This succinct guide notes that spelling rules are sometimes strange and wondrous and often more than a little complex. The guide presents rules for: (1) forming plurals and "s" forms of verbs; (2) forming possessives; (3) adding suffixes; (4) forming prefixes; and (5) the "ei" or "ie" rule. The guide notes the…

CLASSROOM PROCEDURES FOR DEVELOPING WORD STUDY SKILLS IN BOTH GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL SITUATIONS ARE PRESENTED. PROCEDURES FOR PRIMARY GRADES ARE CLASSIFIED UNDER THREE MAJOR LEVELS--THE WHOLE WORD, THE SEMI-ANALYTICAL, AND THE INTENSIVE ANALYSIS APPROACH. TEN PROCEDURES ARE PRESENTED, AND GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR ACCOMPLISHING WORD STUDY SKILLS ARE…

Forty-five phonic generalizations were applied to 5,431 words selected from six spelling programs. Also examined was the grade level at which each generalization was introduced; and the applicability of phonic generalizations to the spelling vocabulary was compared to the applicability of the generalizations to reading vocabularies as determined…

Phonics is the application of the science of speech sounds to reading and spelling, and it is concerned with the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes) and their graphic forms (graphemes). In the English language there is not a 1-to-1 grapheme-phoneme relationship; 43 basic speech sounds are recorded by using 26 letters. Other irregularities…

Describes efficient spelling instruction as that which makes maximum use of the fact that part of our competence as speakers of English is our knowledge of underlying phonological forms." (Author/SW)

Suggestions are made for incorporating finger-spelling with sound blending in spelling instruction for handicapped and nonhandicapped children. Teaching materials are described, and five steps in teaching how to spell a three letter word are listed. (CL)

Describes nine categories of phonics/word study learning that have been drawn from research and cross-checked with the experiences of hundreds of teachers. Describes a workable structure for delivering systematic phonics instruction. Presents and describes a six-part word study structure. (SG)

Discusses briefly 6 professional books that discuss and illustrate skill instruction within a balanced approach to reading. Intends to help teachers think through and justify the professional decisions they make to support every student's development toward becoming a lifelong reader. (SR)

In two experiments, the authors tested the effect of two types of reading on the spelling memory of strange or sound-spelling inconsistent words in Dutch students with and without learning disabilities: standard reading and regularized reading. Standard reading refers to reading the word the way it has to be read. Regularized reading refers to…

Traditional methods of teaching spelling emphasized that pupils might write each new spelling word correctly and repeatedly from a weekly list in the spelling textbook. Some weaknesses in this approach are that rote learning is being stressed without emphasizing application of what has been learned, and that there is nothing which relates the…

A review of research which concludes that there is no cause and effect relationship between speech errors and spelling errors, that there is a relationship between Black English and certain spelling errors, and that there is conflicting evidence on the use of intensive phonics in spelling programs. (DD)

Describes experiments that examined the effects of orthographic similarity on lexical decisions and compared decision times to words when they are preceded by unrelated words. Results indicate that lexical decisions about spoken words were shown to be influenced by the spelling of an immediately preceding item. (SED)

This article introduces Making and Writing Words Using Letter Patterns (MWW-LP), a variation of the popular Making Words word study and spelling instructional activity. Research indicates that proficient readers use knowledge of letter patterns such as onsets, rimes, and affixes to decode unknown words. The MWW-LP activity uses such letter…