A Perfectly Normal Spelling Dilemma

Abstract

LINCOLN, Nebraska, does have a spelling problem: many Lincoln teachers do a decent job with spelling and many Lincoln students become acceptable spellers, but the opposites of these statements are also true; an occasional businessman laments, Why don't the schools teach kids to spell?; a science teacher might berate an English teacher for not doing his job; a junior high teacher might just possibly censure an elementary teacher for not doing her job-a perfectly normal spelling dilemma. Short Course in Spelling had no pretentious ambitions for eradicating this dilemma; it did have the modest hope of educating teachers, Head Start to Grade 12, math teachers, principals, coaches, and, of course, English teachers, to provide them with some honest understandings about what really is operating in the spelling process. In this short course each certified person in the system received a 4 x 5 blue card (blue, so that it would not be lost in the predominantly white mail) in his box each day, each successively inscribed: 1. The last time someone asked you to spell lunarian, chances are you spelled it 1-u-n-a-r-i-a-n because you have made your own generalizations (or a teacher help'ed you do it) that the sound luis spelled 1-u-, the sound -naris spelled -n-a-r-, the sound -imay be spelled -iand the sound -an may be spelled a-n. A person can spell because he has made some connection between sound and letter. 2. English speakers use some forty sounds; written English uses twentysix letter symbols. 3. We are not interested in teaching the so-called rules of spelling, rather, generalizations about the relationship between sound and letter or letters. Teachers must help students to internalize, not necessarily verbalize, these generalizations. 4. We often consider the English spelling system to be highly erratic, but it actually reflects more of the structure of the language than we have given it credit for; there are many regularities operating in the spelling of English. 5. PALL MALL CAN'T SPALL*