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The Science of Reading: The Basics

If you prefer, read the text-version of the infographic.

There are so many pieces to the Science of Reading that it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are a few highlights about what the Science of Reading IS and what it IS NOT. This knowledge will help you on your journey to teaching all children, including those with diverse needs and cultural backgrounds, to read.

A Collection of Research

Research, over time, from multiple fields of study using methods that confirm and disconfirm theories on how children best learn to read.

Teaching Based on the 5 Big Ideas

Phonemic Awareness - The ability to identify and play with individual sounds in spoken words.

Phonics - Reading instruction on understanding how letters and groups of letters link to sounds to form letter- sound relationships and spelling patterns.

Fluency - The ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories correctly, with enough speed, and expression .

Vocabulary - Knowing what words mean and how to say and use them correctly.

Comprehension - The ability to understand what you are reading.

Ever Evolving

There is new research and evidence all the time. As populations, communities, and approaches evolve, so should practice.

What it is NOT

A program, an intervention, or a product that you can buy..

The Science of Reading could be considered an approach to teaching reading that is based on decades of research and evidence. It is NOT a specific program.

Phonics-based programs that drill phonics skills.

Phonics is an integral part of teaching reading based on science, but it is just one of the five big ideas that should be taught so all children can learn to read.

Complete and no more study needs to be done.

As with any science, it is never complete. We can always know more. More study happens all the time and researchers, teachers, and families can work together to bring the best research into classrooms.

Suggested Citation

National Center on Improving Literacy (2022). The Science of Reading: The Basics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy . Retrieved from http://improvingliteracy.org .

Get started on your Science of Reading journey with these highlights about what it IS and what it IS NOT.

Related Resources

What are the characteristics of effective literacy instruction?

Science of reading: defining guide.

The "Science of Reading: Defining Guide" provides a firm definition of what the science of reading is, what it is not, and how all stakeholders can understand its potential to transform reading instruction.

Topic:  Evidence-based, General Literacy

More on Evidence-based

• A Snapshot of RTI Implementation a Decade Later: New Picture, Same Story
• Are Individual Differences in Response to Intervention Influenced by the Methods and Measures Used to Define Response?
• Comparison of Reading Growth Among Students With Severe Reading Deficits Who Received Intervention to Typically Achieving Students and Students Receiving Special Education
• Important Pieces of School-Based Intervention for Students with or at Risk for Dyslexia: Evidence from 40 Years of Research
• NCIL Intensification Framework

The research reported here is funded by awards to the National Center on Improving Literacy from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, in partnership with the Office of Special Education Programs (Award #: S283D160003). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of OESE, OSEP, or the U.S. Department of Education. Copyright © 2024 National Center on Improving Literacy. https://improvingliteracy.org

Welcome to the Teacher's Library

Words to empower, inspire, and celebrate, on the blog, teaching the science of reading: best practice & best resources.

• 11 March 2024
• - 5 min Read

In recent years, teachers worldwide have been increasingly turning to the Science of Reading as a guiding framework for literacy instruction. But what exactly is the Science of Reading, and why has it gained such widespread recognition and acclaim? 🤔

This research-backed approach draws upon decades of scientific inquiry to provide teachers with evidence-based strategies for effective instruction. By focusing on five key areas—phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension—teachers can provide students with a strong foundation in literacy that will serve them well throughout their academic journey and beyond! 💛

The roots of the Science of Reading can be traced back to pioneering research conducted in the mid-20th century by scholars such as Jeanne Chall, Isabel Beck, and Linnea Ehri. Their work laid the groundwork for our current understanding of reading acquisition and provided compelling evidence for the effectiveness of explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. In recent decades, advances in technology and neuroscience have further deepened our understanding of the reading process, leading to the refinement and validation of the Science of Reading principles. Neuroimaging studies have revealed the neural pathways involved in reading and have underscored the critical role of phonological processing in literacy development 🧠

So why is the Science of Reading so effective? Simply put, it works because it is grounded in rigorous scientific research ⭐️ By aligning instructional practices with the underlying cognitive processes involved in reading, teachers can provide students with the support they need to become skilled readers and writers.

Here at TT, we absolutely love the Science of Reading and what it can do for you and your students, so we’ve worked hard to make sure you have all of the resources and tools you could ever need to implement this approach effectively in your classroom (with as little effort on your part as possible!) 💛 In this blog post, we’ll explore the five core components of the Science of Reading and discuss practical strategies for incorporating them into your classroom instruction using the TT webby. Join us as we embark on a journey to unlock the power of reading together!

Phonemic awareness lays the groundwork for proficient reading and writing by focusing on language sounds. Activities like rhyming games, sound segmentation, and blending exercises help students develop this essential skill. Incorporating phonemic awareness activities into your daily routine can strengthen students’ ability to manipulate sounds, setting the stage for success in phonics instruction.

💛 Spin & Splat: This easy, low-prep task card game is available for all multi-letter sounds and is perfect for practising phonemic awareness! Students spin to an image on the spinner and use a counter or manipulative to cover the matching image. It can be used independently, in pairs, in small groups or as an assessment task.

💛 Spin, POP, Graph & Write: Are your students still obsessed with the ‘pop’ fidget toys? They’ll love this interactive activity that helps students to identify, segment and blend sounds. You can use the paper image to tap and pop the bubbles, or use the actual fidget toys for an added element of fun! This resource is available for CVC words and CVCC/CCVC words.

💛 Phonemic Awareness Assessment EDITABLE:   Use this comprehensive early years assessment to obtain critical recorded data on how your students’ phonemic awareness is progressing. It’s editable too, meaning you can alter it to suit your students and context!

Phonics instruction teaches the relationship between letters and sounds, enabling students to decode written words accurately. A systematic and explicit approach to phonics, supplemented by multisensory activities, is critical to helping students grasp these concepts effectively. You can empower students to become confident readers and writers by providing structured phonics instruction 🌈

💛 Phonics Interactive PowerPoints: Available for every single and multi-letter sound, these interactive digital presentations will help your students learn to match letters to sounds. No prep needed, just download and press play! Did you know there are also matching workbooks for every presentation?

💛 Phonics Reading Mats: These handy resources are available in pond , garden and space variations, in both printable and digital formats! Each contains three letter sets and asks students to use their phonics knowledge to blend sounds and create CVC words.

💛 Phonics Craftivities: Match each letter to the initial sound of a word and then create a fun hands-on craft using the lower-case letter and the created word! These craftivities are available for every letter of the alphabet and are just so fun and engaging 🥰

💛 BONUS: Digi-Tool Dashboard Word Builder: We love the Word Builder and we think you will too! Customisable to include exactly the sounds you’re looking to explore, you can use the word builder to create and change words. Check your blending using the in-built voiceover!

A rich vocabulary is crucial for comprehension and academic achievement. Integrate explicit vocabulary instruction into your lessons, exposing students to a diverse range of words and teaching them strategies for word learning 💡 Encourage reading across various genres and provide opportunities for meaningful discussion to deepen students’ understanding of vocabulary in context.

💛 Book Tasting Event: Genre Study: Explore different book genres to support vocabulary expansion using this fun book tasting event! Set up like a restaurant, students move from table to table, ‘tasting’ different book genres and responding to what they’ve read.

💛 Dive into Topic-Specific Vocabulary: These no-prep worksheet sets come in three different topics and are perfect for upper years students looking to explore different topic-specific vocabulary. Simply provide the themed passage to read, then explore the challenging vocabulary used!

💛 Digi-Tool Dashboard Flashcards: Encountering specific vocabulary daily in your school and context? Use our Digi-Tool Dashboard to record new vocabulary as a flashcard set. You can then use the dashboard as part of a daily or weekly routine to practise reading and defining new relevant vocabulary!

Fluent reading involves reading text accurately, smoothly, and with expression 🗣️ Incorporate repeated oral reading, modelled reading, and fluency-building exercises into your classroom routine to promote fluency. Focusing on fluency enables students to read more efficiently, allowing them to devote more attention to comprehension ⭐️

💛 Speech Sound Fluency Strips: Perfect your students’ pronounciation and fluency in reading with these handy oral language strips! Each strip explores the sound and relevant mouth shape, and gives plenty of word examples for your students to practise reading with fluency.

💛 Read the Decodable Sentence LET’S STEAL: We have lots of amazing digi-games perfect for practising fluency, but this one is definitely one of our favourites! Students read each decodable sentence and select the image that best matches the sentence.

💛 Make a Sentence: This Science of Reading-based activity is available for all major multi-letter sound patterns, and helps students to develop fluency through sentence creation. Students connect task cards to create legible sentences.

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, as it involves understanding and interpreting a text instead of simply recognising the language. It’s so important to teach students various comprehension strategies, such as predicting, summarising, questioning, and making connections 🧠 Providing explicit instruction in these strategies and fostering critical thinking skills empowers students to engage deeply with the texts they read!

💛 Book Units: We have a wide range of book units available for both lower and upper years! Pick and choose the resources that best suit your students and context. For lower years, try Giraffes Can’t Dance , The Very Noisy Bear , or Snap! Teaching upper years? You’ll love our resources for Fox by Margaret Wild and The Peasant Prince by Li Cunxin.

💛 Reading & Comprehension Package: Need something super easy and low-prep? You’ll love this collection of comprehension packages, each focused on different sound patterns. Ideal for fast finishers or relief teacher folders, or just for an easy afternoon English lesson!

💛 The Miserable Magpie Oral Comprehension Package: Does your school follow Talk 4 Writing? This package is ideal for practising oral comprehension and fluency and is easily adapted to a Talk 4 Writing context. The download includes displays, worksheets, discussion cards and a comprehensive text passage.

By embracing the Science of Reading in your classroom, you can provide students with a strong foundation in literacy that will serve them well throughout their academic journey and beyond. By prioritising phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, you set your students up for success in reading and writing.

Let us know what you’re doing in your classroom by tagging us @topteacher 💛

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The Science of Reading: How to Get Started

In this post, I share information about the Science of Reading (SoR) and structured literacy. I define and explain commonly used Science of Reading terms. Then I leave you with a FREE resource that provides you an entry point into the Science of Reading research and offers you actionable steps for bringing Science of Reading-aligned instruction into your classroom.

The science of reading refers to a body of scientifically-based research about reading instruction. This research has been conducted over the last five decades and provides us with valuable information about best practices for reading and writing instruction.

Unfortunately, teachers have not always had full access to this important information. There are new terms and instructional strategies that we were NOT taught about in our pre-service training.  It is a lot and can quickly become overwhelming.  

To help ease this burden, I recently shared a phonics terms cheat sheet and created a blog post explaining the most common phonics spelling rules.  Today I want to continue to help you better understand the Science of Reading and structured literacy by defining and explaining commonly used SoR terms for you. 

Finally, I leave you with a FREE resource that provides you an entry point into the Science of Reading research and offers you actionable steps for bringing Science of Reading-aligned instruction into your classroom.

Science of Reading Terms and Definitions 

There are plenty of new terms and phrases you will encounter when learning about and discussing the science of reading.  To start, let’s first define the Science of Reading and Structured Literacy. 

What is the Science of Reading (SoR)?  

The Science of Reading (SoR) is a body of research that examines how we learn to read and what methods best help children learn to read.  It is not a curriculum.  It is a summary of the findings of research from disciplines that include developmental psychology, educational psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience.   The science of reading has been documented around the world, in all languages and cultures.

What is Structured Literacy? 

Structured literacy is an instructional approach that focuses on systematic, explicit instruction in all parts of reading. There is a heavy focus on decoding skills and teaching students the rules of English so they can apply them when reading independently.   Learn more about structured literacy here . 

When teachers say they are aligning their instruction with the science of reading or getting started with structured literacy, there are certain literacy resources and activities they often refer to.  Let’s take a closer look at what some of those resources, activities, and terms mean….

Science of Reading Terms

What is a sound wall .

A sound wall is a way to organize and display the different sounds (or phonemes ) we hear in speech.  Similar to a word wall, a sound wall is a place for students to reference when they are spelling and reading words.  But UNLIKE a traditional A-Z word wall, spelling patterns on a sound wall are grouped by their sounds.   A sound wall helps students connect their phonemic awareness skills to print.  

You will often see two walls in a classroom. One wall for consonants and one for vowels.   The vowel sound wall (referred to as a vowel valley), is formed in the shape of a V. This is to mimic the change in position of our mouths and shift in our jaw when producing the vowel sounds.

When you see a sound wall you will often find pictures of mouths next to each sound.  They are referred to as mouth articulation pictures. They help students better understand what their teeth, tongue, lips and mouth are doing when they produce a sound.   Mouth pictures are a great support to help students connect the sounds they hear with the print that represents them.

Take a look at this post to learn more about sound walls.  

.  

What is Orthographic Mapping? 

Orthographic mapping is the mental process we use to permanently store words for immediate retrieval and become fluent readers. Word mapping is an activity that helps to encourage, or promote the process of orthographic mapping. Word Mapping is a physical way to represent the relationship between phonemes and graphemes.  It is an activity that allows students to physically connect or match the letters with the sounds they represent.  Word Mapping helps build word recognition and decoding skills that improve fluency in both reading and writing.  

Take a look at this post to learn more about phoneme-grapheme mapping and this orthographic mapping post to learn more. 

What are Heart Words? 

Heart words are high-frequency words that contain letter or letter combinations that do not follow common letter-sound correspondences.  They are irregularly spelled high-frequency words.  Some words are permanently irregular, but some are temporarily irregular. It is temporarily irregular if students have not yet learned the letter-sound correspondence in that word. 

The Heart Word method teaches students to decode the part of the letters and sounds that follow traditional phonics rules and learn the tricky part by heart rather than relying on rote memorization methods! Students will encounter these words often so they need to be able to read and spell them with automaticity. Examples of Heart Words include said, are, do, and where.

Learn more about Heart Words and download a FREE Heart Words Scope and Sequence in this blog post . 

What are Decodable Texts? 

A decodable text is a text you use in beginning reading instruction.  It is a text that is controlled based on the phonics skills you have taught your students up to that point in your scope and sequence.  There is often a heavy focus on the target phonics skills for a specific week of instruction.  For example, if you are teaching long a spelled ai and ay , your students might read a passage called Lunch Time .

The majority of the words in a decodable text can be sounded out based on the sound-spelling relationships students have been taught.  Decodable texts also include some high-frequency words students have learned.   

Decodable texts DO give students practice applying the skills that you have taught to real reading experiences. This connection is essential for building a faster foundation in early reading.  As studies have shown, students who use decodable controlled text in their early reading instruction get off to a stronger start in their reading instruction .  

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness is the knowledge that spoken language is made up of sound units or phonemes. Students with strong phonemic awareness can notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words,

Phonemic awareness contributes to the development of strong word recognition through decoding and strengthens reading comprehension. Research shows that difficulty with phoneme awareness and other phonological skills is a predictor of poor reading and spelling development. 

Phonemic awareness lessons are quick (about 6 minutes) and can include these three components:

1. Phoneme Segmenting: students practice breaking apart each word and identifying each phoneme

2. Phoneme Blending: students hear a sequence of phonemes and put them together to identify the word

3. Connecting Graphemes to Phonemes: students practice connecting the phonemes in a spoken word to the letters (graphemes) that represent those sounds

Head to this blog post to learn more about how to teach phonemic awareness.

What are the Syllable Types? 

Every word has at least one vowel and every syllable has one vowel sound. Single-syllable words, like she and fine , each have one vowel sound. Multisyllabic words have one vowel sound for each syllable. For example, de-fine, pro-gram, chil-dren . 

There are six different syllable types in the English Language.  The type of syllable depends on the sound the vowel makes. Words with more than one syllable can have the same syllable type or different syllable types.   

When students have knowledge of syllables it supports them in decoding. It helps them to read more fluently (which supports comprehension!) and helps them to pronounce and spell words correctly.

When a student is trying to read a word, they need a clear strategy to figure out what sound the vowel in the word is making. When they know the sound the vowel makes, they can then correctly blend the sounds in the word, decode it and pronounce it correctly.   Learning the different syllable types or patterns is a systematic way of helping them do all of this!

FREE Science of Reading Resources

Are you ready to learn more about the Science of Reading and begin to implement structured literacy in your classroom?  If so, check out my new free resource which outlines 6 shifts you can make to bring structured literacy into your classroom.

The resource includes information on Sound Walls, Word Mapping, Heart Words, Decodable Text, Phonemic Awareness, and Syllable Types . For each strategy, you will get information on what it is and why it is important to teach. You will also get links to free resources that will help you implement that shift in your classroom.

It can be overwhelming to implement all of these strategies at once. Instead, choose one of these shifts to learn about and bring into your classroom over the next few weeks. When you feel comfortable incorporating that shift, return to the resource and choose the next shift you want to make. Over time your SoR knowledge and instruction will grow and improve!

Drop your email below to instantly receive this free guide:

*please consider using a personal email address as strong school filters often block emails

I hope the information and resources I have shared today help to build your knowledge and allow you to lead with confidence as you embark on your Science of Reading journey!

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Reading Teacher

The Science of Spelling

These days, we talk a lot about phonics - but what about spelling? In many elementary schools and school districts, the old fashioned spelling bee has returned as a means of fostering both spelling skills and healthy competition among aspiring readers and writers. Inspired by the resurgence of the spelling bee and Wordle , we dive into the latest research on spelling activities and their importance for young readers.

Spelling Lessons for Kindergarten & 1st Grade

Among researchers, the findings are clear: combining explicit spelling and phonics instruction is essential for early readers . Both cognitive psychology and neuroscience researchers have found that spelling is a crucial component of the brain’s reading architecture. Through spelling activities, children learn to map the sounds of words to their letters in spoken language. Compared to simply eyeing the letters, spelling requires more long-term memory and a deeper level of analysis to successfully sound out and write a word at the same time.

In a fluent reader of any language, the brain integrates spelling and visualization of phonics patterns to achieve “automaticity”: the ability to read and comprehend fluently, and to spell with relative ease. The English language has an especially complex reading map, which typically requires around two years of word study in kindergarten and first grade before students amass a vocabulary of around 300+ words that they read and spell automatically. This process aligns with the research of developmental cognitive scientist Linnea Ehri , who wrote that “learning to read and learning to spell are one and the same, almost” (Ehri, 1997).

The “almost” lies in the code of orthography. Spelling requires students to actively use the “ orthographic code ,” which is cracked when readers learn how to write using the correct order of letters according to their accepted usage. Compared to reading, which only requires the pronunciation of a word, spelling presents the dual challenge of writing letters in their correct sequence. As students learn to spell, they learn how to break down words into their sounds and map individual letters or “chunks” to the corresponding sounds. They also develop phoneme awareness and letter knowledge, which Hulme et al. highlighted as two key steps for children learning to read .

A 2022 Danish study recently endorsed the importance of integrating spelling activities and phonics, even for students who have not yet achieved grade-level reading milestones. The researchers found that early spelling activities were associated with significant gains in phoneme awareness, spelling, and reading, compared to classrooms in the “phonics alone” condition or those in the “business-as-usual” condition. Similar results are mirrored across a range of languages and for students experiencing difficulties with early reading; for English learners , researchers similarly found that spell-to-read activities enhance the brain’s reading architecture and ultimately boost their phoneme awareness.

Spelling Games and Resources

If you’re looking for more spelling ideas and activities to enhance your structured literacy classroom, we have a few recommendations:

• Baseball Spelling , which uses baseball terminology to reinforce your weekly spelling words
• Stair Steps , an easy DIY spelling game that helps students memorize the way words are spelled
• Sensory Spelling , which utilizes a range of unusual materials - sand, shaving cream, wood Scrabble letters, you name it - to encourage spelling words in exciting, sensory ways

Keep reading, keep spelling, and come back next week for the latest reading resources to support the young readers in your life.

Take-Aways:

• Based on reading science research, both spelling activities and explicit phonics instruction are essential for early readers.
• Due to its reliance on long-term memory and the orthographic code, spelling presents a greater challenge to the reading brain.
• When students learn to spell in their spoken language, they are positioned to read and write more fluently and confidently, particularly if structured spelling lessons are taught from kindergarten through first grade.

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Effective Spelling Instruction

Effective spelling instruction emphasizes the structure of the English language.

I’d like to start this post by throwing my past teacher self under the bus. That’s right, I can honestly tell you that I made a lot of mistakes for years. Was I dedicated? Heck yeah! Did I have the right intentions? For sure! Did I think I was doing the right thing? You betcha!

For many years,  I treated spelling as an afterthought at best. Sure, I had spelling tests and did a little phonics instruction here and there, but I wasn’t teaching it well and I wasn’t assessing it properly either. Most importantly, I wasn’t understanding the role that spelling has on students’ success with learning to read.

I was all about Balanced Literacy and did not see the value in a more explicit approach to word study. In this post, you will (hopefully) see why I’ve changed my mind. I can’t count the amount of times (in the past) I said that English doesn’t make sense and phonics only sometimes works because of all of the “rule breakers”. 

For years I taught “sight words” as words we just memorize from looking at them a lot and seeing them hung around the room or simply pointing them out in books or during shared reading. But then I started digging. I was thirsty for answers about why some students struggled so much. Why couldn’t they remember the words after seeing them so many times? Why did kids ace a spelling test then turn around and spell the same word wrong in their writer’s notebooks? I thought at the time it was our darn English language that makes no sense. Actually, it was my lack of understanding and education with the structure of our language. 

Enough about me! Let’s get to it.

Does English Make Sense?

I feel like these two quotes say it all so well, so I’m going to let them do the heavy lifting. I will explain these two claims throughout this post.

Part 1: What is English Orthography?

Those tools that can unlock the mystery of our language should not be kept secret and locked up in a box, but doesn’t it sort of feel like they are? I started to unlock that secret box when I dug deeper into phonics, but then I realized  it’s more than just phonics. It’s actually about having a broader understanding of English orthography .

A very simplified way to look at orthography is spelling, but it is bigger than that. Orthography is how we represent speech in writing and all the rules (or generalizations) that go along with the spelling of words.

Phonics and spelling together help develop readers. Our students move from sounding out words to instant recognition of words from memory. (To read about how this happens, click here for my post about orthographic mapping.)

According to Louisa Moats,  to understand a word’s spelling,  we need to look at:

•  Sound-symbol (phoneme-grapheme) relationships 
•  The patterns of letters (position of letters in words) and syllable patterns
•  Morphology
•  The history of a word (etymology)

Linguistic Units that Spelling Represents:

• Students learn that familiar phonemes (sounds) are linked to these graphemes (symbols).
• An example of a letter pattern is where the grapheme ck is used in a word. (The grapheme ck is only used at the end of words, following a short vowel.)  In other words, the spelling of a sound can change according to its position in the word.
• More about syllable patterns below.

But it doesn’t stop there!  In addition to understanding phonology , we must also understand morphology .

• With morphology, we are looking at the structure of words (think roots, bases, suffixes, and prefixes). 
• English is morpho-phonemic , which means the meaning of words (morphology) is balanced with the phonology of a word. English spelling represent sounds, syllables, and morphemes.
• For example, when we see the word “jumped”, we understand it as base word jump plus suffix -ed to make it past tense. We do not see it as “jump-ed” with an emphasis on the short e.
• An example we see early on is child and children . The base, child , maintains its spelling but the pronunciation changes. 
• The example I’ve heard often is sign  and signal . That silent g really DOES make sense. It is there to mark a meaningful relationship to signal . Interesting, right?! 

Because morphology plays an equally important role in spelling, many graphemes make multiple sounds. Helping our kids understand the structure of our language will help with their reading and spelling.

Etymology: The History of Words

Orthography also involves the history of a word, or its etymology .  I think this quote from The American Way of Spelling by Richard Venezky is really interesting: “Words, unlike people, have been forever welcomed, regardless of their origins.” The spellings of words from other languages have been retained while “coexisting with native ones”. 

We can learn a lot about morphology through etymology. English is influenced by many other languages, including Latin, French, German, Greek, and Celtic. I have only dug into etymology a little, but I definitely find it fascinating. It puts you down a rabbit hole, that’s for sure! If you’re interested in the history of a word, type it into etymonline.com.

Conventions of Print

Finally, English orthography also includes rules like capital letters signifying a proper noun or beginning of a sentence. It includes symbols like apostrophes that show possession or contraction.

It’s no surprise then, that English is considered one of the most complex languages. Yet, in school we don’t spend a lot of time learning the ins and outs of our language anymore. I didn’t even learn these rules when trying to become a teacher. In fact, I’m still learning them.

Turns out, English is not as crazy as it seems, once we understand it. Here are some stats I’ve gathered from different books or articles. Note that they may be off by a few percentages, but overall it’s pretty darn close!

• According to A Fresh Look at Phonics by Wiley Blevins, 84-87% of words follow sound-symbol spelling patterns (this is from research done by Hanna et.al 1966).  This includes many of the “sight words” that we may consider “irregular”.  
• According to Denise Eide (Uncovering the Logic of English), 98% of words can be decoded just by knowing all of the grapheme-phoneme relationship and the rules of our language.  
• To be more specific, researchers have said that about 50% of words are predictable based on sound-symbol correspondences, while another 34% of words are just off by one sound. However, once word origin and word meaning are considered, only 4% of English words are truly irregular. (Joshi, Treiman, Carreker, and Moats: How Words Cast Their Spell) 

I’m less concerned with the example percentage and more focused on the overall message here that we do have the tools to unlock that mysterious code. 

The more I learn about the English language, the more I realize there really are fewer “exceptions” than I previously imagined. Kids are interested in understanding words, too! They are naturally inquisitive and want to know why some words are spelled the way they are. (Is it going too far to say spelling instruction can be fun?)

Part 2:  Linguistic Units in Detail

Before we can dive into spelling instruction, it is helpful to get a little background. I’m going to go through each linguistic unit a little more in depth. 

Phonology: Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences

Phonology  is the study of sound patterns in human language.  Spoken words are made up of  phonemes  (sounds). When we write, we are translating those speech sounds into recognizable symbols ( graphemes – also called  phonograms ).  Phonology looks at how we connect our sound system to written words.

• 26 graphemes are single graphemes (letters of the alphabet)
• 49 are multi-letter (sh, igh, ea)
• NOTE: This says 75 basic graphemes.  There are also more advanced graphemes as well, but those only appear in a small handful of words (in some cases just a couple). Those are usually taught later (3rd-5th grade).
• Click  HERE  for an article from the Journal of Literacy Research that summarizes a phoneme-grapheme frequency count done by Hanna et al. (1966). Paul Hanna developed tables that described the relative frequency of the letters (graphemes) used to represent the major English sounds (phonemes). 
• In kinder, I do teach the alphabet, but I focus A LOT on the sound end of things.
• When teaching a new letter, I now introduce it sound first. For example, I might say, “Today we are going to learn how to read and write this sound: /b/. This sound we hear in so many words like ball, bear, and bat. One way to read and write this sound is with the letter b. When we see this (point to Bb), we will practice saying /b/.”
• Then I go into all of the activities to help learn that sound. I do a lot of o rthographic mapping activities , which focus on sound first. Like I always say, I’m still learning so I’m constantly evolving and tweaking how I do things. This is one way that I’m using the research I’ve found.
• For example, when I teach ai and ay together, I connect back to the long a using the silent e (a_e), showing them all together to remind students that they all make the same sound.
• I will keep you posted on my progress. So far, this system seems to be working well!  To read about  how our brain maps letter sequences  for permanent storage, click  here .   

Spelling Patterns and Rules :

Like I mentioned above, our alphabetic system doesn’t have a straight up 1:1 correspondence between symbols and sounds. Our language is morpho-phonemic, not alphabetic (but we do need to learn the alphabet to apply all of this of course). See the image below to see what I mean:

I used the word  house  because it illustrates two things. See how the sounds and symbols don’t match up with 1:1 correspondence? There are 5 letters but only three sounds. 

• First, students must know the  sound  that the  grapheme  ou makes.
• Second, they need to know that according to the p osition of that phoneme,  we likely will use the letter <ou> instead of <ow>. Position of phoneme can be a huge predictor of spelling. When you hear the phoneme /ou/, use the letters <ou> if that sound is heard in the beginning or middle, but never at the end. Use the letters <ow> when you hear that sound at the end OR if it is is in the middle before an <n> or <l>. 
• Third, students need to know one of the  rules of our language , which is one of the many jobs of the famous silent e. This silent e is a marker put there to show that this word is not plural (because we use the letter <s> to signify plural). Learning all of the graphemes/phonograms and the rules that go along with them can solve much of this confusion. 

To figure out which grapheme to use, we look at the position of the sound in the word (like with ou) and we also think about the rules of letter sequences (like with the e after the letter s). Understanding this information helps our students to be more successful with spelling (and it helped me with my spelling instruction!)

Side note: I learned most of the rules I know now slowly over time haphazardly. In some cases, I learned them through webinars or presentations, and in other cases through articles, random research, and google searches! Then I did some orton-gillingham training and learned more rules in a more systematic way. Over the years, I slowly collected more and more resources that have these rules explained more thoroughly. Now I have a lovely collection and I feel like I actually  do  know many of the rules. At the end of this post, I will post recommendations for books that you should definitely invest in so you have the full explanation. 

Join my mailing list to get this free  quick reference guide to spelling rules .  Click HERE. (If for some reason this doesn’t work, please email me. I’m not the most tech-savvy and it shows sometimes!)

Syllable Patterns:

I have two blog posts that go into syllable types and syllable division.  

Click here to read about syllable types.

Click here to read about Syllable Division Rules

In addition to sound-symbol correspondence, spelling patterns, and syllable structure, we must also slowly introduce morphological concepts to build their knowledge of the structure of our language. (Remember my example of  jumpe  above?)

First, I’ll over a few terms:

• A  morpheme  is the smallest  meaningful  unit in a word. Don’t confuse this with a phoneme, which is the smallest  unit of  sound  in a word.
• A morpheme may be one or more syllables.
• Words may be one of more morphemes.
• For example, the word  instruction  has three morphemes:  in  (prefix),  struct  (base), and  ion  (suffix). All of these are bound morphemes.
• In the word uncovered, there are three morphemes:  un  (prefix),  cover  (base), and  ed  (suffix).  Cover  is a free morpheme because it can be a stand-alone morpheme, but it can also have added affixes.  

I incorporate morphology into my spelling instruction as early as kindergarten when I introduce the suffix -s. As I mentioned above, we spell by phoneme-grapheme relationships, but we also spell by meaning.

In the early years, students will see this with words that have suffixes and prefixes. When they are reading, they may cover the familiar suffix -ed and then use sound-symbol knowledge to decode the base word first. They can then use their knowledge of morphology to read and understand the whole word with the -ed. This is perhaps even more helpful with spelling! As students get older and words get bigger, being able to identify affixes and familiar bases is incredibly helpful. 

The picture above shows a lesson that I do with kindergarten or first grade students.

There are 9 prefixes that make up 75% of words. (White, Sowell, and Yangihara, 1989) You can cover a lot of ground with 9 prefixes! Ten suffixes make up 85% of words. It is also helpful to know common Latin and Greek roots for older kids. I can’t say a lot of about that {yet} because I have not studied it enough and have not had enough experience teaching it. Notice the word  yet ! That is my next venture as my son is at the perfect age for this!

We can learn a lot by studying morphemes, beyond just helpful decoding and encoding. Morphemes carry meaning , so understanding the meaning of each morpheme helps us understand the meaning of words. In most words, the meaningful parts (morphemes) are often spelled consistently, but it’s the  pronunciation  that changes from one word to another. That causes us to think English doesn’t make sense, because we are purely looking at from the sound-symbol perspective. Once we are trained to look at our language as both phonological and morphological equally, with an understanding of the history, words start to make a lot more sense!

I used some examples in the slide above with sign/signal, heal/health, child/children. Notice how the spelling stays the same, but the pronunciation changes (the g is silent in one, the ea pattern changes in another, and the i sound changes in the last example). A lot of silent letters are explained by this (and many other silent letters are explained through the history).  We could go all day talking about morphology, but I’m saving that for another post!  

One more fun example that combines both phonology and morphology is the related pair  electric  and  electricity .

• Notice the base spelling remains in tact.
• If a <c> is followed by an <i>, <e>, or <y>, it is soft.
• So, in electricity, that second <c> becomes soft because of the vowel suffix beginning with an <i> is after it. 
• You can also explore other related words like  electrical, electrician, hydroelectric,  looking at which suffixes and prefixes are added to the base and how it changes the word (both pronunciation and meaning).       

I’ve been saying this for a while, but I need to sit down and write a morphology post. In the meantime, check out  Structured Word Inquiry here . It’s pretty awesome!!

Before I finish, I’ll leave you with this visual that explains a lot of the linguistic terms using one word:

I love this example because I think it really illustrates what goes into decoding this word and also the best method for decoding.

• The quickest and easiest way is to peel off those familiar affixes (-un and -able).
• Once students have learned those affixes, they will immediately see those and be able to focus in on the base,  reach. 
• After using morphology to strip this word down to its base, students now use grapheme/phoneme relationships to decode the word  reach. 
• They can also figure out that it means “not able to reach” through knowledge of prefix and suffix meaning.

Other words may not have morphemes, so you may need to use syllable division if it is a multi-syllable word. Some words may just rely on phoneme/grapheme relationships and knowledge of the rules. Having all of these tools sure is helpful though! 

I think this quote really ties it all together well:

Part 3: Application to the Classroom (What is Effective Spelling Instruction?)

It feels like spelling instruction has really gotten a bad rap. I think the reason why many of us cringe at the idea of a spelling test is because we think of a list of random words that we were sent home to memorize. My husband has very font memories of spelling tests because he didn’t have to study for one second. He literally just remembered them after seeing them once. There are those spellers out there. But of course, did those spelling tests benefit them? Nope! Yet they likely get rewarded by teachers and parents alike.

On the other hand, you’ll have students that studied all week to memorize those seemingly random strings of letters, only to either fail the test OR to pass it but forget it all five minutes later. Did they benefit from the spelling tests? Nope! Did they have anxiety every week? Probably. Did they carry shame for all their failure? Likely. I think that’s why the idea of incorporating spelling into our day makes many of us twitch.

However, when I say “spelling instruction”, I’m not talking about spelling tests like that. I’m talking about teaching the structure of our language, including all of the elements I listed above. When we teach spelling like this, the finale spelling test is not the focus.  The week of word study is the focus.  The goal is to help our students understand why words are spelled they way they are  and  at the same time, improve their reading because they are mapping these words into their long-term memories. So then, what would that look like?

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to read my post about  orthographic mapping.  There will be a lot of overlap here.

Just like with our reading instruction, we want to keep our spelling instruction  systematic  and  explicit .  Unlike decoding, you will begin with auditory information.  

• Phonics involves decoding- beginning with visual information, seeing the graphemes and translating them to sounds, then blending those sounds together. Part to whole.
• Spelling involves the opposite, encoding- beginning with auditory information, breaking apart the whole word into individual sounds, then matching those sounds to the correct graphemes. Whole to part.
• Both require knowledge of phoneme-grapheme association and understanding of letter & syllable patterns, and morphological elements.
• They are two sides of the same coin, but often one side is ignored when it should be getting equal attention.)

The following steps can be used during spelling instruction:

• Repeat, if necessary.
• Use the words in other decoding and encoding activities throughout the week.

I posted something very similar to this in my last post, but I made it printable here:

C lick here to download these Spelling Steps FREE!

Choosing Words for Spelling Instruction:

Choose words that have similar phonetic elements, both regular and some irregular. For example, when you are focusing on CVC words, you may want to add in words like  put.  You would teach the students the parts that make these words irregular. For example, the word  put  is predictable, except for the middle sound /oo/ uses the letter u. Make sure you add in suffixes too. For example, I usually teach CVC words, then the suffix -s. I will have a spelling assessment with just cvc words, but then another with cvc words that do and do not have the suffix s. After I have spend time on suffix -s, that means I can throw it in any future spelling activities because I want them to keep applying it in a guided setting until it is something that is used correctly consistently in writing. (See resources below for systematic phonics lessons that can support your spelling instruction.)

Spelling Tests: 

Students should not have a set list to memorize for a test. Following the same format as above gives you a great assessment of a students development with spelling. If you need an assessment, choose words (both regular and irregular) that fit with the words you are studying. You will get a true assessment of where that student is at developmentally with spelling when you see how they are segmenting the word’s sounds and then how they are connecting to the correct phonemes. If you’re teaching a specific rule (like where ck is used), you will get a good idea of how well that student can apply that concept.

The most important thing to remember with spelling assessments is to make sure you look at any errors that were made and use that to guide your future instruction.  “The assessment should be an opportunity to evaluate students’ understanding of sounds and conventional spelling patterns. The kinds of words that students miss and the types of errors they make are important in evaluation their spelling achievement and their understanding of language structures.”  (How Words Cast Their Spell: Joshi, Treiman, Carreker, Moats)

What about spelling homework?  

What about parents who want a list to study? This is up to your personal preference and I have no data to back me up on this, but it’s my opinion based on my experience (meaning I could be wrong of course!) I think if you work in a school community where parents are asking for how to help at home, then absolutely give them that opportunity. Explain your system though. Make sure they understand that we are not going for memorization. You can use the printables above to communicate how they can work with their child at home.

When it comes to homework, I believe it needs to be meaningful, not busy work. I believe the purpose of homework is to provide extra practice with a skill or concept when needed. If it’s not needed, it becomes busy work. I also think it can be a good tool to communicate with parents what their child is learning in school. I also believe our struggling readers need as many repetitions as possible, so for them, meaningful homework can be very helpful. Again, just my opinion and I know there are so many sides to the great homework debate that all make sense to me.

Spelling Stages:

Below are slides that summarize Richard Gentry’s stages. I think this is SO helpful when thinking about spelling instruction.  Originally, he called these stages. He has recently updated them in his book  Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching ( Gentry & Ouellette).  I HIGHLY recommend getting this book.  There is so much information in this book and it goes into these stages much more in depth, along with examples of each stage (now called phases). I actually bought this book after I wrote this post originally. I tend to wait a while before posting so I can reread and make sure I’m happy with my content. I stumbled upon this book and then had to read it before publishing this post. I’m glad I did because it not only backed up the content I had written, but it also gave me some new information to share! Three months later I may actually hit the publish button. LOL!

What about students with dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. It is neuro-biological in origin, genetic, and common (1 in 5).  Students with dyslexia struggle with decoding (sounding out words), encoding (spelling), word recognition, and reading fluency. Students with dyslexia learn to read in a way that differs from the typical reading brain.  It is important to note that students with dyslexia have average to above average intelligence and often have gifts, including creativity, “big picture thinking”, spacial awareness to name just a few. However, reading and spelling are a struggle! See my post here to learn more about what happens in the dyslexic brain when reading . 

You can often see early signs of dyslexia in a student’s spelling. Actually you can potentially see it in kindergarten before you are even using letters.

Students with dyslexia have phonological processing deficits, which can be observed through phoneme blending and segmenting activities. This is more evident when you move into spelling, when students are in the stage of inventive spelling.

Students with dyslexia often have very unusual inventive spelling, due to the fact that they struggle to process the sounds. This turns into difficulties with mapping sounds onto letters and learning syllable patterns. Early detection is key! If you see a student who struggling with phoneme blending or segmenting, has unusual inventive spelling, or struggles with word recognition (even after seeing it several times), that student may have dyslexia. Intervention is incredibly effective! Studies show that we can change and strengthen the circuitry in our brains to improve reading and spelling, through the right instruction. ( One article here)

Because students with dyslexia struggle with phonemic blending, segmenting, and automatic word recognition (recognizing a word “on sight”), spelling instruction is even more important for them! Traditional spelling tests with the memorize-these-words-for-a-test focus are very challenging for them and not at all beneficial. They need to understand the structure of our language more than anyone, as an additional tool in their reading tool belts.

In addition, a mixture of explicit, systematic reading and spelling instruction (decoding practice and orthographic mapping) may activate rewiring of their reading circuitry that can lead to improved reading and spelling. With that said, accommodations are also key! (Click here ,  here and here for ideas.) A student with dyslexia may struggle with spelling for a very long time. Usually reading improves first, then spelling. 

I hope this post has been helpful! If you are interested in not missing a post, consider joining my mailing list (found at the top of the page).

Related Blog Posts

To find more blog posts about how to teach reading and spelling, click here.

Related Resources:

Click here for  Systematic Phonics Resources.

Click here for  Morphology Resources

Click here for  Phonemic Resources  

Click here for  Phonics Resources

The Systematic Phonics  lessons on the top slide provide more detail for the teacher, along with a sequence to follow. (More are coming) The resources on the bottom slide (labeled P honics Resources ) are all great supplements. I have activities at the word level, sentence level, and decodable stories. The bottom row shows  printable phonics activities . These do not have lesson plans but the activities provide tons of practice for your students working on these phonics skills.  The  sound boxes  and  phonics cards  are both good resources for improving spelling and decoding. 

References:

I highly recommend looking into these books to learn more!  If you want to learn more about the rules of English, Uncovering the Logic of English is a great resource.  

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The Science of Reading: Vocabulary

• Where do I Start?
• Phonemic Awarenes
• Comprehension
• Assessments
• Intervention
• Science of Learning
• Books and Professional Learning

vocabulary development

Vocabulary development involves learning the meanings of new words and morphemes through direct and indirect instruction and developing tools to discover the meaning of an unknown word.

orthographic mapping

Vocabulary and Spelling Programs

• Robust Vocabulary Instruction " ... Whilst words are learnt from context, one of the problems is that later vocabulary learning shifts from oral to written contexts ... "
• Spelling Mastery "Spelling Mastery is a six-level Direct Instruction series that teaches students dependable spelling skills by blending three approaches: the phonemic approach, the whole word approach and the morphemic approach. Each approach has advantages and possible disadvantages. Spelling Mastery is designed to maximize the advantages of each approach and minimize the disadvantages ... "
• Spelling through Morphographs "Spelling Through Morphographs is a one-year program designed to teach spelling to older students (4th grade and older). Students learn that words are composed of morphographs, which roughly are prefixes, suffixes, and bases or roots. The program presents rules for combining the morphographs and provides extensive practice in applying these rules. The program uses specific strategies that encourage students to think their way through spelling rather than to memorize weekly word lists. These strategies, combined with repeated practice and application enable students to spell unfamiliar words and to remember familiar words more successfully than they would by using other methods ... "
• Spell-Ex "SpellEx is a Tier 1 program within a Response to Intervention model, designed to be delivered to whole classes by classroom teachers Part A is for students in Year 3, but can also be used in Year 4 if students have not had explicit spelling instruction in earlier years Part B – to be released in late 2024 – will follow on from Part A, making it suitable for students from Year 4."
• PLD "PLD provides an Australian, evidence-based approach to Structured Synthetic Phonics (SSP) for primary school educators. Aligned with the Science of Reading, PLD’s SSP approach extends from the junior primary years through to upper primary years and thereby facilitating a whole school approach ... "

Lesson Resources

Spelling Lesson Resources

• Support for Spelling "Teachers want their pupils to become fluent and effective writers; accurate spelling is a means to that end. Competent spellers need to spend less time and energy in thinking about spelling to enable them to channel their time and energy into the skills of composition, sentence structure and precise word choice ... "
• Spelling Bank "This booklet contains lists of words and ideas to help in the teaching of the Key Stage 2 spelling objectives set out in the National Literacy Strategy Framework for Teaching. They are drawn from the Word Level strand, predominantly from the section entitled ‘Spelling Rules and Conventions’, but with a few from the ‘Vocabulary Extension’ objectives ... "
• Spelling "...The word-lists for years 3 and 4 and years 5 and 6 are statutory. The lists are a mixture of words pupils frequently use in their writing and those which they often misspell. Some of the listed words may be thought of as quite challenging, but the 100 words in each list can easily be taught within the four years of key stage 2 alongside other words that teachers consider appropriate...."
• Morphology: An Exploration of Bases and Affixes to Build Spelling, Vocabulary, & Comprehension Knowledge of morphology is useful for academic vocabulary development, both for comprehension and writing. One in three words you see for the first time is linked morphologically to something you already know ...
• Vocabulary in Action poster: A tool for teachers The EEF’s Vocabulary in Action poster offers a straightforward, simple summary of key techniques we can use to develop our approaches to direct vocabulary teaching.

Readings on Spelling

Readings and Videos on Spelling

• How Spelling Supports Reading "Much about spelling is puzzling. Our society expects that any educated person can spell, yet literate adults commonly characterize themselves as poor spellers and make spelling mistakes.
• Why America Can’t Read "Advanced research in cognitive science including brain scan science is demonstrating that explicit spelling instruction may be the missing link to reading success in America where 65 percent of fourth-graders read below proficiency levels ... "
• Exploring Australian Students’ Spelling Skills - Spelling Skills Report 2021 "Proficient spelling is a fundamental literacy trait. In standard English, spelling requires awareness of speech sounds (phonology) and knowledge of how to visually represent those sounds into meaningful units (morphology) using conventional alphabetic letter patterns (orthography) ... "
• How Words Cast Their Spell "In 1773, Noah Webster stated that “spelling is the foundation of reading and the greatest ornament of writing.”1 He was right. Good spelling is critical for literacy, and it makes writing much easier—allowing the writer to focus on the ideas to be conveyed, not the letters needed to put those ideas on paper ... "
• From Sounds to Spelling "Several high profile research projects have confirmed that explicit sequential teaching of phonics is the primary means of teaching children how to read and spell ... "

Teaching Spelling

• The Dos and Don’ts of Teaching Spelling "In the same way that a child’s spelling ability tends to lag behind their reading ability, it seems that the understanding of how to teach spelling seems to lag behind the understanding of how to teach reading ... "
• Lyn Stone's Spelling Webinars This is a series of free webinars which will help all teachers understand our own English orthography.
• Activities for Practising Spelling: Toxic to Helpful "Based on many years researching and practising spelling activities with struggling students, Lyn Stone’s forthright suggestions about what really works, and maybe more importantly what doesn’t, will provoke lively debate amongst those trying to help children to become better spellers ... "
• Teaching Spelling Using a Structured Literacy Approach This presentation, delivered by Dr Louisa Moats, covers: the latest research about how children learn to spell; how spelling supports reading; how spelling can be used as a diagnostic tool; and a comprehensive approach to teaching spelling that complements reading instruction.
• Morphology Scope and Sequence Jasmine Fleur Shannon has put together this morphology - the study of words and their parts - scope and sequence for F-6.
• Advances in Understanding the Role of Morphemes in Literacy Development This special issue of the Journal of Research in Reading is free.
• Online Etymology Dictionary "This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English. Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago."
• Mini Matrix-Maker "Mini Matrix-Maker will automatically build a word matrix for you from the set of word sums in your word family ... "
• The OK Book "Word Inquiry through picture books: You might not be an excellent word inquirer...yet. That’s OK. Be a noticer, thinker, and practicer and you will become a word knower!"
• Morphology Matters Building Vocabulary Through Word Parts
• Teaching Morphology - Resource Kit " ... It is important that children are taught the interrelation between morphology, phonology and etymology, as when we combine all three areas, it teaches children how our writing system works (Bower & Shanahan, 2021). Morphological instruction however, should never replace a structured synthetic phonics approach and the other essential elements in the Science of Reading ... "

Books about Vocabulary

Books about Spelling

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Savannah Campbell is a K-5 reading specialist.  She has taught her entire 12-year teaching career at the school she went to as a child.  She has been named Teacher of the Year for her reading council, Teacher of the Year for her school, and Elementary Educator of the Year for her district.  She holds two master’s degrees in education from the College of William and Mary.  Savannah is both Orton-Gillingham and LETRS trained.  She has worked through transitioning from a balanced literacy mindset to structured literacy.  Her greatest hope in life is to allow all children to live the life they want by helping them to become literate individuals.

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Decodable Science of Reading Literacy Centers Word Work Worksheets Spelling UFLI

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Do yourself a favor and get this phonics bundle to save a TON of time! THIRTY spelling patterns are included in this no-prep required bundle. Set your centers up at the beginning, explain expectations, then just switch out the sheets every week!

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** The ENTIRE bundle is getting updated this summer! Pages will have a new clean look, as requested a place for students to write their name on each page has been added. I think you will LOVE the new look. All updates will be completed as soon as possible. **

Just print the spelling pattern you are working on for the week and put it in a spelling or word work center. Great to send home for HOMEWORK or for independent practice during INTERVENTION time and make great literacy centers.

Activities included for each skill:

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The Science of Spelling

What is the science of spelling.

The Science of Spelling is a systematic approach that involves understanding the relationship between sounds and written symbols.

It utilises the large body of Science of Reading research to implement evidence-based best practices and strategies to teach and practise spelling. Learning to spell is a key ingredient to becoming a good reader and is far more intricate than just memorising words.

Each lesson has a main objective taken from the relevant year’s content descriptors. Committing each word to memory would be an enormous and daunting task for any learner. Instead, The Science of Spelling teaches children to recognise spelling patterns and highlights notable exceptions. Words are taught in context and linked to other words with similar patterns in order to fully explore their meanings.

Why is Spelling Important?

Research confirms that spelling enhances young children’s ability to read and write. However, as children get older, the continued teaching of appropriate spelling practices (spelling patterns; studying the meaning of roots, prefixes and suffixes; the historical development of the English language and words’ language of origin) could provide them with significant benefits (Moats, 2005).

Moats (2005) describes the two big sources of complexity in English spelling as the layering of various languages as English evolved and the emphasis on meaning instead of sounds. Explicit spelling instruction in these areas can help students unlock clues about the meaningful relationships between words as well as contribute to vocabulary growth and reading comprehension. The Spelling Shed Stages 3-5 lists slowly begin to introduce these concepts and provide for rich vocabulary and morphology acquisition.

Written language is a form of communication. Errors in spelling can lead to misunderstandings and a loss of meaning. While the basic meaning may still be conveyed in a message peppered with spelling errors, the authority and tone of the communication have likely been lost. Daffern and Fleet (2021) note that: “In an age of fast-paced digital modes of communication such as texting, emailing, and messaging through social media platforms, it seems more important than ever to be able to efficiently spell words in a range of contexts."

How Does Spelling Impact Reading?

Learning to spell is a key ingredient to becoming a good reader and is far more intricate than just memorising words. Catherine Snow et al. (2005) summarise the real importance of spelling for reading as follows: “Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for fluent reading.” Encoding (spelling) is a developmental process that impacts fluency, writing, pronunciation and vocabulary. Fluency is best developed through a combination of mastering systematic phonics, practicing high frequency words and repeated readings (Moats, 1998; LeBerge & Samuels, 1974; Rasinski, 2009).

As students begin to master phonics, it is advantageous to use those skills to practice the 300 high frequency words that make up 65% of all texts (Fry, 1999). When the relationship between spelling and reading is conveyed, students gain a better understanding of the code and demonstrate gains in reading comprehension (Moats, 2005), vocabulary (Moats, 2005), fluency (Snow et al., 2005) and spelling (Berninger, 2012).

How Does Spelling Shed Use The Science of Spelling to Deliver Effective Spelling Lessons?

To deliver effective spelling lessons that align with the principles of the Science of Spelling, we must focus on research-backed approaches. This means teaching strategies rather than memorising them. These strategies include direct instruction, word study and practice. Spelling Shed lists were developed by applying the Science of Reading research and follow a systematic progression of phonics and word study skills typically addressed in each Stage.

Spelling Shed supports differentiated learning, allowing students to progress at their own pace and receive activities tailored to their individual needs. This personalised approach aligns with the Science of Reading's emphasis on accommodating diverse learning styles and abilities.

At Spelling Shed, every lesson has a main objective from the National Curriculum 2014. We use word study and the latest spelling research to effectively teach spelling. The timing is flexible to fit with your school’s needs. Spelling Shed provides children with multiple methods for approaching spelling. Each lesson is planned and has resources, including a lesson plan, a lesson presentation and worksheets.

At the beginning of each Stage, there is an intentional spiral review of skills expected to have been acquired in the previous Stage but they also include words of increasing difficulty. Throughout the progression, new and more advanced concepts and skills are delicately intertwined within the review. This aids in linking past learning to the new concepts and skills and reinforces and solidifies learning. If students are struggling with a particular skill, teachers can use previous Stage lists, which will have a more in-depth focus to match students’ needs. The majority of the words selected for each list contain only the grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC’s) that have been previously reviewed to avoid cognitive overload, help ensure focus and attain mastery of the skill at hand.

Practising to read high frequency words is essential to becoming a fluent reader but not by memorising the whole word. Brain research shows that strong readers, even when they process a written word, such as ‘instantaneously,’ are reading by sounds. Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that readers who read fluently are able to map phonograms to their sounds automatically. The process occurs so quickly that it appears they are reading “by sight” (Ehri & Snowling, 2004). Most high-frequency words are decodable and are more efficiently taught alongside the corresponding phonetic patterns. When students use their knowledge of the sounds to learn and master high-frequency words, they simultaneously strengthen the skills that will enable them to read thousands more.

The Linguistic Tapestry

An effective speller draws upon the entire rich linguistic tapestry of a word to spell it correctly. the threads of this tapestry can be identified as phonological knowledge, orthographic knowledge, morphological knowledge, etymological knowledge and visual knowledge. (apel et al., 2004a, b; henry, 1989; masterson and apel, 2010)..

Phonological Knowledge

This is simply knowing the phonemes (sounds) and understanding how to represent them as graphemes (letters). Using Spelling Shed, students will be systematically taught the different graphemes for each phoneme.

Orthographic Knowledge

‘Ortho’ meaning ‘correct’ and ‘graph’ meaning ‘to do with writing’. Orthography is the spelling system of a language. It is the patterns the language can use.

“Alongside phonological knowledge, students must have orthographic knowledge, that is, understanding which letter sequences are both possible and plausible in English.” Adoniou (2024, p. 146)

Let's take 'drip' as an example. It can’t be spelled ‘dd’ with /d/ because ‘dd’ is most often in the middle of words or before a suffix. It would never be at the beginning of a word.

“Orthographic mapping is the cognitive process by which readers associate speech sounds with written letters (phoneme-grapheme associations) in a written word to store it for immediate retrieval “on sight”.” Mather & Jaffe (2021, p. 15-16)

As it is a cognitive process, it is not something you can directly teach; however, you can use methods that support orthographic mapping. This might include breaking down words in different ways: sound buttons, Elkonin boxes or syllables and looking at the positional best fit of words.

Teaching morphemes and word origins helps students understand the meaning of words at a deeper level, which helps them connect to and recognise unfamiliar words. This means that explicit and systematic spelling instruction can increase vocabulary acquisition.

Morphological and Etymological Knowledge

“visual memory is dramatically better when meaning can be attached to the to-be-remembered pattern.” bowers & bowers (2017, p.132).

Morphology and etymology are important aspects of language that can significantly aid in learning to spell correctly.

Understanding Word Structure: Morphology

Morphology deals with the structure of words and how they are formed from smaller units called morphemes (the smallest units of meaning). Understanding morphology helps students break down words into meaningful parts, such as prefixes, suffixes and root words. Knowing common prefixes and suffixes can provide clues about the meaning of a word and its spelling. For example, the prefix "un-" often indicates negation (e.g., unhappy) and recognising this can help in spelling related words.

Identifying Word Origins: Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history and origins of words. Knowing the origin of a word often provides insight into its spelling and meaning; e.g., ‘ch’ can be pronounced as /k/ in words such as choir, school and stomach. Words that pronounce ‘ch’ as /k/ are often Greek in origin. Words with similar roots or bases often have similar spellings. For instance, if you know that "bene-" means "good" or "well" (as in "beneficial"), you can apply this knowledge to spell and understand other words with the same prefix, such as "benefit" or "benevolent."

Learning morphology and etymology enhances vocabulary. As students become familiar with root and base words, prefixes, and suffixes, they can more easily recognise and learn new words.

Memorised Words (Lexical Store)

“in order to spell well, children need to learn how to strategically use knowledge about phonology, orthography, morphology and etymology. it is also a visual activity that involves the laying down and retrieval of visual representations of words and word parts in the memory.” oakley & fellowes (2016, p.1).

Research shows that visual memory is dramatically better when meaning can be attached to the to-be-remembered pattern. As spellers, we build up a mental lexicon. This is a bank of words we have committed to our visual memory and can spell almost automatically.

Effective spelling instruction teaches strategies that support spelling skills. Often, we rely heavily on visual memory for spelling, but there is much more to it than that. Word study directly teaches the linguistic skills that contribute not only to effective spelling but also to reading and further literacy skills such as spoken language.

Strategic Knowledge and Application

We often start with explicit, systematic phonic instruction. However, in later years, this is frequently disregarded. This is best demonstrated using the overlapping waves theory (Siegler, 1996). Wave theory explains that as children grow up and experience different things, they rely on different strategies to learn new things.

Direct instruction should be explicit and systematic, teaching patterns of the English language as well as common exceptions.

This includes:

• Alphabetic Principle (an understanding that oral language can be converted to written language by using alphabet letters—graphemes)
• Spelling-Pattern Knowledge (phonics)
• Patterns, not ‘rules’

Word study involves teaching students strategies for decoding and encoding words, such as identifying morphemes, prefixes, suffixes and roots.

• Spelling variations based on word origins (etymology)
• Meaning (morphology)

Practice should be both guided and independent, giving students opportunities to apply their learning to new words and contexts. Additionally, it should also be differentiated, meaning different students will be given different activities or tasks to work on in order to meet their individual needs. It is also important to incorporate multisensory techniques and activities to build a broader understanding of a concept.

As the concepts and skills advance in difficulty in Spelling Shed Stages 2–5, the importance of teaching the etymology and morphology of words increases. As Venesky (1967) stated, “The simple fact is that the present orthography is not merely a letter-to-sound system riddled with imperfections, but instead a more complex and more regular relationship wherein phoneme and morpheme share leading roles.” Words are encoded by their relationship between sounds (phonemes) and meaning (morphology). Moats (2005) states, “Learning to spell requires instruction and gradual integration of information about print, speech sounds, and meaning—these, in turn, support memory for whole words, which is used in both spelling and sight (automatic) reading."

• Moats, L., & Snow, C. (2005). How Spelling Supports Reading. American Federation of Teachers, 1–13. How Spelling Supports Reading by Louisa Moats
• Daffern, T., & Fleet, R. (2021). Investigating the efficacy of using error analysis data to inform explicit teaching of spelling. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties (accepted). Investigating the efficacy of using error analysis data to inform explicit teaching of spelling | Tessa Daffern
• Berninger, V. “Evidence-based, developmentally appropriate writing skills k-5: teaching the orthographic loop of working memory to write letters so developing writers can spell words and express ideas.” Presented at Handwriting in the 21st century?: An educational summit, Washington, D.C. January 23, 2012.
• Ehri, L. and Snowling, M.J. (2004). Developmental variation in word recognition. In Stone, C.A., Silliman, E.R., Ehren, B.J., and Apel, K. (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders, pp. 433-460. New York: Guilford.
• Fry, E. B. (1999). 1000 Instant Words: The most common words for teaching reading, writing, and spelling. Westminster, CA: Teacher Created Materials.
• LaBerge, D., & Samuels, J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323.
• Moats, L. (1998). Teaching decoding. American Educator, Spring/Sum, 1–8.
• Snow, C. E., Griffin, P., and Burns, M. S. (Eds.) (2005). Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading: Preparing Teachers for a Changing World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Rasinski, T.V. “Introduction: Fluency: The Essential Link From Phonics to Comprehension.” Essential readings on fluency. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association, 2009. 1-10. Print.
• Venezky, R. L. (1967). English orthography: Its graphical structure and its relation to sound. Reading Research Quarterly, 75-105.
• A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words | Reading Rockets
• A New Phonics-Based Approach to Teaching High Frequency Words
• Teach “Sight Words” As You Would Other Words
• High-frequency words: some ways to teach and help students practice and learn them
• How Phonics Helps Your Child To Read
• II. Overlapping Waves Theory - Chen - 2000 - Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development - Wiley Online Library