Common Misconceptions about Spelling 

Spelling, also called encoding, involves taking a spoken word and turning it into a written word. There are several frequently occurring misconceptions about spelling, one of which is the assumption that spelling is mainly a visual skill. In fact, spelling is primarily a language-based skill as opposed to a visual one. As such, difficulties with spelling derive from “language learning weaknesses rather than [being] a visually based problem” (IDA, 2020). Second, contrary to popular belief, the English writing system is predictable. Close to 50% of words conform completely to regular sound-letter relationships, 37% more are regular except for a single sound, and “[o]nly 4% of English words are truly irregular” (IDA, 2020). 

Why is Spelling Hard?

Spelling in English is challenging, in part, because the English writing system is morphophonemic. This means that the letter patterns (orthography) represent two types of information: sound information (phonology) and meaning information (morphology). For example, in the word heal, each of the 3 sounds is represented by 4 letters (/h/ as h, /ē/ as ea, /l/ as l). However, in the related word health, while you still see the letters spelling heal, there is no /ē/ sound in health. In other words, health preserves meaning (morphology) in its spelling (i.e., the verb “heal” and the noun “health” both relate to not being sick) despite the change in pronunciation (phonology). 

Spelling: Connections to Reading

Spelling instruction is important because of its strong link to reading. Educational research highlights that the skills of reading and spelling are very closely connected and require an understanding of the same basic language skills, such as knowing that sounds are represented by letters. In her book titled: Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World, Catherine Snow says, “Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for fluent reading” (2005, p. 86). Similarly, Louisa Moats (2005) writes that teaching spelling can deepen and support the reading and writing skills of students of all ages. She explains that “[t]he benefits go well beyond good spelling: For young children, research clearly indicates that spelling supports learning to read […]” (Moats, 2005, p. 42). For instance, when learning to spell words with r-controlled vowels (e.g., ar), students may practice feeling the way the /ar/ sound is produced in the mouth, connecting that sound to the associated letter pattern (e.g., /ar/ is represented by the letters ar), and identifying the sound in context to accurately spell out whole words (e.g., hearing the word “farm,” identifying the sounds /f/-/ar/-/m/, and then writing the letters f-ar-m to spell the word “farm”). Through this spelling practice, students are reinforcing the connections between sounds and letter patterns that are also essential for accurate word reading (Moats, 2022, p. 67). 

Additionally, given that reading and spelling are closely linked, students’ spelling errors can serve as a window into their reading challenges. As such, spelling is a valuable diagnostic tool for understanding a student’s strengths and weaknesses with reading as well as spelling.

Spelling: Connections to Writing

Beyond its connection to reading, spelling is also a foundational writing skill. According to Seymour and colleagues (2024), a student’s spelling skills have consequences for their written expression abilities. Poor spelling is linked to decreased writing fluency (p. 5). Poor spelling may also reduce the diversity of words students choose to include in their written compositions. More interesting and advanced vocabulary words such as optimistic or ecstatic may be replaced with basic words like happy or good because they are easier to spell, and this may “impact the message [students] are trying to convey” in their writing (p. 5). 

Spelling Difficulties and Dyslexia

A discussion of dyslexia often brings to mind challenges with reading, specifically challenges with decoding unfamiliar words. However, individuals with dyslexia frequently have challenges with spelling words as well (IDA, 2020). Thus, providing explicit, quality spelling instruction is especially important for this population. While technological innovations (e.g., spellcheck) can support students with dyslexia, these workarounds are not always sufficient (Mather & Wendling, 2024, p. 145). Moats (2005) describes a study in which “spell checkers identified the target word from the misspellings of students with learning disabilities only 53 percent of the time.” A student with dyslexia may struggle to choose the correct spelling of a word given the options provided by a spell-check software, or they might “not produce the close approximations of target words necessary for the spell checker to suggest the right word” (Moats, 2005). For example, students with dyslexia often present with weak phonemic awareness skills, which may translate into spelling errors where sounds are substituted or omitted within spellings. Spelling the word “sprint” without the /p/ or /n/ sound leaves srit which spellcheck will likely be unable to correct. 

References

International Dyslexia Association (IDA). (2020). Spelling. https://dyslexiaida.org/spelling-2/

Mather, M. & Wendling, B.J. (2024). Essentials of dyslexia assessment and intervention (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Moats, L. C. (2005). How Spelling Supports Reading And Why It Is More Regular and Predictable Than You May Think. Retrieved October 17, 2019, from https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Moats.pdf

Moats, L. (2022). Structured language interventions for spelling. In L. Spear-Swerling (Ed.), Structured literacy interventions: Teaching students with reading difficulties, grades K-6 (pp. 67-94). The Guilford Press.

Seymour, T.M., Pittman, R.T., Binks-Cantrell, E. & Joshi, R.M. (2024 Sept/Oct). The case for the inclusion of spelling in early literacy assessments. The Reading League Journal, 5(3), 5-11. 

Snow, C. E., Griffin, P., & Burns, M. S. (2007). Knowledge to support the teaching of reading: preparing teachers for a changing world. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Spear-Swerling, L. (n.d.). Spelling and students with learning disabilities. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/learning-disabilities/articles/spelling-and-students-learning-disabilities