-> Like children who are engaged with language and learn to speak as a
-> result, children engaged with words can learn spelling conventions
-> more naturally.  I am not speaking of osmosis but a deliberate
-> process of teaching spelling that is both meaningful and natural to
-> the child.
I think, like the article I cross-posted from k12.chat.teacher
yesterday, that this is true for a great many students. Students who
already have internalized some of the phonetic rules of our language
would probably benefit to some extent from "inventive spelling". But
students who are still puzzled by the rules, who still are having
difficulty reading (possibly these are LD students?) would not get far
with inventive spelling? What do you think?
-> Correct spelling, says Hillerich, should not be an academic topic but
-> belongs in the class of etiquette.
That statement is a bit extreme for my taste. I think it is another one
of those "standards" that we let sink ever lower with each succeeding
generation. I think it still belongs as an academic subject.
-> He goes on to describe word lists and how to use them.  It's an
-> interesting book and I don't think he is coming from a whole-language
-> perspective.  He has word lists, pretest and test, word studies,
-> recording of spelling progress.  I would think that these are ideas
-> we would all agree on.
Yes, I'm surprised that you mention such an approach. It sounds very
traditional to me?
Sheila
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