The Stacks @ Interversity

From: Nancy Patterson
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 18:52:32

Change your policy. The ability to spell well is linked to ones ability to visualize a word. You are essentially penalizing some students, at least, for the lack of an innate ability. If you taught gym would you penalize a student who couldn't run as fast because one leg was slightly shorter than the other?

Unless you have some other point to your in-class writing activity, why
would you do this? To show some kids they don't spell very well? I bet
they already know that. The wonderful thing about the smart tools we have is that they make literacy events more inclusive.

Nancy

From: John Larner
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 09:48:33

What is your school's policy about students using calculators in math class? The issue seems to be similar: should a mechanical aid replace what used to be a mental/paper/pencil issue.
JFL

From: Donna Ballard
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 06:33:07

Good point, John, and one similar to what teachers about 2,000 years ago must have been discussing when writing became a major mode of communicating, replacing the oral modes. Then, as Plato offers us in some of the Socratic dialogues, the question was whether writing, a mechanical aid, should replace the mental activity of memorization and delivery of what was memorized. Technology has an interesting history of replacing different types of physical and mental toil.
Kim
--
Kim Ballard
ballardk@omni.cc.purdue.edu

From: "Lind Williams"
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 09:18:16

While I agree with Nancy that we sometimes tend to make too much of spelling in our society, I disagree that spelling is primarily an innate ability to visualize words. The ability to visualize words is certainly one component of what makes a good speller, but it oversimplifies what is going on cognitively. And by claiming that it is innate, it allows us to avoid our responsibility to help struggling spellers.

Spelling is more of a result of subconscious understandings and generalizations that we make about how the orthographic system works. Much as we have an understanding of grammar which we cannot articulate, we also develop a subconscious understanding of the way words are constructed. It comes largely from our vast experience with the written word. It is partly based on phonetic principles, partly on analogy with other words that follow the same patterns, partly on meaning relationships among words (words that share etymology), and partly based on inflectional and derivational principles in which we add affixes to root words. We can't always articulate these concepts but good spellers have subconsciously internalized them. Since, these are all things that can be learned, I reject the notion that spelling ability is innate, that bad spellers are doomed to be bad spellers forever.

This is not to say that most of our current approaches to teaching spelling are very well thought out, however. Too many of us still teach spelling as though each word must be memorized individually. For most of us, our word lists are randomly organized and we teach spelling by encouraging rote memorization. For better approaches, see the work of Diane Snowball, Richard Gentry, Shane Templeton, and others. Use approaches that help students discover generalizable patterns. Decide which patterns to teach by looking at student writing and when you see a misspelling, ask yourself, "What faulty generalizations about the spelling system is this student making?" That is, don't focus on correcting the single word that was misspelled, but on correcting the faulty generalization the student is most likely making about the spelling system. Ask yourself, if the student learns to spell this word correctly, and can generalize the pattern, what other words will the student also be learning to spell?

For example, one of the most common errors I see in student papers is knowing what to do when adding a suffix-- whether or not to double a consonant , keep silent e, etc. (Coming, comeing, or comming?) I don't give them a rule to memorize. I have students do a word sort. I have students come up with a list of correctly spelled words from their reading ending with the suffix "-ing" where some consonants are doubled and some are not. Then I have the students sort the words into groups, discover the difference between the words, and draw their own conclusions. It's a critical thinking approach to spelling. This does not immediately stop all spelling errors, but it raises awareness, and then in subsequent writing assignments we can come back to the principle, and I can ask the student to think through it again.

May I also recommend a great article by Brian Cambourne in the February issue of NCTE's Language Arts. It's called "One Afternoon in an Elysian Field: Socrates' Academy Addresses Spelling." It's written as a very entertaining and thought provoking Socratic dialogue. I highly recommend it.

Lind Williams
Provo, Utah

From: Nancy Patterson
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 15:24:28

Reinhold,

Yeah, I wouldn't last long as a bookkeeper either.

As far as grades being penalties — I see the point you are trying to make, but in the context of the post I was responding to, I think "penalize" was the appropriate word. In a perfect world grades would be thought of as merely assessments of achievement. But this ain't a perfect world. I think students do look at grades as rewards or penalties. And that's one of the problems with grades.

And besides, it didn't take a bunch of bad grades to tell me I wasn't a math scholar. I don't think there are too many students out there under the misconception that they are brilliant spellers when they are not.

Spring is about to break here which means sun-starved Michiganians are heading for Florida. You ARE doing something about the sun arrangements
down there, are you?

Nancy

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 18:43:51 -0600
From: Yvette McManus

Keep your policy.

The computer is not always available, and students should have rudimentary knowledge in spelling and grammar skills.

The computer cannot differentiate between meanings in context. I have had this happen numerous time when writing at the computer. It didn't catch my misuse of a correctly spelled word.

Technology is a wonderful tool, but it should not ever replace our ability to function.

Yvette

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 19:46:32 -0600
From: Yvette McManus

Reinhold,
Try taking a look at a student's face upon handing back an 'A' paper and tell me again that it is not in some way a reward or praise. An 'A' carries with it "Job Well Done" implications, just as an 'F' carries with it the message "You Might Want to Study Next Time!" To a student with reasonable intelligence, a grade of 'F' should be intolerable and provide incentive.

Each of us has "innate" or "early acquired" abilities, but is that a reason or an excuse for failure? Each of us explores new ground, makes mistakes, but we keep on trying and usually, eventually succeed.

The computer is not always around, and it is imperative that the students acquire the rudimentary skills in spelling and grammar. Technology cannot be allowed to replace the ability to think. Context plays an important role in the message our language sends, and the computer is unable to deal with meanings. To, two, too, etc. Imagine a business letter with the salutation "Two Whom It May Concern:" Not a pretty picture.

We live in a real world where people's opinions of us quite often are the cummulative result of our ability to use language correctly. Whether or not students are interested in spelling and grammar (math, science, literature, history, music, etc.), teachers have the responsibility to prepare the kids to take their places in a world where spelling and grammar do matter!

Few things incense me more than "I don't care" or "I can't", and if the teacher's don't lay the groundwork for actually working toward total literacy in writing, not just content, who will? At some point, the kids will be expected to know how to phrase a proper sentence, dot the "i's" and cross all of the "t's". Business requires it, education expects it, society uses it, and the world demands it. Shouldn't teachers teach it?

Yvette Mc

From: Reinhold Schlieper
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 11:38:18

> From: Yvette McManus
>
> Reinhold,
> Try taking a look at a student's face upon handing back an 'A' paper and
> tell me again that it is not in some way a reward or praise.

It is made so by the student's reaction, by the pressures from business and industry that insist on students' having, say, a 'B' average, and by parental expectation. I know I'm asking for a major overhaul of societal attitudes. But it's ok to dream now and then, ain't it?

> An 'A'
> carries with it "Job Well Done" implications, just as an 'F' carries with
> it the message "You Might Want to Study Next Time!" To a student with
> reasonable intelligence, a grade of 'F' should be intolerable and provide
> incentive.

Not at all. A grade of 'F' might also indicate that the student isn't cut out for a particular endeavor. One need not be a universal scholar to be a worthwhile human being, methinks. Perhaps there's where we've gone too far in salvaging self-concept at the cost of sound self-development.

> Each of us has "innate" or "early acquired" abilities, but is that a reason
> or an excuse for failure? Each of us explores new ground, makes mistakes,
> but we keep on trying and usually, eventually succeed.

Your faith in the educability of the masses honors you; I suppose I'm too elitist to believe you.

==Reinhold

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 10:33:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Leif Fearn

Edna's message probably applies to other crafts and talents, as
well. If we're going to ask students to perform music, we ought to
announce beforehand if we're looking for the proper notes, or just the
music.
Leif Fearn

From: Nancy Patterson
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 18:05:48

Lind,

You must have a steel-trap kind of mind or one heck of a filing system. My spelling research is buried in some file somewhere, probably on a different planet. Thanks for the more definitive answer. The studies I have do not so easily dismiss the visual aspect of spelling, but I'm at a loss because I can't cite any references. And, I don't recall when the research was done.

It strikes me that orthography really is based on a visual symbolic system, and if students can't visual a word that is in their head, they are going to have difficulties spelling it. And I know I visual the word. Heck I can visual words as I speak, so I literally can read what I say as I say it. (Somebody told me that was weird, but what do I know.)

So, I admit I oversimplified, but I'm not so sure I got it wrong.

Nancy

From: "Edna Earney"
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 14:59:25

Dear All,
I agree with Leif that students may "perform music" when they play the "proper notes," and that we should expect that of them. I disagree that we should expect "performance level" at each sitting, knowing that the purposes for writing differ from time to time.

If the students are to "perform music" (compose a paper) they will have practiced at length, under the direction of the music teacher, and will have worked through the difficult fingerings slowly at first, toyed with phrasings of arpeggios, etc., and will have brought their efforts eventually to the appropriate tempo. If during those involved practice sessions the music teacher decides to "test" the students for proficiency, he might announce a "test" on the strange fingering positions, or on the phrasing of the arpeggios, particularly if he wants the students to focus on a particular segment of the learning. Once the class sessions have ended and the students are "performing music," the audience assumes the "proper notes" have been established and practiced ( the writer will have proofread, revised, edited), and the music critic will respond to the level of performance.

By contrast, if we ask the students to sight-read music (respond to a prompt in a timed writing), I would think that we would want the students to do the best job they could of "making music" while we anticipate and, yes, accept, some missed notes. Or, if we've "invited" students to participate in a jam session wherein we hope to hear their ideas, or hope some ideas for a "new" musical composition might emerge (write fast and furiously), I would propose that we are much more interested in their sincere search, their risk-venturing, their "play every note around it until they find THE note", than we are in requiring that each note played be "proper." If I can hear some "musically genius" musings going on, I'll take the missed notes in between -- as long as we aren't "performing."

I think we've all read "proper" papers that put us to sleep faster than a Brahm's lullaby. I'll take the dissonance of a misspelling or two if I'm reveling in insight that makes my eyes widen. =)

Just to clarify,

Edna Earney

From: "Lind Williams"
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 10:26:27

Nancy,
I'm not so sure that I'm right and you're wrong. I have enormous respect for your opinions. And I seem to have a hazy recollection of reading the research you refer to that supports your view that most spelling instruction "doesn't take" for poor spellers and that spelling ability seems to be an innate thing. Some people visualize words, some don't. I'm just wondering if later cognitive research might dispute that earlier conclusion, and that if so, we might not be wise to give up on trying to help poor spellers. It may be that the reason our spelling instruction "didn't take" is that our approach was wrong. We weren't paying attention to the way spelling is developmentally acquired.

I'm just wondering as I write (thinking on keyboard) if the other cognitive things going on concerning our working knowledge of the spelling system, subconscious though they may be, are what makes us visualize words certain ways. I do not believe that each word that we spell is memorized as an anomoly without associating it to the patterns we see in other words. Our brains are very adept at recognizing patterns, and this may be a key to our visual memory of words.

I don't pretend to be an authority on this. However, as one looks at developing spellers and what happens to them and the stages they pass through, it is easy to see that there are conceptual stages to spelling. It is not merely a case of memorizing individual words as though each word is a rule unto itself. And it's not merely a case of picturing fully formed words in the mind, at least at first. When emergent readers and writers picture words, they get strangely incomplete pictures which will change over time.

This is why I think we can take a "constructivist" approach to teaching spelling in which we allow students to discover the way our alphabetic system works and the patterns and similarities among words.

Donald Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, and Francine Johnston in their book Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction, (Prentice Hall, 1996) discuss six stages in spelling development. This comes from separate research studies conducted by Edmund Henderson, Charol Chomsky, Charles Read and many others in which they track the developmental progress of children using invented spellings.

Stage I: Preliterate Stage -- This stage is characterized by pretend writing. First with scribbles then progressing to letter-like shapes and actual letters, but with no sound/letter correspondence.

Stage II: Early Letter Name Stage -- characterized by the writer using predominant sounds, then using initial consonants, and then last consonants

Stage III: Middle and Late Letter Name Stage -- characterized by the writer using consonants and vowels in each syllable

Stage IV: Within Word Pattern Stage -- characterized by spelling short vowels correctly and experimentation with long vowels

Stage V: Syllable Juncture Stage -- characterized by the writer learning how syllables fit together, learning external/inflectional junctures, prefixes, and suffixes.

Stage VI: Derivational Constancy Stage -- characterized by understanding derived forms in bases and roots and internal morphology in syllables.

In practical terms, this means that we can read our students writing, look at the types of spelling errors they are making and offer intervention activities that would make them reassess some faulty subconscious generalization they are making about language. This awareness of words can also be reinforced in their reading. It is a constructivist, cognitive approach to teaching spelling, not a rote memorization approach. Some of their misspellings, by the way, will be the result of good generalizations about how the spelling system usually works, and we can point out that a particular word does not follow the expected pattern, and sometimes we can point out why it does not follow the expected pattern. The "rules" often come into conflict with each other. Note the word "knowledgeable." One "rule" would have us drop the silent "e" when adding a suffix beginnining with a vowel. However, another rule tells us that an "a" following a "g" gives us a hard "g." So, we break one "rule" to abide by another. Note that I am placing quotation marks around the word "rule" because I don't think we should present the rules and have students memorize them, but that they should discover these "generalizations" in an inquiry-based, constructivist way. This is effectively done by having students sort similar words into different patterns and figuring out the reason for the distinctions.

As the authors of Words Their Way put it: "To determine what orthographic features and patterns to explore with each child, we focus on what they 'use but confuse' because this will be where instruction will be of most benefit to a student. In Vygotskian terms, the level of awareness where students 'use but confuse' is their 'zone of proximal development.' ...The stage of spelling a student is in guides instruction to particular word study activities."

The authors of Words Their Way are also careful to point out where spelling and other word knowledge normallly comes from: "Wherever purposeful reading, writing, listening, and speaking take place, words are learned along the way. Even more words are acquired when words are explicitly examined . . . directing children's attention to ways in which written words create meaning."

I am always wary of direct teaching of skills that takes too much time away from actual reading and writing, however, I think that some of this spelling instruction can fit very nicely into the time frame of a mini-lesson. They can then be reinforced in reading and writing of whole texts.

Sorry this post was so long,

Lind Williams

Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 14:26:02
From: Leif Fearn

Hi Edna:
Your commentary is precisely right. If we were to think about
writing instruction in the way we think about piano instruction, with an
equally firm grip on matters of basic content that leads inexorably to
writing competence, the matter of high quality practice that promotes
approximations of high quality performance, and the matter of direct
instruction on sufficiently regular occasions to ensure high quality
performance, we'd increase the size of the circle of literate inclusion.
Of course, one-on-one instruction in writing wouldn't hurt the process,
either.

Edna, when there's the name of a place affixed to a posting where
I've been to deliver staff development, I always wonder if we've met.

Leif Fearn

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:38:05 EST
From: HARDWAY08

I think that the question about whether or not you should change your policy on spelling errors depends on what the purpose of your in-class activity is.

When I use in-class writing activities, I typically like the students to write madly and furiously for a given length of time. My purpose is for them to get their thoughts and ideas on to paper. I have found that when incorrect spelling is penalized during in-class writings, the writing is hampered and not "free," which is what my in-class writings are. If they have to worry about mechanics and spelling they are not able to write madly and furiously.

I think that your policy should only change if your policy does not reflect your purpose.

Kathy Tyler

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 13:24:12 -0800 (PST)
From: Leif Fearn

Kathy:

I too conduct fluency sessions in class. My cue is always "as much as you can as well as you can" because when I read Cowley's collections from Paris Review, I don't find any references to madly and furiously without as well as possible. References to madly and furiously in In Memory Yet Green (Asimov), Journal of a Novel (Steinbeck), and so forth are all contextualized with quality, the best writing I can perform. So every fluency activity is followed with a revision session so they have an opportunity to revise something that is, in fact, a draft. If not in the same ball park, therefore, I suspect we're in a similar one.

But I do have a question, and it's a serious one, a question on which I don't think there are any data, so what we pose is probably speculative. Do you think young writers spell words incorrectly because they're writing madly and furiously, words they would spell correctly if they were more deliberative? Would that suggest that good spellers are folks who spell well because they know which words they spelled incorrectly when they drafted? If that's the case (they know which ones they spelled incorrectly when they drafted) did they know when they were drafting? And if they did, are we suggesting they spelled incorrectly on purpose, given that they knew how to do it right?

On the other hand, might they have spelled incorrectly in the draft and not knew it, then in reading their draft, suddenly knew how to spell those words? It's a puzzlement.

Leif Fearn

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 19:46:37 EST
From: HARDWAY08

Leif-
I think that a number of the spelling errors are due to the fact that they are told to write as much as they can in the given amount of time.

My students know whether or not I will look at spelling. There are more misspellings in the writing that they know are not being graded for spelling than in the ones that are. I think every single one of us will admit to making mistakes that may seem silly when we are simply writing to remember something, or just to get the words on paper before we forget them.

As far as whether or not they know they have made the mistakes, I think that is determined by the particular writer. Some know they have made the mistake and have to try their hardest to ignore it. Others do not know they have made the mistake until they receive the paper back (although I don't grade the spelling errors, I do point them out for them to see).

Also, some people can not spell a word to save their life if you ask them. But, those same peole can instantly recognize that one is spelled incorrectly when they see it (although they may not be able to tell you what is wrong about it.

Kathy T

Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 15:37:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Leif Fearn

Kathy T.:
I can't quarrel with your spelling rationale because there aren't any data of which I'm aware. If there are folks looking for a graduate thesis focus, maybe this will work.

All I know is what I'm told by the writers in the Writers' Haven Writers, a practicing group of folks who make their livings, or portions thereof, in the writing business. They tell me they either can or cannot spell a given word correctly, and if they can, they spell it right no matter the circumstances, and if they cannot, they know enough to check it later. But none of them report being able to understand knowing how to spell a word correctly but not doing so when they're writing under pressure.

It would be an interesting line of inquiry. Do folks spell
incorrectly, even when they know how to spell correctly, depending upon the writing circumstances? It would be interesting to know the kinds of words that fall into that category, the circumstances, the genres, and the position of the writer on the range between practicing and novice.

Leif Fearn

From: Nancy Patterson
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 19:53:52

I am, for some reason, very tuned into my own writing processes. But I can only speak for myself on this issue. Maybe you can generalize from this or maybe not.

Anyway. If I am writing something by hand, I am not careful about spelling.

I am aware that I am mispelling a word, but I don't care. I know if what I'm writing is decent, it will end up getting typed into a computer. If, however, I am already at a keyboard, I correct my spelling as I go--even if it means going into the spell checker program.

For what it's worth, I also have two very distinct handwriting styles. One for more normal stuff like memos, checks, more checks. And one very very different one for composing. In fact, I often start out in my more Palmer Method handwriting (Thanks to Mrs. Davis, my 6th grade teacher) and change over to my too-engrossed-in-thinking backhand. Of course, the backhand is so scrawl-ish nobody can tell whether anything's misspelled anyway.

A handwriting expert might think I'm schizophrenic. Who me? No, stupid, the one at the keyboard. Oh.

Nancy