The teaching of spelling; a critical study of recent tendencies in method

Contents

PREFACE v

INTRODUCTION . . . Frank M. McMurry ix THE TEACHING OF SPELLING

Henry Suzzallo I I. The Need to study Our Instruction

Preface

The purpose of this study is to present a survey of contemporaneous tendencies in the teaching of spelling. It is a summary of the situation in which the elementary teacher finds himself, with some explanation of the forces, traditional and radical, which have molded it. No attempt is made to deal with every controversy or problem ; space does not permit. Merely the more important factors have been analyzed, for these establish the structure of our difficulties. When these are understood, the lesser problems find a ready explanation.

Our traditions are frequently very insistent. Often a single mode of teaching will completely subordinate other supplemental means. No less dominating is reform, with its passion for the particular idea to which it has attached itself. The result is that teachers standing in the midst of many practical pressures, are not always able to comprehend the situation as a whole, to view each particular tendency in its relative place and

PREFACE

complete setting. This review is designed to offer the necessary perspective. It outlines the major controversies, traces their recent evolution, and gives some critical estimate of their worth.

The whole effort of the monograph is to study a live situation, for institutional customs have an active molding power. Lay a wide reform upon the school, and the result will always be somewhat disappointing to the reformer. The tradition upon which reform has been laid is not static ; it has force and modifies every new idea. There are lines of most and least resistance in every situation, and these must be taken into account in administering any progressive policy. For this reason, the historical method is used throughout. Nothing illuminates the present so much as an understanding of immediately preceding situations. Any basic interpretation of to-day's practices is dependent upon a comprehension of yesterday's.

If the basic method emphasized is historical, the critical method of the philosopher of education has been everywhere superimposed. For mere facts must be evaluated, expressed in terms vi

PREFACE

of ^their significance for the school's purposes and given a relative worth in the whole scheme of teaching methods. Hence sociology and psychology, and the other studies from which education gains its scientific criticisms and sanctions, have been utilized in measuring the worth of classroom teaching. The philosophy of education, just because it views education as a whole from norms erected by its own situation, has been used to reveal many inconsistencies, overemphases, and false relations, readily perceived when the elements of the situation are seen in their total setting. Hence the study goes beyond a simple historical tracing of particular methods and a descriptive statement of the manner in which these are operative in the present. It is constructive in that it suggests the particular function of each method and the manner in which these supplement each other in the whole work of instructing children in spelling.

Inevitably the gaps in our knowledge are revealed. Not all the experience we have can interpret the whole story. The empirical discoveries of the teacher, presented in pedagogical vii

PREFACE

tradition, and the criticisms of the analyst, stated in current theory, fall short of completeness. There is need of a more minute and accurate evaluation of teaching methods which only the experimentalists in teaching can give. For them this study will have worth. It will point the issues which are of practical concern and suggest the definite bits of truth which must be known before we can progress rationally. It is far better that the educational psychologist and the comparative experimentalist in teaching study the issues which are vital to professional teachers. Their results will then be more readily heeded by the great masses of teachers, for the facts revealed by their inquiries will be eagerly received and applied.

It is hoped, therefore, that the monograph here presented will assist in the improvement of our methods of teaching spelling : (i) directly, by giving a wider comprehension of the tendencies now effective in our spelling situation ; and (2) indirectly, by suggesting a series of practical problems that require the scientific contributions of an experimental pedagogy.

Introduction

BY FRANK M. McMURRY

To a large majority of teachers — even of those who are progressive — spelling is a hopeless subject. It seems to lack the possibility of such rich subject-matter as makes reading and history attractive ; and to want that organization of its facts that distinguishes every worthy branch of knowledge, since the units that compose it are not thoughts, but merely individual words. In consequence it is recognized as almost entirely a mechanical study, providing little motive for the pupil, requiring little skill from the teacher, and depending mainly on mere repetition or brute endurance for mastery.

Something like a revelation awaits teachers holding the above conception, in the following discussion of spelling. For it is treated as a branch of knowledge that is subject to the same general standards as the most respectable studies. For example, the need of providing for motive, through subject-matter that is intrinsically interix

INTRODUCTION

esting, is recognized here as elsewhere, and the way of satisfying the need — at least to a large extent — is pointed out.

Mere scattered lists of words are opposed, much as were lists of dates in history or of places in geography ; and extensive association is demanded as in other fields where ideas are abundant.

The importance of eliminating much useless matter is urged here, as it has long been urged in arithmetic, and a basis of selection according to real values is proposed.

The influence of individuality on the curriculum is more fully recognized than is usual, inasmuch as the peculiarities of each child are made partial factors in determining the words which he shall learn to spell. And finally, the test of actual use, in determining the thoroughness of mastery secured, is applied in a way to satisfy the most ardent believer in the present functioning of knowledge. In other words, spelling is here placed upon much the same plane, in dignity, with other subjects; it is discussed as if it were a branch that is capable, like them, x

INTRODUCTION

of being thoughtfully studied and thoughtfully — not merely mechanically — taught; and the standards to which it is subjected are the same as should be used in testing the worth of subject-matter, method of presentation and textbooks in any, or all, other fields.

This point of view has been greatly needed. For, while there has been a movement in this direction, it has not hitherto found so full expression. Every study has a mechanical or formal side, as opposed to the side that appeals to thought or spirit ; and in every study there is a marked tendency to center attention on this more mechanical portion, and to rely upon cold drill for its mastery. The newspapers usually call for more extensive drill when pupils prove themselves deficient in any line. /It is high time for both teachers and parents to understand that drill is one of the clumsiest tools we have in the field of education. Those who so loudly call for more drill, at other times demand more thinking. But the more drill there is, the less the thinking; and the more the thinking, the less the drill that is necessary. Progress in the teaching of every xi

INTRODUCTION

subject in the elementary school during the last generation can be clearly traced in the diminished dependence on mere repetition. For example, location of places in geography was formerly fixed by going over the list time and again. But as the subject has become more dynamic, location has been subordinated to real thoughts of value ; and while location of places is probably more firmly fixed in memory than ever, it is accomplished incidentally while the broad facts that make use of location are under consideration. It is only the poorest teachers of geography who now contentedly rely upon bald repetition, rather than upon thoughtful association, as their main means of memorizing the formal facts.

One's faith in mere drill may safely be taken as a barometer of one's progress as a teacher ; and the following discussion will give the reader occasion to inquire where he has been standing in this matter, while showing him how to advance.

Teachers College,

Columbia University.

THE TEACHING OF SPELLING I

THE NEED TO STUDY OUR INSTRUCTION IN SPELLING

Our teachers are peculiarly sensitive to the misspellings of their pupils. In geography, history, or mathematics they are fairer to themselves and the children in making allowance for inevitable imperfections in the results of their teaching. In spelling they forget that their pupils are growing, not grown ; and a lapse or error becomes a source of exaggerated discouragement or irritation. The careful teacher feels a pang of conscience with every misspelled word, and even an indifferent teacher is shocked into a sense of shortcoming, if the errors called to his attention are those of spelling.

Our Sensitiveness to Spelling Defects It is probable that this professional sensitiveness regarding spelling is due to the fact that lay criticism focuses itself more readily upon defects of spelling than upon those of other school subjects. Next to the complete inability to read, poor spelling is to the public the surest sign that one is not educated. One may miss the meaning or pronunciation of a word in reading, and it will be forgotten the next moment ; the impression is transient, as attention is rapidly carried along to something else. Let a word be misspelled and the incompetence is recorded as a visible and more or less permanent proof of defect. Hence a poor speller is the first and readiest discovery of the layman. The lay critic, being human in the forgetfulness of his own youthful errors, readily thinks that the children of his own generation were better taught ; he then lays the lash of odious comparison upon the teachers of his own children. This criticism is usually ill-founded, for such accurate comparative information as we have indicates the superiority of the actual results attained under modern methods of instruction in spelling. Nevertheless the criticism is terrifying. 2

THE NEED TO STUDY SPELLING

Resulting Complexity of Methods

The result has been that energy and ingenuity have been expended upon the teaching of spelling to a degree that is quite disproportionate to its relative place in life and the school curriculum. A decade or so ago this over-emphasis expressed itself mainly in an energetic increase of drill, review, and examination; to-day it shows itself mainly in an effort to invent and utilize better methods of presenting and correcting spelling words. Many new modes of teaching children to spell have been devised ; old methods have been dragged from the historic scrapheap and revived under both old and new names. Contextual spelling, development through multiple sense-association, and phonogrammic classification of words are among the newer ideas introduced ; while the spelling match, diacritical marking, and word analysis represent the restorations. Amid all these methods, new and old, representing an unusual complexity of teaching device, it is difficult for the old teacher, much more for the young teacher, to steer himself. 3

That there is necessity for the evaluation of spelling methods is manifest in the pedagogical confusion that exists in the works of textbook writers, the practice of teachers, and the discussions of theorists.

The Need of Evaluation

The whole situation requires careful analysis in terms of classroom experience and investigation under experimental conditions if the relative worth of various systems, methods, and devices of teaching is to be determined. The obligation for clarifying the situation rests upon the practical methodologists of progressive and investigative turn of mind, wherever these may be found throughout the country. They will need to study our prevalent methods of teaching spelling by every approach ; to note their genesis in terms of the various traditions and forces which have originated and molded them ; to compare the uses and effects of various teaching procedures under differing situations ; and finally to measure the efficacy of our present methods, general and special, by standards of scientific construction. 4

THE NEED TO STUDY SPELLING

A Preliminary Survey of Present Methods

But before we can reach the all-important stage of a scientific investigation of spelling methods by an experimental teaching that will test their relative efficiency, we must know what our spelling situation is. Description and analysis normally precede experimentation; they reveal the issues upon which current theory and practice express differences of opinion. To describe the status of teaching in spelling we shall need to know the methods in current use, to note the manner of their introduction, the extent of their adoption, the special problems they were designed to solve, and their relation to other methods of instruction which they supplement or with which they compete. We must also render such broad estimates of worth as are apparent to the experienced analytical observer ; and finally reveal the important controversies that call for experimental solution.

II

It is obvious to any careful professional observer that the status of instruction in spelling has greatly improved within a quarter of a century. An increase in the types of teaching employed for both old and new purposes has been a source of fruitful selection. Old methods have given way to new or have persisted against innovations that had less logical claim to success. Among the many devices and methods there has been a struggle for existence on the basis of fitness and for the most part only the better of them have survived. There has of course been much accompanying waste of which we must rid ourselves. But the fundamental factors in the effective teaching of spelling are now readily recognized, at least in degree sufficient to guarantee their extended application. It is the great change in the aim and spirit of spelling instruction which is reconstructing its detailed methods. 6

It is therefore useful at the outset to know in a broad way the larger tendencies toward change now current among teachers.

Teaching subordinates Testing

A quarter of a century ago the spelling period was given over to the mere hearing of spelling lessons. The teacher heard the children spell the words that had been assigned for mastery, and made the corrections as the errors occurred. More often the children wrote the words in lists as the teacher pronounced them. An oral spelling by the teacher afforded the basis for marking misspelled words. A new list of words was then assigned for the next day's lesson without much anticipation of, or preparation for, special difficulties. Correction on the part of the erring child consisted in writing the misspelled words a specified number of times under scant supervision after school or during a study period. The so-called class lesson was really a daily examination. Under such a system the learning of spelling was a matter for home assignment and individual study. The class exercise was purely 7 for the purpose of testing the child's knowledge. It did not devote itself either to the careful presentation and development of new difficulties or to the watchful correction of errors. In all its emphases it was primarily a test rather than a lesson.

In most places to-day, the class exercise in spelling is vastly different. The teacher spends his time in carefully presenting a few words, rather than in examining the child's ability in many. New work is a matter of class study, where words are presented with unusual artfulness in order to suggest their meaning naturally through circumstance or context. Every effort is made to safeguard the child against a wrong first impression and an incorrect learning of the word. If a home lesson is assigned, it is not a mere blocking out of a number of words to be learned ; the assignment is an exercise in which the teacher uses all his foresight in anticipating the various kinds of trouble the child will meet, focusing the attention on special difficulties and suggesting modes of self- instruction. The modern spelling exercise may test the child's knowledge, 8 but its primary function is to teach rather than to examine. Here testing is a mere accessory of instruction and completely subordinated to it.

Prevention supplements Correction

As might be implied from the foregoing, the earlier teaching primarily looked for error, which it promptly assumed to correct, though it performed even this task loosely, as we shall later see. As emphasis was laid on testing the child's knowledge, it was necessarily corrective in spirit. To-day teaching in spelling aims to get rid of error by anticipating and preventing it through a watchful supervision of first impressions and associations. This is the significance of the shortened assignment lists, the elaborate development of the meaning and form of words, and the multiplicity of devices for interesting the child in the right observation and use of words. Even the correction of spelling errors has grown more efficient through its companionship with a skilled teaching which aims to avoid unnecessary error. Correction no longer stops with a check mark and a reprimand ; it inquires 9 into cause, makes a truly pedagogical correction, and finally makes certain that recovery from error is complete. The corrective work is done with a spirit and thoroughness designed to prevent the recurrence of the need of correction.

Vital Instruction supersedes Formal Work

What could be more dreary than spelling lists of words unrelated to each other and devoid of vital significance to the child ? Such a task must have been to the child what learning nonsensesyllables is to an adult. The gap between the child's need to spell his own words and the adult's demand that he spell certain others is now better bridged than before. To begin with, the first spelling that the child undertakes is a translation of his own speech into sight symbols so that another may read his thought. When spelling instruction becomes more systematic, words outside the child's active vocabulary are not directly imposed. They are brought in indirectly. He is given the experiences that bring the new terms into his life as appropriate symbols for his new thoughts, feelings, and deeds. He is stim- 10 ulated to speak of these new pilgrimages into knowledge and to write of them. Then the spelling of a word that was very strange yesterday is no dull task ; it is the acquisition of a technique, as necessary from the child's standpoint as from the adult's. Such is the changed spirit of spelling instruction in our schools. It has become a vital, well-related business where before it was unmotivated and isolated ; it is now real where before it was formal.

Change in the Type of Motivation

One can well imagine the type of motivation used under the older methods of teaching spelling. The words were too frequently related to the child merely through the teacher. The child did not feel any direct relation to the word, but he did to the teacher. His dependence upon the latter was obvious. He learned the spelling word in order to get along with the teacher. The teacher thus became an end in education, not a means. It is easy to note the type of motivation which would be developed in such a situation. It was coercive and harsh, emphasizing all the ii qualities of mind that accompany subservience to a master, or rivalry with one's fellows.

The value of such spelling was extrinsic, not intrinsic. And even the extrinsic worth of spelling to the child was not fundamental, but adventitious; it referred not to his permanent ability to express himself, but to his transient and conventionalized relation to the teacher. The glory of success in the competition of the spelling match typified the kind of motives used to stimulate the good speller ; the deprivation and shame of being kept after school were indicative of the deterrents which kept the poor speller from an utter neglect of the spelling book.

It would be well if we could say that all this has passed. It has not yet done so with any completeness in current practice ; but in spirit and in policy we have already accepted the standard that good instruction in spelling depends upon improving the quality of motivation. Practical teachers no longer argue that the spelling period should not have a content of its own. This is debated only where the problem is academic. The original demand to spell a word may come from outside the spelling period, but the teacher through the introduction of proper basic experiences in the spelling lesson will try to create a demand for the word then and there. Thus the spirit of naturalism which is slowly driving artificiality out of the schools is, with the artistic teacher, making spelling vital to the child. There is now interest wherever spelling is well taught ; the children are active not dull, eager not driven.

Spelling reflects General Educational Progress

These changes in the spirit of instruction in spelling are largely reflections of general progress in teaching method. Spelling within the domain of its own special methods has been a follower rather than a contributor. It has even been tardy in its followership. But this is to be expected since spelling is a secondary subject in the curriculum ; for one does not need to spell till one has something to say and wishes to write it. Logically, or psychologically, speaking, spelling as a subject makes a tardy entrance and an early withdrawal. In this respect it is like that other subordinate subject — penmanship. For 13 this reason the progress and status of instruction in spelling are largely determined by its relations to other subjects, more particularly in recent decades to reading and written expression. Hence we have the need to trace the relation of spelling to the other subjects.

Ill

THE RELATION OF SPELLING TO OTHER SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The Early Connection of Reading and Spelling

In the beginning the subject of spelling was closely associated with the subject of reading, a relation somewhat difficult for the modern trained teacher to understand, since spelling, like penmanship, is a technical equipment made necessary by the demands of written expression. The connection is explained by the history of the school curriculum and methods of teaching during the colonial period. The first schools were reading schools, founded that children might read the Bible and understand the word of God. The method by which early reading was taught was the spelling or alphabetic method ; and down to the early part of the nineteenth century the school regulations called for teaching children to read "by spelling the same," that is, through learning the alphabet and spelling the letters of 15 words so as to approximate the sound of the word.

Its Influence

This early association of reading and spelling had far-reaching influences. It biased the content of spelling. The materials of the latter subject have always been drawn more frequently from reading than from other school studies. In addition, the early methods of using the alphabet to teach reading were soon fastened on to the teaching of spelling. There they have persisted. One has only to mention oral spelling, diacritical markings, and syllabication as devices used both in beginning reading and in formal spelling to note the connection.

Spelling as a Separate Subject

A little later spelling was differentiated from the subject of reading, largely because of the appearance of spelling books which gave it more or less of an independent existence as a formal subject. This position was maintained throughout most of the nineteenth century. Whereas its 16

SPELLING AND OTHER SUBJECTS

content had been determined mainly by the matter that children had read at school, its new character as a group of dictionary lists increased its independence, and spelling was taught without much reference to its relation to the other subjects studied at school. It had reached its extreme place as an independent discipline, and in consequence was less vital in its selection of content and more formal in its methods than at any other period.

The Movement for Correlation

Toward the end of the last century the advent of a general pedagogical movement which tried to correlate each subject with every other, had its influence upon spelling. But the influence upon spelling was more lasting than on any of the other subjects, largely because spelling had attained an unusual independence and formalization, less warranted perhaps in the case of spelling than of other studies. The more enthusiastic of these correlationists argued that spelling had no content of its own and that it should receive its materials from other subjects. Hence, geo- 17 graphy, history, grammar, arithmetic, and science made their contribution of words to the spelling period along with reading. Others went so far as to propose that the spelling period be abolished and all necessary spellings be taught "incidentally " during the other class periods.

These radical measures, which were the inevitable influence of the teachings of the American Herbartians, did not gain a wide acceptance, nor did they endure to any extent among the enthusiasts themselves. Recovering from its partial obliteration and its temporary subordination, spelling once more resumed considerable independence as a school subject. But the temporary domination of other subjects over spelling was influential for good. Never again has spelling become as formal as it once was. Its forms have come into relation with the situations requiring them, and spelling has been taught more vitally ever since.

The Present Relationship

If the pedagogical principle of correlation broadly blazed the way for the more accurate and 18 i

SPELLING AND OTHER SUBJECTS

vital relating of spelling to other subjects, an important quality in characterizing its present status, it remained for psychological analysis definitely to point out the manner of its achievemeat. /The present-day view is that spelling as a school J subject is intimately dependent on written composition or expression. The child's need to spell is directly called into existence by his need to express himself in written symbols. The domination of reading over spelling is purely an historic accident that persists influentially in pedagogical tradition. The school child of to-day may read without knowing much about spelling. The smaller vocabulary of written composition rather than the larger one of reading should set the task of spelling. In theoretic acceptance spelling is therefore psychologically subordinate to written composition, and all the better movements toward change in the relationship of spelling with other subjects point in that direction.

In actual practice this theoretic status is not fully realized. The ordinary teacher finds it difficult to break with tradition, and the average textbook-maker responds rather intimately to his 19 market. The latter has, too, the very great difficulty of prearranging subject-matter, and thus becomes a further brake upon progress. It is not surprising, therefore, that spelling books have been modified slowly. They still go their traditional way, although not so much as before. In the mean while, the average teacher with consistent progress modifies what is given him in the text by adding words from the spontaneous work of the composition period.

IV The Selection Of Spelling Materials

The source of the words taught in the spelling period has been largely suggested above. The changing relationship of spelling to the other school subjects unavoidably affects the spelling vocabularies utilized. But a further view of the matter is necessary in order to indicate the more detailed influences which determine the selection of words for study.

The Importance of the Textbook

Ideally speaking, the words of first import to a child are those he needs for his spontaneous written compositions. In practice the school cannot make adjustments so fine as such a theory would suggest. Just because school teaching is a systematic business it must proceed by some plan, in a more or less systematic way. This does not at all imply that its methods of procedure must be artificial rather than artful or artistic. As all children do not have the same needs, and those they share do not come into use at the same moment, the school strikes a compromise and uses a plan of its own. In consequence, the material laid down by the course of study and the adopted spelling text really determines the words used by the greater number of teachers. In most courses of study the speller is the course. For this reason, the manner of textbook-making is an important element in understanding our situation.

The Influence of the Earliest Spellers

That many of the first texts in spelling were " desk-made " seems obvious to one who examines them. They certainly were not determined mainly by schoolroom experience. In fact, laymen frequently wrote spelling books, mere philological erudition being regarded as a more important qualification than experience in the primary school. Such authorship would not commend a manuscript to a publisher to-day. These books naturally imposed adult standards in the selection of words and disregarded the child's use of

SELECTION OF SPELLING MATERIALS

them. The words were more likely to be taken from dictionaries than from school subjects. Such classifications as were given to the material represented an adult logic, and the grading of words was mechanical rather than psychological, the difficulty of a word being largely measured by the number of syllables it contained. On these initial wrong assumptions the first traditions of the spelling book were established. And the traditions have become stubborn, as every reformer has found.

The difficulty with our spelling books is that i they are descendants of each other, a new book being a modification of an old one. Even teach- I ers of long experience have not essayed to utilize their first-hand experiences as more important determinants than established convention. This accounts for the persistence of "desk-made" books even when teachers with wide practical experience write them. Words which children and ordinary people never use are still included, and they are classified and graded after schemes that do not even approximate any real child's needs.