Spelling: Development, Disability, and Instruction

Dr Moats

Teachers and speech-language pathologists must know their language intimately to address the specific confusions experienced by the person with spelling disability. These opening words by Louisa Cook Moats answer the question: "Why is knowledge of language necessary?" Student's spelling errors are predictable and logical and they can be remediated by those in possession of this detailed knowledge.

Spelling provides an overview of the factors that determine predictability in spelling such as sound-symbol correspondences, syllable patterns, orthographic rules, word meaning, word derivation, and word origin. A review of theories of the mental processes involved in spelling follows. These theories guide our approach to instruction and affect our interpretation of both spelling errors and successes.

Children follow a predictable sequence when they develop skills in spelling. This is true of those who are good spellers, poor spellers and those with a spelling disability. This valuable text describes these developmental steps involved in learning to spell, describes a study of errors in students¹ spontaneous writing samples, and provides extensive information on spelling assessment.

Description of the components of effective spelling instruction furnish the reader with detailed information they can put to immediate use:

• Instruction for good spellers
• Instruction for poor spellers
• Modeling and feedback
• Multisensory instruction
• Scope and sequence of spelling instruction
• Explicit practice with phonemic analysis
• Teaching sound-symbol correspondences
• Conditional word and syllable patterns
• Homophones
• Latin and Greek morpheme patterns
• Instructional strategies across the sequence

• Integrated lesson planning

This is an important book for anyone who teaches others to spell or who teaches those who teach others to spell.