preprint2-jsss.htm   Preprint 1b  JSSS   No. 33  1/2004   1a•1b•2•3•4•5•6•7•8•9•10

 Journal of the
 Simplified Spelling Society
   Back issues found at www.spellingsociety.org

This is a draft of an article to appear in the forthcoming Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society (J-33) edited by
Dr. Steve Bett.  stbett@yahoo.com Please send in comments and critiques

sss button
www.foolswisdom.com/spelcon.htm

  C O N T E N T S
  • 1.  Review of Fonetik and THRASS by Steve Bett
  • 1b. Is spelling still important  RI Schools
  • 2.  Learning to Read & Write in Macedonia- P. Mitre
  • 3.  Valerie Yule on..Hard Spell (radio interview)
  • 4.  International Conference - spelcon.htm
  • 5.   - Valerie Yule
  • 6.  Can we make anti-phonetic spelling unfashionable?
  • 7.  World English spelling  - Paul Mitrevski
  • 8.  A Phonetic Code for Teaching English -Laubach
  • 9.  Book Review: by John Gledhill
         Understanding English Spelling by Masha Bell
  • 10

Steve Bett
 Five ways to spell in English?
  The ability to produce decipherable invented spellings is still important 
08/10/2005

Dictionary Key spelling.  One symbol per sound with a minimum of 36 distinctive uncombined sounds.

InterCap-Notation - An example of an ASCII Dictionary key with Caps used as the diacritic.

  MixedCase notations are typographically challenged and difficult to read as word-signs.  The notation, however, can be easily read as strings of sound signs.  This notation is based on the on-line Webster notation which uses & for schwa and uh, and AEIOU for the long vowels. Short vowel letters represent short vowels.

.d& HQT&ST DA &V d& S&M&R SO FqR W&Z DRoyn Tu & CLOZ aND & DRawZy SIL&NS LA OV&R [OVr] d& LaRJ, SKWer HawZ&Z &V *PRiVeT *DRIV.  KqRZ daT WeR UZU&Ly GLEM&n [GLEMyn?] STwD D&STy iN deR DRIVZ aND LoNZ DaT WeR W&NS EM&R&LD GREN LA PqRChD aND YELOin FOR d& US &V HOZPIPS HaD BiN BaND Du Tu DowT DyPRIVD &V deR/de& UZU&L KqR-WaShin aND LowN-MOin PrSuTS, d& INHaB&T&NTS &V PRiVeT DRIV HaD RyTRET&D INTu d& ShAD &V deR KuL HawZ&Z, WiNDOZ tRON WID iN d& HOP &V TeMPTyn iN & NQN-eGZiST&NT BREZ.  d& ONLy PrS&N LeFT awTDoRZ W&Z & TENAJ Boy Hu W&Z LIyn FLaT oN HiZ BaK.

www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/preprint1b-jsss.htm
Version approved for publication in The Daily Leader, Madison, South Dakota 
Editorial by J. Hunter that inspired the response
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13956667&BRD=1302&PAG=461&dept_id=181987&rfi=8
 

Steve Bett
 Is spelling still important?
  The ability to produce decipherable invented spellings is still important 
A 2/18 response to the Jon M Hunter's Editorial: Is spelling still important? Daily Leader, SD  02/14/2005

Editor, The Daily Leader
A response to Monday's editorial "Is spelling still important?" ...
 
I agree with you up to a point. Spelling should be an educational building block but this is difficult in a language that lacks a consistent spelling system.  If spoken English was spelled as it is spoken - as it is in the dictionary key - then spelling could be a building block.  Spelling is important for communication but this does not mean that dictionary spelling is that important.

It is probably more important to understand the high frequency spelling patterns for the 40+ phonemes in spoken English. 
 
For example, the /j/ or /dZ/ sound category can be spelled 4 ways as is jam, giant, cage, bridge. These are four of the 128 spelling patterns that one needs to learn to produce decipherable invented spellings.
 
In most dictionary keys, the J-sound is always spelled with a J so the words above might be spelled jam, jieant, kaej, and brij.
 
The main reason for this orthographic ambiguity in English is because English combines at least three spelling systems: Germanic Anglo Saxon, Norman French, and Latin.  English spelling is archaic because it was not respelled when word pronunciation changed.  Words are sometimes spelled as they once were pronounced, e.g., knight, through.
 
One might assume that It is only three times as hard to learn to read three ways to spell the same sound as it is to learn one way. When there are 3 orthographic possibilities, however, spelling becomes ambiguous. 
 
This is one reason why English speaking children take 3 years to reach a level that Italian children reach in one year.  It is also one reason why 2nd year students of German, Italian, or Spanish can spell words in the foreign language with greater accuracy than they can in English. This is one reason why English speaking children take three years to reach a level that Italian children reach in one year.
 
While literate adults may know the four most common ways to spell each vowel and the two most common ways to spell most consonants. They don't necessarily know which of the alternatives to apply in spelling a particular unfamiliar word.
 
In one study, 50% of the high school graduating class could not make sense of a newspaper article primarily because they could not decipher enough of the multi-syllable words. This type of semi-literacy is probably more widespread than we imagine.

Here are 7 invented spellings that are easy to recognize but difficult to correct: disiplin, recomend, tecnicli, sycoloji, supeena, mischivus, sovren.  A bad invented spelling would be one that an literate adult or a spelling checker could not quickly decipher.  sovren does not pass the spell checker test but if you insert the silent g it does.
 
A word such as THROUGH is very difficult for a beginning reader. One reason is because it contains 3 silent letters. THRU is an accepted variant found in the dictionary but most people refuse to use it because it doesn't look educated.  If everyone started using it, however, it would eventually become the preferred spelling in the dictionary. There is no good reason why we should continue to spell an archaic pronunciation.
 
As long as you use high frequency spelling patterns such as in "brite lite" you can communicate your ideas. Correct spelling is a courtesy to speed readers but using high frequency spelling patterns would be "good enuf".
 
G.B. Shaw argued that GHOTI was an orthographically possible spelling of FISH.
Since it does not use high frequency patterns, however, it does not communicate.
Only a few would guess that <GH> should be pronounced as in enouGH, <O> as in wOmen, and <TI> as in moTIon. <ghoti> would normally be interpreted as /gó-tee/ and would be a consistent Italian spelling.
 
There should probably be a dictionary key spelling that a person could use when unsure about the traditional spelling of a word. The reason for this is that unlike any other alphabetical writing system in the world, English spelling patterns overlap. This makes written English both an unreliable guide to pronunciation and difficult to spell.
 
Having more than one "educated" way to spell would be great for those of us who do not want to memorized the dictionary or lack a photographic memory. Logographic lexical spelling is fine as long as you can remember it. If you don't recall the correct spelling the only recourse is the dictionary or an invented spelling that the spell checker can recognize. 
 
If you know how a word is pronounced, phonemic dictionary key spelling can usually be constructed. At present, this logical spelling is not considered to be an educated spelling.  If it were then many of us would write more readily with fewer dictionary breaks.
 
At www.spellingsociety.org  you can find out more about how our writing system came about, its defects, and some of the proposals for fixing it.
 
If the problems with English spelling were fixed and English became as easy to spell as Spanish or Italian, it would take most of the challenge out of a spelling bee and make it difficult to eliminate contestants.
 
Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
Austin, Texas
 

Longer version            Steve Bett
 Is spelling still important?
  The ability to produce decipherable invented spellings is still important 
A 2/18 response to the Jon M Hunter's Editorial: Is spelling still important? Daily Leader, SD  02/14/2005

It is important to understand the high frequency spelling patterns for about 40 phonemes.
There are over 128 of them and they include multi-letter sound-signs. Those who do not know at least 70 of these sound-signs may have difficulty producing decipherable spellings and decoding unfamiliar words. 

The purpose of writing is to communicate and any decipherable phonemic spelling will achieve this.  Educated spelling involves picking the orthographic possibility that matches the dictionary. Attaining this level of language skill can take years.  

A phonemic spelling code (40 sound signs) can be mastered by preschool children in 3 months. With 40 high frequency sound signs, what the children write can be easily deciphered. If a newspaper is transcribed into the phonemic code, the children can read it aloud and understand what they say when the word is in their ear-vocabulary.  It is not uncommon for 2nd graders in Italian or Spanish schools to duplicate this feat.

To get closer to standard written English, 128 symbols must be used. The 128 overlapping sound signs can be learned in a year but mastery takes over 3 years because their inclusion makes the writing system ambiguous and unpredictable.  85% of the spellings in the dictionary will use some combination of the 128 sound-signs.  15% of the spellings lack a pattern.

Spelling bees tend to pick words from the 15% that lack a pattern.  This places emphasis on the learning the most poorly spelled words in the language.  Words that are not spelled using a high frequency pattern must be learned by rote.  They are called sight words because.

Most languages use an alphabetic phonemic spelling code.  This enables people to spell as they speak.  Dr. Laubach claimed that he and his teachers could teach illiterates in nearly 300 languages to read a newspaper in three months. He was unable to do this in French or English. This was possible because most languages have shallow orthographies similar to Spanish and Italian. 

In the 1800's, most people completing the 4th grade could read (slowly) and they could write in a backwoods way that the city folk considered to be uneducated.  Many of today's 5th graders lack the ability to sound out words and spell unfamiliar words in a decipherable way. This decline in the ability to read multi-syllable words and to communicate in writing has been attributed to the common method used to teach reading, sometimes called to whole-word method, and the lack of emphasis on phonics and spelling.

The /j/ or /dZ/ sound category can be spelled 4 ways as is  jam, giant, cage, bridge
These are four of the 128 spelling patterns that one has to learn to produce decipherable invented spellings.  In the i/t/a, the J-sound is always spelled with a J so the words above would be spelled jam, jieant, caej, and brij.  J for J is also the rule in most dictionary pronunciation guides.

One could argue that jieant, caej, and brij are decipherable but other than "J for J", not every sound representation is high frequency.  <jie> matches lie and pie but its frequency is in the 2% range.  ae for the sound in ray is less than 1%. 

One might assume that It is only three times as hard to learn to read three ways to spell the same sound as it is to learn one way. When there are three orthographic possibilities, however, spelling becomes ambiguous.  This is one reason why English speaking children take three years to reach a level that Italian children reach in one year.  It is also one reason why 2nd year students of German, Italian, or Spanish can spell words in the foreign language with greater accuracy than they can in English.

People who know the four most common ways to spell each vowel and the two most common ways to spell each consonant may not know which of the alternatives to apply in spelling an unfamiliar word.  However, their invented spellings will be easy enough for most readers and spell checkers. Those who use an orthographically possible spelling can communicate.

Over  25% of the the population cannot come up with an orthographically possible spelling for over 30% of the word they can pronounce. They seem to have no concept of sound-spelling or stringing together sound-signs to form words.  Orthographically possible spelling is teachable.  Correct or educated spelling, however, is more a matter of visual memory.

In one study, 50% of the high school graduating class could not make sense of a newspaper article primarily because they could not decipher enough of the multi-syllable words.  This type of semi-literacy is probably more widespread than we imagine.

Here are 7 invented spellings that are easy to recognize but difficult to correct: disiplin, recomend, tecnicli, sycoloji, supeena, mischivus, sovren.  A bad invented spelling would be one that an literate adult or a spelling checker could not quickly decipher.  sovren does not pass the spell checker test but if you insert the silent g it does.

Traditional spelling is often difficult because it includes letters unrelated to pronunciation.  A word such as THROUGH is very difficult for a beginning reader. One reason is because it contains 3 silent letters. THRU is an accepted variant found in the dictionary but most people refuse to use it because it doesn't look educated.  If everyone started using it, however, it would eventually become the preferred spelling in the dictionary. There is no reason why we should continue to spell an archaic pronunciation which we can no longer pronounce or understand.

 In a controlled vocabulary reader, it is simply avoided.  THROUGH contains 3 silent letters.  Almost every letter in the alphabet is silent in some word. 

As long as you use high frequency spelling patterns such as in "brite lite" you can communicate your ideas. Correct spelling is a courtesy to speed readers but using high frequency spelling patterns would be "good enuf".

G.B. Shaw argued that GHOTI was an orthographically possible spelling of FISH.
Since it does not use high frequency patterns, however, it does not communicate.
Only a few would guess that <GH> should be pronounced as in enouGH, <O> as in wOmen, and <TI> as in moTIon. <ghoti> would normally be interpreted as /gó-tee/ and would be a consistent rule based spelling in Italian.

There should probably be a dictionary key spelling that a person could use when unsure about the traditional spelling of a word. The reason for this is that unlike any other alphabetical writing system in the world, English spelling patterns overlap. This makes written English an unreliable guide to pronunciation.

Having more than one "educated" way to spell would be great for those of us who do not want to memorized the dictionary or lack a photographic memory. Logographic lexical spelling is fine as long as you can remember it. If you don't recall the correct spelling the only option is an invented spelling that the spell checker can recognize or the dictionary. 

If you know how a word is pronounced, phonemic dictionary key spelling can usually be constructed. At present, this logical spelling is not considered to be an educated spelling.  If it were then many of us would write more readily with fewer dictionary breaks.

French may have a half dozen ways to spell a sound but none of the options are assigned another sound category. French may be orthographically challenged but English takes top honors for having the world's worst spelling system.
 
At www.spellingsociety.org  you can find out more about how our writing system came about, its defects, and some of the proposals for fixing it. 
 
If the problems with English spelling were fixed and English became as easy to spell as Spanish or Italian, it would take most of the challenge out of a spelling bee and make it difficult to eliminate contestants.
 
 Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
 Retired professor and volunteer literacy teacher.
 7925 Rockwood Lane
 Austin, Texas 78757
 512-302-3014
 stbett@yahoo.com

link:

The main point was that I agreed with you up to a point.  Spelling is important for communication but this does not mean that traditional spelling is that important.  Any string of high frequency spelling patterns will communicate.  Half the time, the spelling that is found in the dictionary does not conform to the most familiar patterns.  THRU is better than THROUGH,  SHOWFUR is better than chauffeur. 
 
Those who read semagrams or meaning signs would stumble over SHOWFUR.  They could pronounce it but it would take a few seconds for them to associate it with the proper meaning. 
 
1. To communicate you have to use orthographically possible sound signs.
2. As a courtesy to speed readers, you should use the standardized spelling found in the dictionary

.

To send letters, use the feedback-form at  http://www.eastbayri.com/services/letters.php

What if there were a different spelling bee designed to help children spell rule based high frequency words rather than words that fall into the 15% that follow no pattern.  Written English has over 128 sound-signs and these are used to represent an average of two sounds each. 

With this knowledge based you can spell 85% of the words in the dictionary one of four ways per component.  This of course, is the problem.  You can

English is no harder to spell phonemically than any other language.  What is the prpblem is that written English is phonemic only about 40% of the time.  When required to spell an unfamiliar word there are at least four possibilities which are high frequency orthographically possibilities. 

Spelling is Important

``Spelling is a good thing to like because it's really something that our communication depends upon,'' said Marlene Volpe, a seventh-grade English teacher at Spry Middle School and coordinator of that school's bee held on Feb. 3.

Spelling with a high frequency pattern may be more important than "correct" spelling.
Few people have difficulty reading misspellings because they are usually plausible spellings.

``You have to be able to spell correctly. And your impressions are based on how well you spell. If you hand in a report that's not spelled correctly or you send an e-mail, then an impression is formed,'' Volpe said.

It probably depends on the word.  If a plausible pattern is used and the word is not a high frequency word, the misspelling will probably go unnoticed.

Schools conduct their local bees in various ways. Sometimes, all students in some grades participate. Other times participation is voluntary. And in some cases, schools don't even have bees and do not send competitors to the county bee. In those cases, students can enter the county bee on their own.

At St. John's, all the fifth-and sixth-graders participate, which totaled about 50 pupils this year.

``I think they help enrich vocabulary,'' said Diane Heald, Patrick Ryan's sixth-grade teacher at St. John's.

``I think the better students tend to be better spellers and more into reading. There are also children who learn very well by rote memory and they might not excel in other things, but they're capable of doing spelling. It gives many children an opportunity to showcase,'' Heald said.

French Road School Assistant Principal Barbara BorHrelli said the bees help build vocabularies along with spelling skills ``because the words are not words that they would come across every day.

``So, while they're studying them they're also learning the definitions of them. And the spelling patterns in those words can then be transferred to their reading,'' Borrelli said.

``If they come across a word similar to it, they could decode it easier because they've studied it for the spelling bee, or, if they come across having to spell a word that's like it, they can remember the patterns from the spelling bee list,'' she said.

At Fred Hill Intermediate School in the Brockport Central School District, the fourth-grade bee was Jan. 13 and the fifth-grade bee was Jan. 19. The top five students from each bee will compete at Monroe County's bee.

Teacher Brandon Broughton, who helped organize this year's school bee, said the exercise is about more than just spelling words well.

`I know a lot of kids that are very good spellers who don't necessarily do as well in these competitions,'' Broughton said.

``When they get up in front of a crowd like that, it takes a lot of poise. You have to ... really be able to picture words in your head or really have them memorized well,'' he said.

``There's some kids that just kind of walk up and do really well that you can just kind of tell haven't really put in the time. And then there's the kids that are going home and studying hundreds of words a night,'' Broughton said.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050308/NEWS01/503090303/1007/SPORTS

Jerry Zutel  http://www.zaner-bloser.com/html/SPsupport3.html
Why is proficient spelling important?
Proficient spelling is important for a number of reasons:

  • It is a courtesy to the reader and an aid to communication
    when words are spelled correctly.
  • Occasionally a misspelled word can actually change the meaning of a text and
    lead to serious miscommunication.
  • Misspellings are a distraction to the reader, drawing attention away from the meaning, and possibly lowering the credibility of the writer.
  • To some, a poorly spelled message implies a careless attitude and careless thinking.

Good spelling ability also aids the writer because a fluent speller can concentrate more fully on the message she or he wants to convey, spending less mental attention on the details of words because they can be produced easily and automatically.

Recent studies have also shown that there is a strong relationship between spelling ability and reading, both in isolation on word lists and in text reading (Morris, 1992; Zutell and Fresch, 1991). Proficient spelling requires a high degree of word knowledge, so it is not surprising that good spellers read more accurately and more fluently. A strong spelling program that significantly extends students' spelling vocabularies should have positive effects on reading speed and accuracy as well.

Rhode Island schools pull out of the Spelling Bee
http://www.eastbayri.com/story/342764256994896.php

Bristol/Warren school districts have pulled out of National Spelling Bee - they say it detracts from literacy

Kate,

I think you may be reading to much into the hostility of some Rhode Island school districts toward participation in the National Spelling Bee. However, it does provide some ammunition for the protesters. Why are you opposed to the Spelling Bee? In the past we have said that we were not opposed to it. We were less confrontational than RI. RI thinks that learning to spell is an exercise in rote memory and takes time away from more important educational pursuits. They want to teach writing but not traditional spelling.

       Though Lincoln (Rhode Island) changed its mind on a decision to
pull out of the National Spelling Bee, according to a recent news-story
Rhode Island's fight has not stopped there:
       the Bristol and Warren school districts in that state have
pulled out of the Bee because (as the article below will reveal) educators in that state find that the Bee detracts from literacy. (They actually pulled out of the Bee several months ago, but remain firm in their decision).
      Their reasons for the pull-out (as given in the article) fit so
closely with spelling-reformers' reasoning that a call for simpler
English spelling might actually find strong support from educators in
Rhode Island (a state founded by those who left Massachusetts because
they couldn't agree who with jolly old traditional Puritan customs like
killing "witches," "heretics," and intellectual/social dissidents in
general).
       Given Rhode Islanders' dissident history and their present
willingness to recognize that Spelling Bees depend on spelling failure
and on the senseless spellings which promote that failure ... do you
think that spelling-reformers might want to focus on gaining
public/educators' approval in Rhode Island first, as a sort of "pilot
project," before tackling the rest of the USA and the world? If Rhode
Island can officially "buy" the idea of spelling more simply (so that
we can all succeed, and not just a lucky few), then other states might
follow ... once Rhode Island did it and people could see for themselves
that nothing terrible happened as a result.

Here follows the article:

http://www.eastbayri.com/story/342764256994896.php     e-mail this
story | print it  |Bristol/Warren Schools will no longer compete in
statewide spelling bee BRISTOL/WARREN - Reading, writing and  'rithmetic are still OK, but the spelling bee is no longer welcome in Bristol and Warren schools. When school districts from across the state send their best spellers to participate in the statewide spelling bee on March 5, Bristol Warren will not have a representative.

Members of Bristol Warren's Administrative Council,
a board composed of principals and
other administrators, decided late last year to do away with the annual
contest, citing concerns that it doesn't fit in with the district's
move toward "standards-based" education and humiliates those who
compete but don't fare well. In addition, said assistant superintendent
Donna Glavin, students who participate in the bee miss important class
time. "This isn't sports, this is education," said Ms. Glavin. "I don't
want any losers in education. I don't have any losers in literacy, and
if I do, I'm not going to broadcast it and humiliate them. I'm going to
help them. "Some parents complain Though the district decided to do away with the Bee months ago, parents didn't find out about the decision until recently. Many are upset and have called school committee members, principals and administrators to complain. One of them is Bristol resident Paula Mello, who has children in the grades 2 and 7. "I just think something like this shouldn't be taken away from the kids," she said. "I competed in spelling bees; I never won, but I'm not in therapy for it. I just think it's wrong. "But not unprecedented by any stretch. The district's move follows an identical policy adopted by the Lincoln School District, which last year decided to do away with the annual spelling bee. Citing the same concerns as Ms. Glavin, district officials canceled the contest only to re-instate it earlier this month after criticism from the public, judges in the state's contest, and even the commissioner of the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Peter McWalters. He said in an interview with another newspaper that the decision was "bizarre. "Had Bristol Warren officials decided to hold a district-wide bee this year, the winner would have gone on to compete on March 5; the winner of that statewide bee will represent Rhode Island in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a
nationwide contest run out of Ohio for more than 75 years. Paige P.
Kimble, the director of the Scripps bee, said Tuesday that the
district's decision is unfortunate, but not surprising. "Every year, we
get one or two" similar cases, she said. "Last year it was Orlando, the
year before that Miami, before that Utah. "But spelling bees can be
beneficial and good for the children. They enjoy them.

"No Child Left BehindMuch of the "systems-based" philosophy being pursued by Bristol Warren and most other districts across the country stems from the No Child Left Behind Act, a law that played an important role in the district's decision to withdraw from the bee.

Ms. Glavin said children are encouraged to achieve, but not in a way that polarizes winners and losers. "We highly encourage students to enter competition in which they write and use their abilities and talents in a meaningful way," she said. "There are tons of writing contests.

"Spelling bees don't fit that bill because they foster nothing but rote memorization, she said."What does a spelling bee prove? For children to just memorize a bunch or words and regurgitate them out is not a display of excellence; it means they're good memorizers.

"Not necessarily so, said Ms. Mello. She said
the district's move is arbitrary, and could be hypocritical if the real
reason for withdrawing from the bee is sparing low-performing students'
feelings. After all, she said, honor rolls are still acceptable, though
students who don't make the list might be expected to have the same
feelings as students who don't do well in the Bee. School committee
members have heard the complaints. Members said Monday night they have
received calls and e-mails from concerned parents, and committee member
John Saviano of Warren said the decision doesn't sit well with him,
although he respects the administrative board's authority to make it.

To him, spelling bees are an integral part of American education. "I still think the U.S. is based on competition," he said. "Although I generally agree with the philosophy of the No Child Left Behind Act, competition is part of life.

We have winners in this world."Mr. Saviano wanted to
officially discuss the administrative board's decision during Monday's
meeting, but was told he couldn't because it was not on the agenda.
Instead, school committee members voted to place the item on the agenda
for the Monday, Feb. 28, meeting.
BY TED HAYES
thayes@eastbaynewspapers.com

To send letters, use the feedback-form at
http://www.eastbayri.com/services/letters.php

Kate,

I think you may be reading to much into the hostility of some Rhode Island school districts toward participation in the National Spelling Bee.

However, it does provide some ammunition for the protesters.

We have often been asked:  Why are you opposed to the Spelling Bee?
In the past we have said that we were not exactly opposed to it and we praised the efforts of the contestants. In taking this stance, we have been less confrontational than RI. They see nothing laudatory in memorizing the dictionary.

RI thinks that learning to spell is an exercise in rote memory and takes time away from more important educational pursuits. They want to teach writing but not traditional spelling.

They want to leave no child behind and traditional spelling is something that leaves over 50% behind. It is not a hurdle that a majority can get over at no matter how much time and effort is devoted to it.

In one sense, spelling is not teachable because it is not rule based. At best we can teach the 128 symbols and the high frequency spelling patterns for each phoneme. Armed with this knowledge, students will be able to spell 85% of the words in the dictionary but it may take multiple tries.

How many people can list all of the high frequency orthographically possible spellings for a list of words. That would be the true test of spelling knowledge. That might be the approach that Pres. Andrew Jackson might have taken.

 L I N K S

www.spellingsociety.org