Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Learning to spell by spelling

1980; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 19; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00405848009542897

1543-0421

Anne D. Forester,

Multilingual Education and Policy

Anne D. Forester Camosun College Victoria, B.C. I n the home, a child learns to speak by speaking. As he listens to parents and peers talk to him and to each other, the child notes patterns of sound that carry definite messages. Soon he begins to imitate and experiment with such patterns roughly at first, but with increasing accuracy as time and practice move on. In school, the child is faced with the challenge of noting the visual patterns that carry meaning when he is introduced to reading and writing. As in learning to speak, the child faced with this new task of communication must internalize patterns if he is to become proficient. Formal spelling instruction does not begin immediately after the child enters school, yet the learner who is allowed to experiment and whose questions about words and spelling are answered will begin to evolve and then refine his own patterns of spelling much as he evolved and refined the patterns of spoken language. This evolution of spelling patterns is of great interest because it reveals both the sequence and the processes of natural learning. When observed closely it can provide important guides for teachers and curriculum developers. Unlike language acquisition, which now has a vast body of literature detailing its processes, the acquisition of spelling has until recently received far too little attention (Hodges, 1979; Weigl, 1978). Close observations of the type carried on in the home are difficult and expensive to conduct in the usual elementary school. The work reported here is a modest beginning. It consists of in-class observations and anecdotal records made by a first-grade teacher (Margaret Reinhard, Fairburn Elementary School, Victoria, B.C., Canada) and this researcher over a period of three years. The children's written work forms a substantial part of the research record. It is supplemented by notes on their participation in spelling activities during the early part of the school year when much of the work is done orally with the teacher doing the writing on the blackboard. The information obtained from observing individual children in their learning environment has not been subjected to statistical analysis; but, like the protocols of language acquisition studies, these cumulative bits of evidence are being validated by repeated observations year after year and by the findings of other researchers in the United States (Henderson, 1978) and Germany (Dehn, 1978, 1979). The converging evidence suggests that children progress through a number of stages when learning to spell.