The Implications and Applications of Developmental Spelling After Phonics Instruction

Abstract

Examining spelling from a developmental perspective began in the 1970s and has broadened over the years. This research has informed understanding of the nature and development of spelling or orthographic knowledge in children and older students and the role of orthographic knowledge in reading and writing. Based on analyses of the errors that students make in their writing and on spelling assessments, developmental spelling has documented the acquisition and integration of progressively more complex spelling patterns that represent both sound and meaning and illuminated how this information supports students’ ability to read as well as to write words. Intended for researchers, teacher educators, and teachers of students in grades 3–12, this article describes the layers of the spelling system that developmental spelling research has investigated, and their progressive integration in learners, including those who struggle, from the intermediate through the middle and secondary grades. It addresses the implications of developmental spelling research for assessment and instruction in spelling, word analysis, vocabulary, and the more specific implications of developmental spelling research for aligning instruction across spelling, word analysis, vocabulary, morphology, and etymology.

1. Introduction

From classroom to imaging laboratory and beyond, research over the last several decades has established the pivotal importance of spelling, or orthographic, knowledge both in the initial processes of becoming literate and in further development in writing and in reading (Templeton, 2023; Treiman, 2017). Orthographic knowledge is the learner’s underlying knowledge of word structure that supports the ability to decode words in reading and encode words in writing (Gehsmann & Templeton, 2022; Treiman et al., 2024) and is the bedrock of efficient and fluent reading and writing (Ehri, 2005, 2014; Perfetti, 2007; Templeton & Bear, 2018).

Examining spelling from a developmental perspective began in the 1970s with a series of studies at the University of Virginia (Henderson & Beers, 1980; Templeton & Bear, 2011) and has broadened over the years through the work of a number of researchers (e.g., Bahr et al., 2009, 2012; Hughes & Searle, 1997; Invernizzi & Hayes, 2004; Kemp, 2009; Treiman, 2017; Young, 2007). This research has informed understanding of the nature and development of orthographic knowledge in children and older students and the role of orthographic knowledge in reading, writing, morphology, and vocabulary. Based on analyses of the errors that students make in their writing and on spelling assessments, developmental spelling has documented the acquisition of “progressively more complex spelling patterns that represent both sound and meaning” (Templeton, 2020, p. 316) and illuminated how this information supports students’ learning (Templeton & Bear, 2018).

The purposes of this article are to:

• Describe the layers of the spelling system that developmental spelling research has investigated, and their progressive integration, from the intermediate through the middle and secondary grades.
• Address the implications of developmental spelling research for assessment and instruction in word study—spelling, word analysis, and vocabulary.
• Address the more specific implications of developmental spelling research for aligning instruction across spelling, word analysis, vocabulary, and morphology.

2. The Spelling System and the Development of Knowledge of the System

Early research in developmental spelling drew upon analyses of the English spelling system that revealed it to be more logical than was generally assumed (Chomsky, 1970; Chomsky & Halle, 1968; Venezky, 1967, 1970). Subsequent analyses of the system have confirmed and extended the degrees to which English spelling logically reflects different layers of information (e.g., Berg, 2016; Bowers & Bowers, 2017; Brengelman, 1980; Cummings, 1988; Venezky, 1999). These layers of information reflect:

• Phonology—sound.
• Spelling-sound patterns—how groups of letters within and between syllables function as units to represent sound.
• Spelling-meaning patterns—how spelling represents derivational morphology: how meaning families of words are derived from the combination of base words, Greek and Latin word roots, and prefixes and suffixes.
• Etymology—the history of words, including their meanings and the spelling and sound changes they have undergone.

Developmental research has identified a sequence according to which these informational layers are learned (Templeton & Bear, 2018), and recent neuroscientific investigations support this developmental trajectory from single-syllable through multisyllabic words (e.g., Castles et al., 2018).

Table 1. Development of orthographic knowledge.

Contextually-based patterns representing sounds within single-syllable and two-syllable words	Etymology Across the developmental span, etymological information can provide interesting explanations for common spelling processes as well as apparent spelling exceptions
Vowel and consonant spellings within single words/syllables Simple long-vowel patterns (take/bite/boat). Spelling patterns—effects of position (where a sound occurs within a word often determines its spelling: ow/ou as in how/pout). Spelling patterns—effects of phonemic context (sounds and/or spellings before or after a particular sound determine its spelling: ch/tch as in peach/patch).
Junctures of inflectional endings and base words Double final consonant—hopped. E-drop—hoped. No change—floated. Basic syllable juncture/division patterns (C = consonant; V = vowel) VC/CV—hap/pen, chap/ter. V/CV open—pa/per, u/nit. VC/V closed—fin/ish, plan/et.
Spelling-meaning patterns that primarily represent derivational morphological relationships
Bases that do not change in pronunciation when suffixes are added (manage/manageable). Bases that do change in pronunciation when suffixes are added but retain their visual relationships to the derived words, signaling similar meaning relationships (define/definition/definitive; compete/competitive/competition). Latin and Greek roots that maintain their visual relationships to words generated by adding prefixes and/or suffixes (judge/judicial/adjudicate; mnemonic/amnesia). Latin and Greek roots that change pronunciation and spelling (ced/ceed/cess, “go”: precedent proceed, procession; fac/fec/fic/fy, “make, do”: manufacture, facile, effect, fiction, petrify; caust/caut, “burn”: caustic, cauterize).

illustrates the types of knowledge these layers reflect beyond the basic alphabetic layer developed during beginning reading and writing. This sequence reflects the predominant learning and instructional emphasis as students navigate progressively more complex orthographic patterns.

Developmental spelling has explored how learners become aware of and integrate these successively more complex multiple orthographic sound and meaning patterns in both encoding (spelling) of words and in decoding of words (Ehri, 1997; Negrete & Bear, 2019; Templeton, 1979; Treiman, 2017; Treiman & Kessler, 2014, 2021). For example, understanding the orthographic patterns underlying vowel spellings in single syllables is a necessary foundation for understanding the features that determine the spelling of the junctures when inflectional endings are added to words. Developmental spelling further suggests that this awareness and integration does not occur based on strict rote memorization; rather, it reflects tacit (Templeton, 1980, 1989) or implicit statistical learning (Treiman & Kessler, 2021; Treiman & Wolter, 2018) as well as explicit learning. Phonics is defined as the relationship between letters and sounds and the study of that relationship, and is typically associated with beginning reading. However, learning about relationships between letters, letter patterns, and sounds—as the above examples illustrate—extends throughout the grades (Bahr et al., 2012; Schlagal, 2011). The sequence in Table 1 is not rigid but reflects the constancy and change in the “common developmental themes” seen across students (Schlagal, 2001, p. 15); for example, learning about the effects of phonemic context on spellings will continue and overlap with learning about syllable junctures—patterns that determine how words are spelled where syllables are joined.

Beginning in the intermediate grades and continuing through the middle grades, most students will be consolidating syllable juncture knowledge that will include addition of frequently-occurring derivational suffixes and bases (develop + -ment; certain + -ty). More systematic emphasis will be placed on how morphemes represent spelling-meaning patterns (Mahony et al., 2000) or “islands of regularity” (Rastle et al., 2000, p. 527) that, despite often being pronounced differently depending on the words in which they occur, remain spelled the same or with little change (compose-composition; democracy-democratic; refer-reference). Beginning in the middle grades and continuing through the secondary grades, the deep and often more opaque connection between orthography and morphology/meaning in the extensive body of academic and disciplinary vocabulary constructed from Greek and Latin morphemes—roots and affixes—will be explored (Ulicheva et al., 2020): Green (2020) estimated approximately 70% of words in English are Latin- or Greek-derived, with over 90% of domain-specific academic vocabulary Latin- or Greek-derived. This learning is critical, because as Crosson et al. (2018) observed, roots “are often the major meaning-carrying constituent in the academic lexis [vocabulary]” (p. 690). Learning does not always depend on an explicit awareness of the processes underlying spellings and meaning—again, much of this learning is tacit—but the occasional well-timed explanation can help to develop and sustain an inquisitiveness and curiosity about the spelling system and the language it encodes.

Research has established that basic relationships among morphologically related written words such as help, helpful, helpfully and tasty, tastier, tastiest come to be understood in the primary grades (e.g., Anglin, 1993). Over the last two decades, research in morphological development of students in the intermediate grades and beyond has reflected the influence of developmental orthographic knowledge: One of the leading researchers in neurocognition (Rastle, 2019; Rastle et al., 2000) concluded that—just as earlier studies had suggested (e.g., Carlisle, 1988; Templeton, 1979; Templeton & Scarborough-Franks, 1985)—spelling or orthographic knowledge is the primary facilitator of morphological awareness; as learners examine the spelling of words, this information provides the foundation for their learning about morphology—the generative processes of word formation in English (Rasinski et al., 2020; Templeton et al., 2015; Treiman, 2017; Zhang et al., 2023). Learning and applying an understanding of more advanced orthographic and derivational morphological relationships such as compete/competitive/competition and, later, labor-laboratory-collaborate-elaborate and vacate-evacuate-vacation-vacuum depends on further cognitive development and on reading texts that contain a greater proportion of these words (Corson, 1995, 1997; Nation, 2017; Rastle & Davis, 2008; Ulicheva et al., 2020). Students do not usually begin to encounter such texts until the intermediate grades.

Importantly, in addition to depth and breadth of reading experience, research suggests that systematic examination of the words and patterns can play a significant role in this further development (Crosson & McKeown, 2016; Crosson et al., 2018; Goodwin, 2016; Henry, 1993; Manyak et al., 2018; Templeton, 2012; Zutell, 1998). This instruction is grounded in an examination of the spelling and thus the morphological composition of the types of words that represent the majority of general academic and domain-specific disciplinary vocabulary in the intermediate grades and beyond. Neuroimaging studies (Taylor et al., 2013) have suggested that understanding these “morphological relationships in spelling may be central to developing reading expertise along the direct spelling-to-meaning (ventral) pathway [visual word form area]” (Rastle, 2019, p. 46). Notably, the facilitative effect of orthography in learning morphology and how to apply this knowledge in reading and vocabulary development has been found not only for typically developing students but for students with low word reading proficiency as well as for linguistically diverse students (Austin et al., 2022; Crosson et al., 2018; Crosson & Moore, 2017; Gilbert et al., 2014; Goodwin, 2016).

3. Assessment: Determining Developmental Level and Appropriate Orthographic Patterns and Features for Word Study

If we want to know what information a learner brings to bear in the process of reading words, as well as the quality of the representations they have for specific words (Ehri, 2005; Perfetti, 1993; Perfetti & Hart, 2002; Perfetti & Stafura, 2014) administering a well-constructed spelling test offers the most direct route (Andrews & Lo, 2013; Masterson & Apel, 2010; Templeton, 2023). “Spelling and reading use the same lexical representation. In fact, spelling is a good test of the quality of representation” (Perfetti, 1993, p. 170). For these reasons, it is not surprising that spelling, or orthographic, knowledge as reflected in learners’ written productions has been shown to predict reading achievement across all ages and grades (Invernizzi & Hayes, 2004; Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2008; Townsend et al., 2016) as well as vocabulary and morphological awareness (Bahr et al., 2009; Conrad, 2008; Ehri & Rosenthal, 2007; Graham et al., 2002; Nunes et al., 2006).

Determining the types and features of words that students should examine may also be determined by administering such spelling inventories. These qualitative inventories of spelling knowledge help determine students’ spelling levels, expressed in terms of developmental stage or phase (Bear et al., 2023; Ganske, 1999; Gehsmann et al., 2017) or grade level (Morris, 2015; Templeton, 2024). Grade-level inventories provide the same information as developmental inventories and are occasionally incorporated within published Reading/Language Arts programs in grades K-6. Both types of inventories provide information that informs teachers as to where in the developmental scope and sequence of word study each student will fall. More specifically, this information ensures that a student will be exploring spelling features that they are attempting to represent but have not yet developed the necessary insight for consistent, correct spelling; for example, misspellings such as confedent reveal that a student will benefit from examining spelling-meaning relationships in which morphologically-related words provide clues to the spelling of the schwa sound (confide—confident). This differentiation of instruction better ensures that students will not be “overwhelmed on one hand or bored on the other by developmentally inappropriate instruction” (Templeton, p. 52).

For the middle and secondary grades, both the Upper Level Spelling Inventory (Bear et al., 2023) and the Academic Vocabulary Spelling Inventory (AVSI) (Townsend et al., 2016; Townsend et al., 2022) are effective diagnostic and placement tools. Both also provide information about students’ vocabulary development, including morphological knowledge, and correlate highly with content area measures. The AVSI includes a component in which students generate as many morphologically-related forms for each spelling word as they can.

Two student examples illustrate the instructional implications of such assessment:

On an upper-level qualitative spelling inventory that assesses within-syllable, between-syllable, and morphological orthographic knowledge (Bear et al., 2023; Gehsmann et al., 2017), 4th-grader Rashid spelled a number of words correctly—for example, switch, scrape, pounce, and disloyal. His errors, however, provide insight into the specific types and features of words he would most benefit from studying: sailer, humer (unstressed final syllable); shaveing (shaving; when to drop final e when adding inflectional suffix—an early syllable juncture pattern); tunel (tunnel; when to double a consonant within a two-syllable word—a syllable juncture pattern that is studied after mastery of adding inflectional suffixes); vialeg (village—syllable juncture patterns and unstressed final syllable). Other errors reveal patterns he is not yet ready to examine intensively for purposes of correct spelling, though he may learn to read such words and learn their meanings: for example, furtenet for fortunate. It is not unusual for such students to need some attention to simpler features within single-syllable words that they may not have yet internalized fully, for example Rashid’s spellings of squrt for squirt (r-influenced vowels) and smuge for smudge (effects of phonemic context on spellings for the /j/ sound).

On the same upper-level inventory, 6th-grader Celeste’s errors indicate that she would benefit from studying higher-level orthographic features: emphesize (consistent spelling of roots across morphologically-related words); visable (-able vs. -ible); dominence (spelling of the schwa sound in derivational suffixes); corespond, iliterate (absorbed or assimilated prefixes); circumfrence (learning the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of Classical roots, in this case, fer).

Although there is some disagreement between researchers and theorists regarding the degree to which sound, pattern, and meaning contribute to development at any one point along the learning continuum (Bahr et al., 2009; Bowers & Bowers, 2017; Kemp, 2009), most agree that, as Table 1 illustrates, learners predominantly focus on short, long, and other vowel patterns within single-syllable words before learning about the spellings of syllable junctures, and that these within- and between-syllable understandings in turn support later negotiation of the range of derivational morphological spelling patterns (Templeton, 2023). (Though beyond the scope of this article, developmental spelling has been studied in a number of other languages (e.g., Diamanti et al., 2018; Ford et al., 2018; L. Helman et al., 2016; Shen & Bear, 2000; Treiman & Kessler, 2021; Viise et al., 2011; Winskel & Iemwanthong, 2010) and developmentally-based spelling assessments have been created for native Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese speakers (L. A. Helman et al., 2023). There is a line of research investigating the spelling of emergent bilinguals in English (L. Helman, 2016; Kiernan & Bear, 2018). Interested readers are referred to these sources.)

As described below, developmental spelling provides insight into differentiating instruction that effectively situates learners’ development within the complexity of the spelling system; Invernizzi and Hayes (2011) have described this as determining “when to teach what to whom” (p. 205).

Early in the new school year, teachers can gain insight into the nature of their students’ word knowledge by administering one of the assessments described above. Because of the close relationship between word knowledge and reading, these assessments will also provide a broad picture of the range of students who appear to be on, below, and above level in their reading. Subsequent reading assessment will fine-tune this range, of course, but teachers will have a solid starting point.

4. Instruction: Effective Engagements with Words

Until learners have become fairly proficient spellers, spelling instruction should address the spelling patterns in words that they have learned to read. After the beginning reading phase, reading is in a sense the “pacemaker” for spelling (Frith, 1985; Nunes & Bryant, 2009) because it provides the words students can identify and study for purposes of correct spelling. The tighter the bond between spelling, phonology, and meaning is for a word, the stronger the quality of the lexical entry for that word: students’ ability to read words for spelling instruction ensures that the targeted examination of their structure leads to their more automatic and fluent identification in text and their more automatic and fluent encoding in writing. Towards this end, in developmentally-based spelling instruction the goal is both correct spelling of the words selected for study as well as “build[ing] systematic knowledge that will generalize to other words of similar form” (Schlagal, 2001, p. 151).

While a number of studies and meta-analyses underscore the importance of spelling instruction in the intermediate and middle grades (e.g., Graham & Santangelo, 2014), there is little research on the effectiveness of specific approaches at these levels. Researchers and educators have emphasized that spelling instruction should address the logic of the spelling system (Bowers & Bowers, 2017; Henderson & Templeton, 1986; Moats, 2019; Templeton & Bear, 2018) and treat spelling as an object of inquiry (Templeton, 2023; Treiman, 2018). Brain-based neuroimaging studies that reveal the fundamental aspect of pattern in learning (e.g., Perrachione et al., 2016) arguably support instruction that focuses on detecting, learning, and applying pattern knowledge. While implicit statistical learning of patterns can occur, bringing this knowledge to conscious awareness affords the development of explicit strategies for applying this knowledge in orthographic, and thus morphological, learning and development.

As in many other domains of learning, becoming aware of and applying knowledge of patterns in orthography involves comparison and contrast. Nunes and Bryant (2009), Treiman (2017), and Treiman and Kessler (2006) emphasized how context-dependent spellings, for example final /k/ spelled ke or ck, are best learned through comparing and contrasting different examples—in this case, the spelling is determined by the preceding long or short vowel sound (bake vs. back). The eminent spelling researcher Rebecca Treiman suggested that, rather than a consistent direct teaching of rules, this “more effective approach” involves teachers helping students “discover the pattern” (2017, p. 7). Providing students “with structured opportunities to discover patterns in written words can not only teach them about the patterns but also increase their interest in why words are spelled as they are” (Treiman, 2018, p. 649). There is support for this approach in the early elementary grades (e. g., Cartwright, 2012; Cartwright et al., 2020; Joseph, 2002; Morris et al., 2003; Nunes & Bryant, 2009; Santa & Høien, 1999), and it is argued that this foundation, coupled with the insights of the brain-based studies, recommend its effectiveness in the intermediate grades and beyond (Templeton, 2023; Tortorelli & Bruner, 2022). Importantly, as Treiman noted, students are not left on their own to “discover”, but are guided by teachers structuring the opportunities and judiciously providing feedback and providing explicit information as needed. There is promising work in developing teacher knowledge and pedagogy in this type of systematic, blended approach at the intermediate levels and beyond (Ittner et al., 2023; Tortorelli & Bruner, 2022).

The effects of this comparison and contrast type of approach have a deep legacy (Henderson & Beers, 1980; Henderson & Templeton, 1986). For example, Botel (1964) noted that “we are not concerned with teaching rules, but rather with manipulating patterns, encouraging more accurate observations, and extending collections of words that belong together for some analogical reason” (p. 192). Hanna, Hodges, and Hanna concluded, “An effective spelling program is aimed primarily at teaching pupils to induce their own rules and generalizations, although it also relies on deductive modes of learning when necessary” (Hanna et al., 1971, p. 122). This approach is reflected in word categorization or sorting activities involving “focused contrasts” (Bear et al., 2023) in which words are examined and sorted according to different spelling features. The early instructional work at the University of Virginia in developmental spelling with struggling learners emphasized this approach (Gillet & Kita, 1979; Hayes & Flanigan, 2014; Henderson, 1981) and it has continued to be effective with such students (Zutell, 1998) as well as with more proficient spellers (Templeton, 2015). Notably, this type of attention to pattern learning efficiently underlies the neuroanatomical development (Castles et al., 2018; Perrachione et al., 2016) that affords fluent recognition and identification of words in print and guides fluent encoding of words in writing. The following examples illustrate aspects of this approach to spelling for students in the intermediate grades and beyond.

4.1. Exploring Syllable Junctures

This exploration begins with simple inflectional morphology, noting whether the spelling of the base changes when -ing and -ed are added, and if so, why. For example, students whose errors on the qualitative spelling inventory resemble Rashid’s understand why the final consonant after a short vowel is doubled when adding -ed and -ing (trapped), but the knowledge of adding these endings to long vowel patterns in base words (shaveing) may be tenuous or at least need a brief review. The following word sort would be appropriate:

swimming	hiking
hopping	hoping
trapping	trading
planning	saving
etc.

Reading down the words in each column, the teacher would ask “What do you notice about the vowel sound in the base word?” Then, “What might this tell you about what happens when -ing is added to each word?” The ensuing conversation confirms the necessity of doubling a final single consonant to keep the short vowel sound and reveals the need to drop the final e when adding a suffix to the vowel-consonant-silent e pattern.

A good grasp of these different inflectional patterns lays the groundwork for learning about syllable juncture patterns within single-morpheme words in more depth. Syllable patterns refer to the vowel and consonant letters on both sides of a syllable juncture: Words such as clipping and tugging are examples of the VC/CV pattern, illustrated by the italicized letters –ippi- and –uggi- in each word; slicing and hoping are examples of the V/CV pattern. These patterns are later applied within non-affixed two-syllable words such as tunnel and paper.

Sorting words according to syllable juncture pattern leads to the understanding that, just as with the addition of inflectional endings to base words, double consonants at the syllable juncture follow a short vowel, while a single consonant at the juncture follows a long vowel or a short vowel—compare hopping (VCCV) with hoping (V/CV) and visit (VC/C). Henderson observed that “One remembers only things one has attended to…Syllable-sorting tasks develop the habit of looking where it counts” (Henderson, 1985, p. 150).

For example, the following sort addresses errors such as tunel for tunnel. Students now examine the VC/CV pattern in tunnel in contrast with the V/CV pattern in super (F. Johnston et al., 2023):

Displaying the words to be sorted, the teacher reads through them with the students, asking them what they notice about the words. Responses usually include that they have two consonants in the middle. The teacher asks why that is so, then sorts the words that double with those that do not:

diner	dinner
unit	tunnel
super	supper
paper	penny
etc.

The teacher explains that “diner has one consonant in the middle and a vowel on each side, so we label this pattern in the middle of the words as VCV”. He writes the label above the column. Then, reading down the words in this column, he asks, “What do you notice about these words under diner?” If no one mentions the vowel, he asks them what they notice about the vowel in the first syllable (it is long). Reading down the words in the second column, he asks “What do you notice about these words?” (Short vowels.) He writes the label VCCV above the column. “So, what did we learn about the words with double letters in the middle?”

After this teacher-guided sort, the students will sort their own words and then write them in their word study notebooks. In their own words, they can write a generalization about the VCV and VCCV patterns. In the days to come they can do “word hunts” in which they write words in their notebooks that they find in their reading and which follow the two different juncture patterns. Importantly, they will also encounter VC/V words that appear to be exceptions to the VCCV pattern. These words will be the basis for discovering contexts and explanations that determine the single rather than double consonant spelling in words such as never, critic, and panic. The short vowel in the first syllable of never—and in similar words with v at the juncture—suggests that the v should be doubled. Students can learn that it does not because printers hundreds of years ago needed to make words easier to read in the context of adjoining letters (F. R. Johnston, 2000; Venezky, 1999). In critic and panic, the short vowel in the first syllable would also suggest that the consonant at the syllable juncture should be doubled. Collecting and examining such words may lead to the insight that, interestingly, words that end with the spelling -ic do not double the consonant at the juncture (Berg, 2016). This trend may be explored later on, as well: While finite follows the V/CV syllable juncture pattern, the related word finish (VC/V) does not. This is because spelling tends to preserve the representation of roots, such as fin (“end”), overriding the sound-based syllable juncture pattern. In panic, the root is pan, traceable to the Greek god Pan. Students will come to learn that the further they explore the spelling system, the fewer “exceptions” there are.

It should be noted that an instructional emphasis on syllable juncture or division patterns has been questioned (Kearns, 2020). For example, noting the longstanding instructional emphasis on the VCV pattern as in super signaling a long vowel sound, Kearns’ analysis of the frequency of occurrence of this pattern in texts for students in grades 1–8 (Zeno et al., 1995) revealed that in bisyllabic words it was reliable just 53.3% of the time. While Kearns’ analysis is important, it did not include the full range of “open” syllables. Open syllables end with a long vowel sound, whereas closed syllables, because they include a short vowel sound, must be “closed” by a consonant. Many bisyllabic words follow a VV/CV juncture pattern in which the open syllable is spelled with two letters, e.g., waited and soaking. Had this pattern been included in the analysis (Treiman & Wolter, 2018), the applicability of a long vowel followed by single consonant juncture pattern may have been more robust.

Students are much more likely to learn patterns and retain the spellings of individual words through the depth of exploration that categorization activities afford, together with the accompanying discussion and writing of the words and patterns. Teacher explanations about etymology, as those in the previous paragraph, also provide effective mnemonic handles. Resources that explore these patterns further as well as provide instructional and etymological examples are Ganske (2008), Johnston et al. (2023), and Moats (2020).

4.2. Exploring Spelling-Meaning or Morphological Relationships

For students such as Celeste, who are becoming proficient spellers, higher-order spelling errors offer opportunities for deeper exploration and more nuanced vocabulary development. Celeste’s errors, in one sense, are the same types as Rashid’s: vowels in unaccented syllables (emphesis, dominence, visable, circumfrence) and consonant doubling (corespond, iliterate). These are higher-order examples of these errors, however; her word knowledge is clearly more developed than Rashid’s.

These students would already have explored the spelling-meaning connection among words they know to explain the spelling of the schwa sound in derived words such as define/definition and oppose/opposition. Errors such as the -ance/-ence confusion evidenced by Celeste’s spelling of dominence may be addressed by having students sort words as follows (Templeton et al., 2023):

confident	confidence	relevant	relevance
prominent	prominence	abundant	abundance
obedient	obedience	dominant	dominance
etc.

Students realize that, if they know how to spell one word that ends in -ent and -ence, or -ant and -ance, then they can figure out how to spell the other word; Celeste’s clue for dominence would be the word, dominant, which she does know how to spell.

We can help students apply this awareness to grow their vocabulary development through the examination of errors such as Celeste’s emphesis. The stressed syllable in the related word emphatic reveals the short /a/ sound spelled with the letter a; because students know how to spell this stressed syllable, it is the clue to the spelling of the second syllable in emphasis. The significant difference between morphologically-related word pairs such as emphasis-emphatic and invite-invitation, however, is that most intermediate students know the meaning of both invite and invitation but, though they know the meaning of emphasis, they may not know the related word emphatic. So, because of the clear visual relationship these words share, this spelling-meaning connection may be leveraged to support vocabulary growth as well as clarifying spelling: If students know the meaning of one word in a spelling-meaning word family (the spoken and written word emphasis) they can learn the meaning of an unfamiliar word in that family (emphatic) because the transparent spelling of the unfamiliar word emphatic provides the clue to remembering the ambiguous spelling of the known word emphasis.

Students who are becoming proficient spellers have learned the meanings and many combinations of frequently-occurring, meaning-transparent Latin and Greek affixes and roots such as in inspect (“to look into”) and circumspect (“to look around” and be aware of consequences, things that might happen).

An effective word sort that addresses misspellings such as Celeste’s visable engages students in sorting words that end in -ible and -able into two columns and asks, “Can you find a clue for when we use -ible or -able?”

laughable	eligible
enjoyable	feasible
adaptable	compatible
predictable	invincible
etc.

If the students need a prompt, the teacher could ask, “Say the words in each column without the suffix. What do you notice?” Students then realize that -able is usually added to base words, words that can stand alone, while -ible is usually added to words that cannot stand alone, usually word roots.

Celeste’s spelling of circumference as circumfrence reflects how casual pronunciation can obscure the presence of Latin word roots, in this case a root whose function in words can be more opaque.

Her teacher would display the dictionary entry for the word circumference, highlight the letters fer, and explain that the syllable they spell is also a Latin root. She would point to the etymological information at the end of the definition and explain how it shows the meaningful parts of the word and their original meaning in Latin. The students already know that circum means “around”, and see that the root ferre means “to carry”. The teacher explains that “circumference literally meant ‘to carry around’ a circle—in this case, the boundary or measurement of the circle”.

A number of other frequent misspellings can be corrected by thinking about the morphemes within the words. For example, the teacher writes prefrence, confrence, and asks, “What’s missing in each of these words?” (The letter e.) “What root do you think each of these words might have?” (fer) “Okay! So let’s put the e in preference and conference (she writes the words next to each other). “What’s the base word of preference?” (prefer; she writes prefer above preference.) “And the base word of conference is…?” (confer; she writes confer above conference).

“So, another strategy to figure out and remember a spelling we’re not quite sure of is to try to think of a word that is related in spelling and meaning. Thinking of prefer helps us with preference. Say ‘prefer’—do you hear how the second syllable is clearly stressed and you hear /er/? You know how to spell /er/, and because words related in spelling are often related in meaning, that’s a clue to remembering the spelling of the unstressed syllable in preference”.

4.3. The Role of Etymology

In a subsequent lesson, the teacher displays the dictionary entries for prefer and confer:

“We’ve talked before about ‘etymology,’ which means…?” (The history of words.) “Thank you! Let’s look at the etymological information for prefer”. Pointing, she continues: “This shows us the Latin origins of the word. Here’s the prefix pre-, which we know means ‘before,’ plus the root (points to + ferre) which means ‘to carry.’ When we talk about a preference, then, it means that we have ‘carried’ our choice into a decision ‘before’ we actually make the decision. For example, I prefer action movies over romcoms, so when I go to the cinema I don’t have to stand in the lobby trying to decide which movie I want to see.

“Now let’s look at the etymological entry for confer. It shows us the prefix com-, which we’ve learned means…? (“with” or “together”) plus our familiar root (points to ferre). Instead of ‘to carry,’ however, it gives us the meaning ‘to bring.’ But let’s think about it: if we ‘carry’ something and ‘bring’ something, are these actions closely related in meaning? Kind of! So, when people go to a conference they confer. A conference, then, ‘brings together’ people”.

Celeste’s misspelling of iliterate affords another opportunity to call upon the processes of etymology to correct such misspellings and further develop analysis skills for encountering unfamiliar words. While students are usually taught that prefixes such as in-, im-, il-, and ir- all mean “not”, they are seldom taught where these different spellings came from.

The teacher can share with Celeste and other students that, a long time ago, when in- was added to words like legal and responsible, it was a bit awkward to pronounce INlegal and INresponsible. Over time, people’s pronunciation of the /n/ sound became absorbed or assimilated into the beginning /l/ and /r/ sound of the word it was attached to, and the spelling of the prefix changed to reflect this: illegal, irresponsible.

The teacher has students pronounce words such as “inlegal” and “inresponsible” to feel this awkwardness. Students’ beginning awareness of the phenomenon of prefix assimilation will extend to other words and prefixes; for example: in- + mobile = immobile (not mobile); com- + relation = correlation (relate with, together); com- + clude = conclude (close with); sub- + port = support (carry from below); ob- + pose = oppose (to put against).

Supporting students’ exploration of the processes of etymology helps develop an awareness of and appreciation for the depth of the meanings and connotations of words. Over time, such engagements (1) reinforce the related meanings of a root, such as fer, and the literal meanings that result in combinations with different prefixes; (2) help students come to understand how the present-day meanings of the words evolved from those literal meanings; and (3) develop understanding of how this meaning and etymological information supports further spelling development (such as clearing up spelling errors that are based on pronunciation). This type of focus on words and their spelling and meaning relationships can grow deeper understanding of individual words and the orthographic, semantic, and phonological relationships among them. There are some excellent etymological resources for students and teachers (Ayto, 2009; Harper, 2024; Zafarris, 2020); Ayto (2011) is a very good resource for teachers and for students who are more verbally advanced.

4.4. The Nature of Applying Developing Knowledge Across Disciplines

In the middle and secondary grades, the goal is for faculty to coordinate word study instruction across disciplines; it will be the responsibility of English/Language Arts teachers to address the substantive core of orthography, morphology, and Classical vocabulary. They can share with colleagues in other disciplines instructional activities that reinforce this content and develop both general academic vocabulary and domain-specific academic vocabulary (Templeton et al., 2023; Townsend & Knecht, 2024; Weary & Flanigan, 2024). For example, in U.S. History:

A unit on “Immigration to the United States: The Hopes and Hardships of Immigrants (Mid-1800s to Early 1900s)” (Flanigan & Hayes, 2022) presents “generative vocabulary” based on the roots migr (“move”) and jud (“judge”). These roots and their meanings underlie the major concepts of emigration (migrating out of Europe and Asia), immigration (migrating into the U.S.; note the assimilated prefix in-), and prejudice (judging before engaging and learning about different ethnicities). Related vocabulary words include migrate, migratory, migrant and judgment, judicial, and adjudicate. The English/Language Arts teacher will reinforce the morphological constructions underlying the meaning of these types of words and the History teacher can reinforce these constructions. The History teacher will also develop deep understanding of concepts through activities such as graphic organizers (one of which illustrates the ”push-pull” dynamic in which emigrants are “pushed” to leave, “pulled” to immigrate by the perceived opportunities in the United States) and concept sorts.

(Flanigan et al., 2023b; Weary & Flanigan, 2024)

5. Word Study: Aligning and Adapting Instruction Across Spelling, Word Analysis, and Vocabulary

Beginning in the intermediate grades and continuing through the middle- and secondary-school years, spelling instruction will address sound- and meaning- or morphologically-based aspects of spelling in multisyllabic words. In their reading, intermediate spellers can use their developing understanding of syllable juncture patterns and morphology in their spelling instruction to decode unfamiliar words they encounter and to learn new vocabulary words. A common question is whether students should be expected to encode or spell these new words correctly. It is not uncommon, for example, for teachers to assign new vocabulary words as spelling words as well—the assumption usually being that practicing writing the words for spelling will reinforce the meaning of the new words. While students may indeed learn some correct spellings, developmental spelling research has confirmed that, if the majority of the words they are attempting to study reflect spelling features beyond their current spelling instructional level, they will not be able to learn and retain the spelling of those words (Morris et al., 2017; Schlagal, 2001). This is because they do not have sufficient underlying orthographic knowledge to support effective learning and retention for the correct spellings.

Students who are struggling with reading and writing can benefit from whole-class and small-group discussion and activities addressing topics, concepts, and domain-specific academic vocabulary, but they will also require additional support. While there is significant heterogeneity and different profiles among adolescent struggling readers with respect to their skills profiles, for example, those who struggle most severely manifest significant deficits in word analysis and word reading fluency (e.g., Brasseur-Hock et al., 2011; Hock et al., 2009; Mancilla-Martinez et al., 2011; Morris et al., 1996, 2017). Their accuracy in word identification and reading rate, the essential elements of fluency, fall in the “frustration” range. Most efforts to accommodate these students, however, so often involve adjustments based primarily on grade- and above-grade-level texts. Thus, despite teachers’ best efforts, this student population continues to struggle with texts that are in effect at their frustration reading levels. Developmentally-based word study is the critical aspect that is usually not addressed in attempts at accommodation.

There are promising adjustments, grounded in developmental spelling assessment and instruction, for working with these students both in-class and in intervention contexts (e.g., Flanigan & Hayes, 2022; Flanigan et al., 2023a). Such adjustments incorporate appropriate word study with appropriate types of text accommodations and engagements. Importantly, whole-class discussions of spelling features that are above these students’ spelling instructional levels can also be of benefit when presented in contexts that emphasize the logic underlying these features and incorporate words the meaning of which the students understand. These students who are struggling may benefit, for example, from lessons on spelling-meaning patterns and the derivational morphological information they reflect: crime and criminal; athlete and athletic; nature and natural. Freed from the expectation that spelling should only represent sound, these students are supported in their understanding that spelling structure is the key to morphological insight and consequent vocabulary growth. This emphasis on how spelling can represent meaning directly, despite changes in sound, lays the groundwork for such study later on.

In the meantime, as the instructional examples above illustrate, hearing the teacher’s direct explanation of these patterns and how morphological elements combine to yield the meaning of a word is a key element of vocabulary instruction—for example, “walking through” the construction and meaning of words such as inspect, introspect, retrospect, and circumspect. Students are cognitively able to learn a few of these words as new vocabulary, but if they are readers and writers in the middle or secondary grades who are still developing understanding of syllable juncture patterns, we should not expect them to consistently spell these types of words correctly until further down the developmental road.

6. A Concluding Observation and Recommendation

The very use of the term “spelling” has often relegated and constrained instructional considerations exclusively to writing, with the inevitable conclusion that spellcheck and more sophisticated AI accommodations will make “spelling” as a writing skill unnecessary and obsolete. It is hoped that the foregoing discussion dispels this conclusion: Because spelling knowledge underlies reading and vocabulary development as well as writing, written words and the information their orthography encodes will still need to be examined and learned (Fillmore & Snow, 2018; Moats, 2009; Templeton, 2006).

Teachers in the upper elementary and middle school grades should systematically teach spelling (Graham & Santangelo, 2014). This systematic teaching, grounded in developmental spelling that addresses progressively more complex spelling patterns that represent both sound and meaning, means that instruction should be differentiated. While reading instruction is usually differentiated, however, spelling instruction—though foundational to reading development—often is not; an entire class studies the same spelling list every week. When approximately one-third of the students consistently struggle to learn correct spellings, teachers often look for explanations that consistently ignore a developmental explanation. Somehow, a common myth holds, persistent over the decades: those students need to “look harder” at the words, copy them more often, and so forth.

An unfortunate instructional irony has been that, at the point at which students are developmentally primed for productive examination of and learning about higher-order spelling-meaning, morphological relationships, organized and systematic instruction is usually not provided (Hughes & Searle, 1997). This may in part be a consequence of a phonocentric view of English spelling (Templeton & Morris, 1999, 2000)—a deeply-ingrained cultural belief that words should be spelled “the way they sound”—an attitude that is remarkably pervasive and persuasive. Because many educators have internalized this phonocentric perspective—with the accompanying conclusion that English spelling is illogical and inconsistent—and have received little instruction in language structure and its teaching (Tortorelli & Bruner, 2022), they may inadvertently transmit this attitude to their students and not be nearly as effective in guiding their students’ reading, spelling, and vocabulary development.

Insights from developmental spelling research and instruction should be a core aspect of teacher education in literacy instruction at all levels, in both teacher preparatory and professional contexts (Ittner et al., 2023; Moats, 2009; Tortorelli & Bruner, 2022). The nature of the spelling system and its role in literacy development should be addressed, revealing how principles of pattern and meaning bring a degree of consistency and coherence to the system that works on both the levels of sound and meaning. Preservice and professional teachers should have opportunities to apply their developing knowledge in lessons with students, preferably in contexts in which they are supervised by literacy coaches well versed in developmentally-based word study (e.g., Brownell et al., 2017; Hudson et al., 2021; Morris et al., 1996; Tortorelli & Bruner, 2022). For those teachers who, for any number of reasons, have not been able to benefit from those experiences, a number of professional resources and well-constructed published word study curricula are available that address systematic instruction, and from which teachers can potentially develop their own understanding as they implement the lessons with their students.

Our goal is to ensure the development of stronger lexical quality for all students, thus enabling more robust vocabulary development, comprehension, and critical thought in literacy. A reconfiguration of spelling instruction, grounded in this knowledge and insight, should bring this perspective and knowledge base to scale for older students, especially for those who struggle.