Improving spelling skills

SWST_Manual:SWST Manual 2004 5/7/11 12:49 Page 25 

Improving spelling skills 

Reasons for improving spelling skills 

Raising writing standards and self-esteem 

Writing standards for pupils have been reported nationally as being lower than for 

reading, speaking and listening (Ofsted Standards and Quality in Education 1998/99 – The 

Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools). Writing is a multi-faceted 

process, spelling being only one component of the skills required. Improvements in 

spelling could assist in raising writing standards. 

Poor spelling can inhibit writers because they are unable to select a word to convey the 

precise meaning intended since they cannot spell the word required. Consequently, 

easier words that the writer can spell may be selected, reducing the quality of the 

writing. In contrast, the writer with good spelling is able to choose adventurous 

vocabulary to convey the precise meaning, resulting in more detailed descriptive 

writing. For example, the writer with weak spelling skills may use the word SAID 

instead of more accurate and expressive words like SCREAMED, BELLOWED, CROAKED, 

MUMBLED, STAMMERED, SNARLED, GOSSIPED, etc. 

Good spelling is an automatic skill requiring little attention, enabling the writer to focus 

more attention on other components of the writing task, such as the details in the plot. 

The writer with weak spelling skills may have to devote much attention to spelling, 

which may detract from the quality of his or her work. Emergent writing has freed 

young writers from the constraints of spelling correctly, in the initial stages, allowing 

them to write freely and often resulting in good quality writing. However, as pupils get 

older they become more aware of their inability to spell correctly, which can be 

demoralising for them and may adversely affect their writing standards. 

Improving pupils’ spelling ability should raise both pupils’ written standards of work 

and their self-esteem. 

Learning strategies for improving spelling skills 

Pupils may use a variety of strategies to learn spellings – they may use a phonological 

strategy, a visual strategy or a kinaesthetic strategy; they may also be using mnemonics 

to assist the learning of tricky words. A pupil may be using a combination of all these 

strategies or may be relying on one successful/unsuccessful strategy. 

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Single Word Spelling Test 

Phonological strategy 

A phonological strategy involves applying phoneme-grapheme correspondence rules 

and higher order rules. These arbitrary rules for assigning letters and letter sequences 

to sounds differ across languages and need to be largely taught. 

Visual strategy 

A visual strategy involves memorising the written word as a pictorial letter sequence. 

This implies that whole words are stored in memory and can be retrieved when the 

word is required. A visual strategy is a natural strategy for most pupils that can be 

enhanced by practising memorising words as pictures of sequences of letters which 

convey a specific meaning. 

Kinaesthetic strategy 

A kinaesthetic strategy involves memorising the motor pattern involved in writing a 

word. This is a natural strategy that, for most pupils, can be enhanced through repeated 

practice of writing words. 

Teaching styles to improve spelling skills 

Teaching spelling 

When teaching spelling both the pupil’s natural and learnt strategies need to be 

considered. Teaching styles need to enhance the natural strategies and develop the 

learnt strategies that pupils use to learn spellings. A phonological strategy can be totally 

taught and will be successful for 80% of English spellings (Venezky, 1970). 

Visual strategies may be enhanced through looking for words within words and similar 

visual letter patterns such as ONE, DONE, GONE and BONE. 

Kinaesthetic strategies may be enhanced through practising writing words in cursive 

handwriting. 

Mnemonics can be learnt to deal with tricky words, as illustrated below. 

e.g. ➤ Using the initial letter of each word: 

– NECESSARY – Never Eat Cake Eat Salmon Sandwiches 

And Remain Young; 

– BECAUSE – Big Elephants Can’t Add Up Sums Easily. 

➤ Finding a fun element or a word within a word: SEPARATE – there’s A RAT 

in SEPARATE. 

➤ Making up a rhyme: DIFFICULTY 

Mrs D Mrs I Mrs FFI 

Mrs C Mrs U Mrs LTY. 

Different pupils use different strategies to learn spellings. Some pupils use visual 

strategies to successfully learn words, negating the need to learn explicit rules. Some 

pupils appear to abstract the rules when learning lists of words with similar letter 

patterns, again overcoming the need to learn explicit rules. However, the explicit 

learning of rules makes the task of learning to spell English words easier for many 

pupils, and for some pupils it is the only way that they can learn spellings. 

Consequently, the authors suggest that pupils should be explicitly taught the rules 

governing spelling so that those who need this input obtain it, while those who rely on 

other strategies can still do so. 

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A multi-sensory approach should be adopted when teaching spelling in order to fit in 

with both the natural and learnt strategies that pupils employ in the learning of 

spelling. Pupils should be encouraged to: 

➤ 

➤ 

➤ 

➤ 

➤ 

➤ 

look at sets of words; 

say those words; 

investigate the sets of words to discover patterns and rules; 

write the words; 

use the words in sentences to associate them with their meanings; 

memorise the words through covering each one, writing it and checking to 

see if it is correct. If it is not correct, repeat the procedure of covering, 

writing and checking again until it is correct. This is referred to as the 

‘look, say, cover, write, check’ method for learning spellings (adapted from 

Peters & Cripps, 1978). 

Since the phonological strategy can be effectively taught, this is the strategy that will be 

predominantly focused on here. (Some reference will also be made to enhancing visual 

and kinaesthetic strategies and to mnemonics.) 

Addressing the errors made on the spelling test 

The rules for spelling vary in complexity and this is reflected in the seven levels of the 

structured spelling lists where words obeying the easier phoneme-grapheme rules are 

presented in the early levels and words obeying higher order complex rules are 

presented in the later levels. The rules can be considered in hierarchical terms. 

It is suggested that errors reflecting mastery of the lower levels of spelling knowledge 

be addressed before those reflecting higher levels. Consequently, errors should be 

addressed in the order: 

NP 

PS 

Non-phonetic (NP) errors 

PC 

NP errors indicate that a pupil does not know the simple phoneme-grapheme 

conversion rules, so these need to be taught first. The teacher needs to ensure that the 

pupil knows the sound-letter correspondences and can apply them when encoding 

CVC, CCVC, CVCC and CCVCC words. 

Phonetically simple (PS) errors 

PS errors indicate that the pupil is insecure with some of the rules that affect the sounds 

of letters, for example, MAC is a PS error for the word MAKE. The letters do correspond 

to the sounds but there is no knowledge about the final E affecting the vowel sound and 

that long vowel words ending in /k/ take K not C. 

Pupils need to learn the PS rules which enable them to distinguish and encode CVC, 

CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC, CVCV correctly, plus the vowel digraphs and simple prefixing 

and suffixing rules presented in Levels 2, 3 and 4 of the structured spelling lists. 

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Single Word Spelling Test 

Phonetically complex (PC) errors 

PC errors indicate that the pupil does not know some of the rules governing the 

inclusion of specific letters and the positional constraints of letters in words. These rules 

should be taught from the easier rule-governed words involving suffixes in Levels 1 and 

2, to the more complex rule-governed words in Levels 5, 6 and 7. 

An approach to whole class teaching of spelling 

In a whole class the pupils are unlikely to all be at the same level of attainment in 

spelling. While the pupils could have individual spellings matched to their specific 

need, the management of this could be very daunting for teachers. Consequently, the 

following suggestion is thought to be a manageable option for teaching spelling to a 

whole class. 

The level on the structured spelling lists should be found for each pupil, through 

analysing and sorting the errors made on the SWST. Three groups should be made by 

selecting a low level, medium level and high level appropriate for the class. For 

example, in a class of 30 Year 4 pupils, there might be two pupils on Level 1, four pupils 

on Level 2, four pupils on Level 3, ten pupils on Level 4, eight pupils on Level 5 and two 

pupils on Level 6. 

Then the three main groups chosen for this class might be: 

➤ the low group – Level 2/3 

➤ the middle group – Level 4 

➤ the high group – Level 5/6. 

The two pupils working on Level 1 would need to continue on this level, thus forming 

a fourth group; however, these pupils could be individually helped by a special needs 

teacher or teaching assistant, enabling the teacher to focus on the three main spelling 

groups. The low group contains pupils needing to work at Level 2; one way to deal with 

this is for the whole of the low group to learn the words from Level 2 that these pupils 

need to learn, and progress to Level 3 rapidly. Alternatively, work at Level 3 but give 

the four children at Level 2 extra spellings from Level 2. 

This method of assigning pupils to the best-fit groups based on their level of attainment 

in spelling necessarily involves some pupils in re-learning lists, but this should not be 

regarded as wasting the pupils’ time. On the contrary, it can be regarded as 

consolidating recently acquired knowledge provided that the re-learning is from an 

adjacent level, not two or three levels below the pupil’s working level. 

Suggestions for teaching spellings to primary 

school pupils 

The three groups could be presented with a new spelling target each week. Each group 

could be given a list of spellings from the appropriate level of the structured spelling 

lists. These words could be looked at and discussed as a whole class to focus attention 

on the similarity of the words. The rules can be made explicit through using verbal 

questions and answers and guided learning techniques. 

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e.g. Given this set of words for one group, HOPE CLOSE HOME CHOSE BROKE SLOPE, 

useful questions could be: 

➤ What do you notice about all of these words? 

➤ What sound does the O make? 

➤ What sounds can the letter O make in words? 

➤ Why do these letter Os make the long vowel sound? 

➤ Can you make a rule to explain the spellings of these words? 

The word level in the Literacy Hour requires this type of exploration and investigation 

of word families with the whole class. All three groups of words could be verbally 

discussed by the class. The pupils could then focus on the set of words assigned to them. 

They could use the ‘look, say, cover, write, check’ method for writing the words in a 

spelling book which the pupils can be encouraged to take home and learn. 

The pupils should be given the opportunity to use the words, either by writing 

sentences or engaging in activities using a dictionary or thesaurus, to assist with 

associating the meanings with the words. During the week the pupils could be given 

further practice to assist in learning their spellings, perhaps linking it with handwriting. 

At the end of the week the pupils should be tested on their weekly spellings. The pupils 

should be rewarded if they get their spellings correct. Errors on this test could be rewritten 

using the learning procedure ‘look, say, cover, write, check’. If appropriate, the 

teacher may want to re-test the pupils after another learning period. 

At the end of a half-term/whole term, the pupils could be informally tested to see if the 

letter patterns focused on have actually been learnt, that is retained correctly after a 

period of time. 

Consideration must be given to those pupils who frequently write incorrect spellings 

each week, or do badly on the informal assessment. Reasons for the poor results should 

be sought. If a pupil has tried to learn his or her words at home with help from his or 

her family and has had time to practise at school, then it may be assumed that the words 

are too hard and an easier set of words should be given. Some pupils need to repeat the 

same lists several times and the suffixing sections permit this re-visiting of word lists. 

Pupils who repeatedly learn spellings and appear to be unable to retain them may 

require more detailed diagnostic help. Further advice should be sought, initially from 

the special needs teacher. 

Suggestions for teaching spellings to secondary 

school pupils 

Secondary pupils may be able to take more responsibility for their own learning of 

spelling. The spelling test for each pupil should be analysed and the errors recorded as 

previously described. Each pupil’s level on the structured spelling lists, and the 

components of words not known, should be ascertained from the results of their SWST. 

The pupils should be encouraged to work individually on the sections containing the 

components where they made errors, from the easiest level up to the highest level. The 

pupils can be encouraged to use the structured spelling lists themselves to focus on a 

section of words, to look for patterns and to try to write a rule for the words. A 

discussion of the rules generated and the explanation of the correct rule can be given in 

the plenary session. The pupils could be encouraged to learn their spellings using the 

‘look, say, cover, write, check’ method. 

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Improving spelling skills

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