The Teaching of Spelling

Subjects such as “Spelling” have traditionally been part of early education, but they have clearly exposed some problems with the educational process. Often words are joined in categories where rules such as “i before e etc.” are applied A student has to learn many rules of “spelling” and then must also learn “exceptions” to those rules. When the student is tested the test itself often has three incorrect spellings of the word and one correct spelling and the student must choose one correct spelling. Sometimes spoken-word words can be spoken and then the student should write their word on the paper. The multiple choice method is naturally the method in standardized testing.
My problem with this traditional approach to the teaching of spelling is the student’s focus on both correct and incorrect spelling and the learning of words in order according to the rules of application rather than natural language acquisition.
Through the use of computers, one can display the spelling of the word, then display the word used in the sentence, then have the student type the word into the computer. Many years ago I set up this program and wrote it along with the programs in Qbasic. It was used as an program in some local schools, but it never received much attention. The computer was already being used as an educational tool and I was a little busy in teaching the usual classes to be effective. to promote the idea and the system. We don’t use Qbasic anymore and the program is sitting in my files or maybe upgrade to Visual-basic.
But this article is not about the program itself, but about the concept. We should not allow students to focus on “corruption” at any point in the educational process. When the student sees a set of multiple choice possibilities, they begin the process of spelling individual words and in effect practice three incorrect spellings and one correct spelling. They have an effect on the memory of vice rather than righteousness.
When the word was pronounced and then pronounced in a sentence, it improved the learning process from the “correct” perspective, but the speaker of the word and the sentence could have unique characteristics that could still make the process difficult.
This problem, so clearly visible in the teaching of spelling, is not limited to spelling, but the concept can be extended to all areas of the curriculum, because we obviously use “multiple choice” tests in almost every subject.
Our excuse is that there is little choice in our assessment process that works effectively across the curriculum. True/False questions don’t provide much in the way of assessment in many ways, and fill-in-the-blank and essays are much harder steps.
The bottom line here is that we should minimize or, whenever possible, eliminate student exposure to “corruption.” Even the exposition of the “correct” answer to show how the correct answer was formed has the potential to teach the wrong choice. Teaching spelling rules with exceptions dramatically demonstrates the problem.
More than the teaching of “spelling,” the concept of teaching “correctness” embodies a comprehensive aspect of the philosophy of education across the curriculum.