RICK PEDLEY spoke of Re: whole language 2 to ERICA LONG on 10-03-96
RP>-=> Quoting Erica Long to Charles Beams <=-
RP> 
RP> EL> Isn't a dictionary the best spelling book?
RP> 
RP>But you'd have to know it was "phoneme" and not "foneme" to find it
RP>in the phirst place :) But to answer your question, no, _spelling_
RP>books are the best spelling books. I can still remember the red
RP>spelling book I learned from in grades 1 and 2, 20 new words memor-
RP>ized each week. The teacher would dictate the list every Friday and
RP>then mark them. Worked for me, and to varying degrees most others
RP>in the class. Those raised on phonics who still can't spell today
RP>likely wouldn't have done better with any other method.
The research on spelling instruction is in more agreement than in any 
other area of the curriculum.  This research does _not_ support what 
you have stated and in fact, states just the opposite.  The research is 
there but publishers haven't followed the research because if they did, 
they would have no reason to publish a book merely for spelling.  To the
publishers it is not a case of what's best for education, they are in a 
business to make money.  
Studies have shown that the average child knows how to spell 75 percent 
of the words at his or her grade level before they are to be studied 
(using the published workbooks).  Why should a child waste time studying
words they already know?  All too often spelling just becomes busy work.
Studies conducted in the early 1980's clearly demonstrated spelling 
deficiencies in students from nine-year-olds to 17-year-olds.  
Traditional spelling programs believe that we can teach generalizations 
to children that will enable them to spell words they haven't memorized 
for spelling.  Neither research with children nor research on the nature
of the English language supports this generalization theory.
In 1966 a study was conducted by Hanna (and others) regarding the 
relationship between symbol and sound in English.  They programmed a 
computer with more than 300 rules.  They then tested the computer's 
ability to spell 17,000 English words and found the computer could spell
with 84 percent accuracy.
However upon closer inspection of this study, it was found that certain 
"manipulations" were made in order to achieve that 84 percent.  The 
*schwa* sound, which is the most frequent vowel sound in English 
accounting for 25 percent of all vowel occurrences in running speech, is 
spelled about 22 different ways!  It was discovered that the programmers
asked the computer not to spell whole words, but to spell phoneme by 
phoneme.  So for "mat" it was asked to spell /m/ /a/ /t/.  When the 
17,000 words were fed into the computer to spell the words whole, the 
computer was able to spell with only a 49 percent accuracy.
I could go on here but I won't.  Those that insist that the traditional 
method of spelling instruction is the most effective haven't looked at 
the data.  I have said this before, it is probably better to toss those 
books away and teach spelling in ways that children *really* learn best.
There are many references I could offer here but this one may be the 
best:
Horn, Ernest, "Spelling," in Chester W. Harris (ed.)  *Encyclopedia* 
*of* *Educational* *Research.* New York:  The Macmillan Company, 1960, 
pp. 1337-54.  A thorough summary of research on spelling, with its 
implications for instruction.
Dan
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