Further to this, in one of the NRDC's recent publications on teaching
reading, I found a reference to phonics and THRASS (teaching handwriting,
reading and spelling). From the website
(http://www.thrass.co.uk/keyfacts.htm) I downloaded a very useful pdf file
'Introduction to a Lexicon of English Spelling' which debunks the message of
the poem attached by David, and gives a useful table of sound-spelling
relationships (with a few errors, it has to be said). Unfortunately I can't
find this download now on the updated THRASS website, but it must be there
somewhere or possibly available on contacting them?
The sound-spelling table has many words that our learners do not need and
unfortunately doesn't use the conventional phonemic script, but with some
major editing, I've reduced it to something useful as a reference for
teaching reading skills, and eventually, writing skills.
THRASS claims a high success rate with primary school level reading ability,
including those with dyslexia.
Rgds
Val Scaresbrook
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Thornton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:55 AM
Subject: ESOL Spelling
Hi All!
I read the enquiry last month from Denise and Matt’s reply.
Denise wanted to know why 'travelling' contains double 'l' but 'visiting'
does not contain double <t>. The simplest answer is that it just does.
I thought that Matt’s explanation dealt with the point fairly well as far as
it went but it was targeted at teachers rather than providing an explanation
that would be accessible to many ESOL learners. Explanations of spelling
‘rules’ that are clear to teachers may not be clear to learners, especially
ones who are imperfect spellers [and the type of noticing activity suggested
for learners might not do much to improve the situation].
Matt’s explanation also illustrates the fallibility of rules. In this case,
certainly the final <l> in some words is frequently doubled, but it is not
necessarily doubled. The exceptions cited are not entirely accurate: ‘appeal’
becomes ‘appealed’ but ‘parallel’ may become either ‘paralleled’ or
‘paralleled’ in British English [see COBUILD]. Moreover, the point about <l>
not being doubled in multi-syllable words with non-final stress does not
make complete sense: the word ‘travel’ is itself a multi-syllable word with
non-final stress. More significantly, in Standard US English, and
increasingly in contemporary Standard British English, the single <l> form
[traveled] is perfectly acceptable. For example, the University of Leeds
would not regard ‘traveled’ as a spelling error in a student's essay. The
reason for the difference in spelling forms seems to derive from slightly
more complex linguistic [phonological and morphological] relationships than
the explanation allows.
I also have reservations about the value of running dictations to provide
some examples and allow students to notice spelling patterns and to work out
the rules for themselves. This seems to depend so much on the level of the
target learners’ language skills and their level of awareness about
language.
Nevertheless, Matt’s reply was interesting in many ways. It certainly tried
to answer the query fairly accurately but it made me think again about the
teaching of spelling and the value and role of spelling rules and I attach
some further thoughts on these. I also reviewed rules of spelling [see
attached file] and spelling paradigms [see attached file]. Paradigm 18.11
discusses the problem with <l>.
ATB,
David.
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ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds.
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