required.

Stage of the Continuum	Key Indicators (Rees and Rivalland, 1997)
Preliminary	Uses writing like symbols to represent written language Uses known letters or approximations of letters to represent written language
Semi Phonetic	Uses left to right and top to bottom orientation of print Relies on sounds which are most obvious to him or her Represents whole word with one, two or three letters. Uses mainly consonants.
Phonetic	Chooses letters based on the sound without regard for conventional spelling patterns Sounds out and represents all substantial sounds in a word Develops spelling for certain sounds often using self -formulated rules
Transitional	Uses letters to represent all vowel and consonant sounds in a word, placing vowels in every syllable Beginning to use letter patterns and critical features of words
Independent	Uses a multi strategy approach and has the ability to recognise when a word doesn’t look right. Will have accumulated a large bank of words which can be automatically recalled

 

The National Curriculum (2014) recognises a continuum of spelling development, but has placed it within age defined stages. For spelling, Billy would be assessed as not meeting age related expectations, but Billy needs additional intervention to support his spelling development, and for it to be effective, the intervention needs to match the assessment of what he can and cannot do.

Spelling difficulties, such as Billy’s could be assessed in two ways, and then thoroughly analysed. Firstly, through a standardised spelling test, with a test such as The Single Word Spelling Test (SWST) which is a common choice for a diagnostic assessment, and then secondly within the context of a written piece of work.

Both the standardised test and spelling within context can help identify the types of spelling errors being made and highlight which groups or errors can be re- taught (see table below for some suggestions). Spelling in context is particularly important as it can show which words are used frequently by the speller, as poor spellers can often avoid words they cannot spell and use alternative words instead.

 

Millstone	Name	Example
1	The impossible trigram	Cwiyatly for quiety
2.	Misrepresentation of sound	Cet for get & cot for cut
3	The wrong boundaries	a-another or halfanhour
4.	Wrong Syllabification	Sundly for suddenly and rember for remember
5.	Inconsistent spelling	Same word spelt in different ways on the same page
6.	Wrong letter doubled	Eeg for egg and beel for bell
7.	Mistaken recall of order	All the letters have been written but in an incorrect order
8.	False match for the order	Sitser for sister
9.	Omission for one or more sounding letters	Amt for amount
10	Duplication of one or more sounding letters	Piyole for pile
11	Phonetic attempt misfired	Yuwer for your
12	The instructive vowel	Miy-yils for miles
13	b-d substitution	Bady for baby

 

(Miles, 1993, summarised by Ott, 1997, p.104 – 106)

As well as a targeted spelling intervention, reasonable adjustments will be needed in the classroom, to reduce stress and support the writing process. These suggestions were made for Billy as a result of his diagnostic assessment and might help other poor spellers:

• Don’t always mark for spelling, mark for content only
• If a piece of work is marked in a pupil’s absence, mark in two colours, one for content and one for spelling and presentation
• Use pictures as a precursor to writing, rather than a follow up
• Scribe when longer pieces of writing are required so that vocabulary can be experimented with and spelling is not the focus of the task
• Teach word processing skills and use as often as possible, so that use of a spellchecker can be developed. In external examinations, for example GCSE, access arrangements can be requested where pupils can type their responses, for poor spellers this could be a valuable skill to develop and may help them make less errors
• Use charts and diagrams rather than writing directly on to plain pieces of paper
• Redrafting and correcting a pupil’s own, other pupil’s work or a fictional piece of work
• Create individual activities such as bingo, tracking activities and sorting (correct and incorrect words) which can be played as games and are personalised for the pupil
• Develop a set of class mnemonics for subject specific words and/or an independent list
• Limit copying from boards, as this can lead to miscopying and errors

There may be many pupils like Billy and although it should be acknowledged that their poor spelling might be an indicator of other learning difficulties, it may be simply that they need additional and different support with this one aspect of their learning.

By assessing using a continuum of development rather than an age related one, and then developing a suitable intervention with some classroom reasonable adjustments Billy may in the future be considered in the half of Britons who can spell common words when The Telegraph next asks.

 

References

Daily Telegraph (2014) Half of Britons can’t spell common words Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11142501/Half-of-Britons-cant-spell-common-words.html

Department of Education (2014) Statutory Guidance: National Curriculum in English: English Programmes of Study https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study

Miles, T, R (1993) Dyslexia – The Pattern of Difficulties, Whurr Publishers Ltd, London

Ott, P (1997) How to Detect and Manage Dyslexia – A Reference & Resource Manual, Heinemann, Oxford

Rees, D and Rivalland, J (1997) Spelling- Developmental Continuum, Rigby Heinemann (on behalf of the Education Department of Western Australia) Melbourne, Australia

Single Word Spelling Test (SWST) GL Assessment https://www.gl-assessment.co.uk/products/single-word-spelling-test-swst/

Undercover recruiter (2016) Why Spelling and Grammar can ruin your job hunt Available at http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/spelling-grammar-ruining-job-hunt/

 

More information about diagnostic assessment can be found on the British Dyslexia Association (BDA) website

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexic/getting-an-assessment-for-dyslexia