Spelling generalisations and SSP: Q&A transcript
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. How do we align all the information that you've covered in these webinars with an existing spelling program?
Elaine Stanley:
It's a case, first of all, of trying to see where those spelling generalisations or those working on those syllable types fit in with your existing progression or your spelling program that you are working with and seeing where they fit best. We align the spelling generalisations and the syllable division rules with our progression. The progression dictates where we teach them.
The easiest way for you to think about where it aligns with your spelling program is to maybe look at those side-by-side. We'll just put the link here to our progression so you can just have a look at the order in which we introduce things.
https://www.literacyhub.edu.au/search/literacy-hub-phonics-progression/
I think when you are thinking about that, it's really good to consider with your program that you're working with, ‘Has student knowledge and skills around their letter–sound correspondences and their skill level working with different types of words been built up gradually within your program that you're using?’ Because it doesn't always happen that they're thinking about all those things that we've talked about in terms of all their knowledge plus their skills they bring in working with different complexity of words.
Our progression, again, really builds on students' skills sequentially. You'd be able to do that thinking as well about your program. If they don't line up and you think this is introduced at this point, but I don't think students have all the letter–sound correspondence knowledge or the skills to work with that type of word, you can always reorder things in your spelling program. It's a good check and balance as well to do that.
Generally, we'd say students should only be asked to spell words they have code knowledge for. Just keeping that in mind when you're thinking about what you're teaching when. Also it's good if students can read words they are asked to spell as well, so you've got both things happening. It may be a case of your program might tell you the content to teach but it may not tell you the delivery method. It might be thinking about all the things we've spoken about with that gradual release of responsibility, and including that ‘I do, We do, You do’ sort of process because that really supports students in their learning as well.
The important thing really is to think about working with sounds they can hear and then matching the letters with them, coming at it from that way.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. My students can apply the code to reading but are not applying it when writing. What should I do to help them?
Elaine Stanley:
The first thing to think about is that writing is a much more complex task in some ways than reading because especially if they're writing a whole piece of writing on a certain topic, because they've got to think about what they want to write. They've also got to think about the text structure they're working to, their sentence construction, grammar, all of those things as well as spelling. Sometimes spelling drops off when they're thinking about all those other things so there's that to consider. But there's a few things in particular to think about as well.
You'd want to be looking to see if students’ spelling is completely random, because that means they're not applying their code knowledge at all when they're attempting words. That can happen if you've only got a focus on your phonics concepts in reading, which can often occur with the way phonics is taught. It can just be addressed in reading, but students don't always make that link to their spelling. You might think about incorporating the reading and spelling when they're applying letter–sound correspondences and making sure they're able to do both.
The other question is really to think about is the problem only occurring that they're not transferring their knowledge to spelling in isolation when they're spelling individual words, or is it just within the writing process as we said, where they're thinking about lots of things? If it's in isolation and they can't apply it for individual words that you ask them to spell, it might be a case of really slowing down your phonics lessons and really homing in on all those spelling skills of segmenting, then thinking about the letter–sound correspondences or making choices and getting them to really focus on doing that work.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Yes, you've got to remember that cognitive overload.
Elaine Stanley:
That's it.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. How can we progress children who apply only one learned spelling pattern across their writing?
Elaine Stanley:
This actually happens often when students learn that split digraph or silent e. They tend to just use it everywhere once they learn that one and they forget all the other spelling patterns that they've learned that make the long vowel sound. I think if that's happening, the first thing you need to do is diagnose why that might be happening and then you can determine your response once you know why. I would be asking myself, ‘How long ago did I teach all the different letter–sound correspondences for this sound?’ Because if they're only using one all the time, I'd need to question, ‘How long ago was it? How much practice have they had applying all the different ones they've learned to read and spell? Am I including them all in my daily reviews so they get that constant retrieval practice? And maybe even did I teach them all at the same time and they didn't have time to process each one? Or have I taught them separately one at a time?’ All those things first to reflect on.
Like we showed using that chart, it can also be a matter of training students to do the thinking around, ‘Now I know all these different letter patterns that can make this sound, I'm going to work out which ones it could be and which ones it couldn't be.’ They don't just choose one without doing the thinking. It can be training them around that.
If you find it's a common problem with your grade, you might need to re-teach or just include more of a focus in your daily review as well. It's about, ‘Is it happening in isolation with individual words or is it happening as part of that writing process?’ If it's when they're doing written tasks, it might be about really slowing, getting all your ideas on paper and then coming back and really focusing on the spelling afterwards.
I'll just say too that I think one thing that can really help to eliminate that problem is really progress monitoring as you go and making sure you are really checking that students understand each one you introduce and can apply it really well. If you haven't seen our progress monitoring tools, that might be useful to people as well. We will give you the link for that, too.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. What do you do for words that don't have regular spelling patterns?
Elaine Stanley:
You teach them as irregular words until students have the code knowledge to spell them. I would say to students, ‘This is an irregular word for us at the moment because we haven't learned the code for this word or the full code.’ Then it might be focusing in on the parts the students do know and get them to apply those and really hone in on the part that's irregular for them at that point in time. If it's a one-off word that they just need to know for a particular unit or a unit of study or an activity that they're doing, then it's fine to just tell them as well if they just need it for the moment. If they need it longer term, and you think they're going to use it often, you could teach it as an irregular word until you reach the part in your progression where you teach that part of the code as well.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. What about spelling errors with code that you haven't taught yet?
Elaine Stanley:
As a teacher, I would focus more on making sure students are applying code to words that they can apply it to and make sure they're doing that really consistently first. They're the words I'd be focusing on most to make sure that's happening. For words they don't have code knowledge for yet, what you do want to see – you can't expect them to spell them all correctly – but what you do want to see is that they're trying to apply code knowledge where they can. I'd be expecting them to still think about their sounds and use the letter–sound correspondences they do know, which means you should still be able to read those words because they should be spelling them phonetically, so you can still read them. But it's about not overloading them with too much, and them worrying about too many that they haven't learned yet.
So that's what you really want to see. You want to see they're trying to use the code as a first strategy, not just doing random guesses and not thinking about code at all. If it's a word they need to know for a particular task or unit of study, it's fine to just tell them.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. How do you approach words that are exceptions to the generalisations?
Elaine Stanley:
I usually tell students upfront that not all words will fit the rule or the generalisation that we are learning just so that they expect this to happen, because there are lots of words that don't fit the rule or generalisation. But I also tell students more words will fit it than won't. The exceptions are fewer than the words that will fit. The exception words are really opportunities to get students really excited about the language and words and the history of the language and how words got into English because that's often why they have unusual spelling patterns, and not the regular spelling patterns that they've learned.
I usually tell students that when a word doesn't fit a particular pattern or spelling generalisation, it's because those words have either come from another language originally or their pronunciation or spelling may have changed over time. It's really interesting. It gets them really interested in words, and often they go off and try and investigate and come back and tell you what they can find out. It just sparks their interest as well. If it's a word they just need to know at a particular time, it's fine to tell them too.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. Why do students in upper grades find spelling rules a challenge?
Elaine Stanley:
That is often the case in the beginning. When you think about older students, when you bring in something new they haven't been taught before or told before, it means they have to unlearn what they've been using up to this point. They have to let go of something they have been using to take on something new, especially around spelling, which can be challenging. They've had lots of time to practise misconceptions and errors and they become ingrained, so they have to let go of things up to that point.
Often with older students, and this can happen with adults as well, they know lots of words by this stage that don't fit a rule or a generalisation and they get fixated on the ones that don't fit. And they're always, ‘But what about this word?’
It's making them understand there are lots of words that don't fit the generalisation or the rule. It's about when you learn this generalisation or this concept that we are learning, more words will fit than won't. With older students, they're often a bit resistant because you can start with simpler words to introduce the generalisation, but it's making them realise that when they learn whatever we are teaching, they will be able to apply it to more complex words. We might start with simpler words first, but then they'll be able to apply it to words at their level that they're working with.
I think with older students, it's always really good to introduce morphology as well at the same time as spelling because, again, it sparks their interest about many words have come from and all those things we spoke about.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. What about the use of magic 100 words or golden words?
Elaine Stanley:
These have been very popular in schools. The problem is with those lists of words, that they're not phonetically ordered. You might have words with lots of different letter–sound correspondences or even word structures in them that occur in the same lists.
I know early on, for example, you even get words in the early stages like ‘go’ and ‘not’ together. As we just showed before, you have to know how to apply the two different vowel sounds because they're open and closed and long and short vowels. For students who don't have that knowledge but get these words with different things that apply to them, you are forcing them to just memorise the words because they've got nothing else to bring to them. If you're teaching phonics in class but then students are having different lists that aren't phonetically controlled, it can be really confusing, because then they don't trust the code because they can't apply it to the words they're learning. It can be problematic in that way.
It's about not filling students' heads with individual lists of words. It's giving them the generalisations they can apply to lots of words that will work for them with lots of words they're trying to spell. There will still always be some words that will need to be taught as irregular words, as we said, but those are enough. Those ones you choose as irregular words in the early stages are enough cognitive-load-wise. You want all the other words they're trying to spell. You want them to have the skills to be able to have a go at them and be successful.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. What is your opinion on learning weekly spelling words? Should these be aligned solely to decodable texts?
Elaine Stanley:
To be honest, if you are teaching sequentially and you are really tracking your students closely to make sure they've understood and can apply what they're learning, then it's a question of asking why do we need to have lists of particular words when you want them to be able to apply what they're learning to lots of words. If you narrow it to just particular words, it becomes futile because you want to teach them the skills to apply to lots of different words.
What we want to do is build their knowledge and skills to be able to transfer that to a word whenever they need to spell it. When you think about being an adult or a really literate person, we do that as well. If we think of a word we want to spell, like say it was ‘accommodate’, you would be saying the sounds as you try, ‘a-comm-o-date’, and then you match the letters. You're splitting it into sounds and you're matching the letters. That's what we want to teach students to have the skills and the knowledge to do as well, because the list of words is just finite; they'll just learn that list but that will be it.
Something else I'd say about spelling lists. If you do do them, you really want someone to call out the words, so the students can still do that process of hear the word, think about the sounds, write the letters. If you start from the printed word, there's nothing for them to bring to it except rewrite it. They can't do that working out because it's already there for them. So just keeping that in mind.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. How do I scaffold support for students who are reluctant writers?
Elaine Stanley:
There are students for whom the writing process is really laborious, and they come to really dislike it because they just find it so difficult. It can be for a number of reasons, but often it's because they haven't been taught sequentially and everything is just too difficult about writing. They haven't learned in a sequential sort of way.
For those students who are really reluctant writers, assistive technology can be really useful in terms of allowing them access to grade-level tasks or grade-level content. They might be using speech-to-text functions and it might be just part of a text. They write some of it and then they can dictate part of it to be able to complete tasks with the other students. Or for students who are reluctant to write at all, they could do the whole thing by dictating it.
At the same time, you might be working on their discrete skills, say it was the spelling that's tripping them up or if it's handwriting, that can often be the case for students, you would work on that then in isolation, but you're still allowing them access to grade-level work so they're not missing out on doing that.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. How do I cater for students' spelling through an Individual Education Plan (IEP)?
Elaine Stanley:
We would always suggest for any group or individuals, you start with data. It's about collecting data first to see where the gaps are. Things like letter-sound assessments, we've talked about the Reading Rockets one before, or there's Motif assessments, which are free to use if you download the copies.
https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/migrated/pdfs/assessment_letter_sound.pdf
https://www.motif.org.au/tests
Lots of spelling assessments there. It's about gathering your data first and then knowing where the gaps are, and then really building skills sequentially for students in small increments and following a progression – that's really vital – so you are really introducing things at the right time. I would say again, it's really beneficial to work on the reading and spelling at the same time because both complement each other and will build skills on each side of the coin as well. And making sure you've got that explicit teaching first before you let students do that independent practice.
Something I've seen teachers do in schools is if they're using PowerPoint lessons, they often just record over the top of the beginning of the introduction of each lesson and keep a bank of those working at different levels. You can use the PowerPoints with individual students where the student can just listen to it and follow along. It's good, especially with older students, that's a really good bank of resources there for individual students as well. But making sure as well that if there's Tier 3 instruction, it's really aligned with what's happening in the classroom as well. Really matching with the Tier 1 work that's happening is really important.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. Can the strategies be used with students with additional learning needs?
Elaine Stanley:
Yes, definitely they can. It's just about moving at the pace that the students need and lots of guided support from the teacher, working with the teacher to complete examples. The repeated practice is the key because that's what will really cement the learning. It's about being strategic as well about what you cover when with students and making sure they're ready for it. In terms of the spelling generalisations, you might not tackle the later ones. You might just tackle the earlier ones that they really need and will serve them best in terms of knowing. But if you're following along with a progression, that will dictate what you introduce when anyway. Again, it's exactly the same instruction, the same instructional model, using the same progression, but working at that slower pace with more teacher guidance.
Kerrie Shanahan:
Q. Once children have mastered the basic code, consonants and short vowel sounds, what are the recommended next steps?
Elaine Stanley:
We always start with that basic code first, individual letters and the most common sounds. Then we move to the extended code, so less common letter–sound correspondences or alternate sounds for the letters they've already learned. Once you've mastered all the code, which is really the 44 sounds of English, then you move more into that morphology and etymology, and learning about prefixes and suffixes and base words, as well as where words have originated from. For students, that's their next level of learning.
Morphology is great because it also helps to explain the meaning of parts of words. Once you enter into that area of study, you're building a vocabulary as well for reading and spelling and writing. So that is the next stage to go to. That actually leads us really well into thinking about our next topic, which is all about morphology. That might be a really good one, hopefully, for people as well.