Learning to write
This unit covers the issues of how to teach spelling and writing, identifying the multiple skills which a pupil must orchestrate in order to become an effective writer.
We look at:
- The not-so-simple view of writing.
- Learning to spell and all that it implies.
- The importance of learning spelling rules in addition to learning phonics.
- The importance of teaching handwriting skills.
- Working memory and the role it plays in text generation.
Spelling: the process of segmenting
- Hear and divide
- Phonemes to graphemes or letters
- Choosing letter combinations
Initially, the speller ‘hears’ the word – either aloud or in their head – and mentally divides it into its individual composite phonemes.
They then match the letters or graphemes to corresponding phonemes; these will frequently be represented by more than one letter, for example /th/.
There will often be more than one letter or group of letters that can make the same sound. For example, ‘air’ as in ‘fair’ can also be spelt as ‘ear’ (bear), ‘eir’ (heir) and ‘are’ (scare). Inexperienced spellers might choose the only option with which they are familiar, while those at later stages will face the conundrum of making the right decision.
Table of phonemes
Consonants
Diphthongs
Vowels
Good speller
- Phonic skills
- Morphological knowledge
- Words learned by rote
- Spelling patterns
- Spelling guidelines
Morphological spellings
Magician
Protection
Root words
Morphological spellings such as these retain their root words, despite the changes to phonetic spelling that they take with the addition of an affix such as ‘ian’ or ‘ion’. There are other examples, such as explanation, where the morpheme, explain, is not retained.
Affixes
The use of the ‘ian’ and ‘ion’ affixes can initially confuse children as they learn to spell. Research by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (PDF, 1.1MB), conducted in Oxford and London with a large sample of pupils aged 6 to 11 years, found that they did not reliably spell words that were phonetically irregular, even though they were morphemically regular. Teaching the rule that ‘ian’ relates to words describing a person removes confusion.
Working memory and learning to write
Good writers generally have better working memory than their less-skilled peers. This resource shows the many different ways in which working memory underpins all the skills involved in writing.