The least taught literacy skill in school is spelling, yet it is one of the most tested areas in English classes and an area which students are held accountable for on state standardized tests. Spelling is also an impossible feat for those students who encounter reading disabilities. Annie Paul suggests in her New York Times article, "Dyslexia is the most common learning disability in the United States, affecting more than 10 percent of the population." How then are students with dyslexia expected to master a spelling test when they are not first taught how to decode the spelling words?
Teachers ask many students to spend hours looking for spelling errors, written mistakes, and revising their work; yet these practices do not teach spelling. A method of looking for little words hidden inside other words so students can read the larger word is not a method to teach how to decode words, yet this is what students are expected to do when they are taught to read and spell. Furthermore, students spend countless hours trying to complete non-productive word searches, which is really nonessential “busy work” and the exercises do not emphasize decoding strategies. Another imprudent activity many students struggle to complete in order to “enforce their weekly-spelling words” include “to-do” activities: such as, spirals, backwards or alphabetical order. All of these methods to introduce spelling, only frustrate students who have difficulty with phonetic awareness or other reading disabilities.
Spelling tests are administered
weekly in elementary schools and students are expected to accomplish these
exams. Yet, how do students master the craft of orthography when spelling
rules are not taught in school? How do students who can't decode words supposed
to feel successful when these tests of mastery occur
The English language is an alphabetic based language where letters are used to write words; whereas, it is not a phonetic language. There is not a simple distinction between the seventy-two phonological sounds and the twenty-six letters, which can arguably be written "more than 1,100 different ways," according to Eric Nagourney of The New York Times.
So, while the many multiple sounds of the language - or phonemes – are important in learning to spell the words found in the English language, yet they are inadequate in identifying the structure of a word. The most common tool given to young children for spelling an unfamiliar word is for them to “sound it out,” which makes a phonological promise to students that the rules of Standard English language simply cannot keep.
How then is a learner expected to express themselves in written form if they are hindered by their ability to excel at an excellent working memory? Identifying orthography within many sub-groups and mentioning the discrepancies in spelling among the various languages, while characterizing orthography as “social practice” is accomplished through the research of Mark Sebba. Social conventions, no matter what language is spoken, expect ideals in the area of orthography.
What happens then to the learner who is disabled to: “sound out” unsoundable words, memorize infrequently used words, or express their thoughts in written expression? Sufferers of Specific Learning Disabilities, such as dyslexia, are at a disadvantage to master reading and writing; and they do not understand ideas and phrases they see written around them every day. This further inhibits their social conversations, which can be heard as labored; due to the fact, they do not have an increased vocabulary or understanding of multisyllabic words. Redirecting SLD learners to excel at “social processes,” in a world where linguistics matter in order to survive socially, begins with introducing orthography.
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| "Children of the Code" explains why the field of orthography is a necessary tool for children to receive in school https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj2rBxKRZSc |
