Traditional Spelling Approaches vs AVKO's Approaches to Teaching Spelling

Traditional Spelling vs. AVKO's Approaches

But first, The AVKO Quick & Simple Questionnaire About Spelling

Yes	No
		1. Do you believe there is a commercial spelling program that does a good job teaching 95% of the students how to spell 95% or better of the words they need to know how to spell?
If yes, go no further. Go out and buy that system. If no, how do you rate the following common criticisms of commercial spelling programs.

Circle "a" if not a problem, "b" if not much of a problem, "c" a problem, "d" a real problem, "e" we really have to do something about it.

a b c d e	1. Grading encourages the Learn-for-the-Test-on-Friday-and-Forget-by-Monday Syndrome.
a b c d e	2. Students and parents are more concerned about grades than they are about learning to spell for life.
a b c d e	3. The worksheets and workbooks are busy work rather than learning experiences.
a b c d e	4. Good students are not challenged by the word lists. They may only have to learn one or two words at most to score 100% correct on the final test.
a b c d e	5. Poor students are frustrated by the word lists. They may only know one or two of the twenty words assigned. Even if they learn to spell ten of the words, their grade is failing.
a b c d e	6. There are not enough words on the word lists to properly illustrate the spelling principle being taught. That is, students are expected to generalize with only a few examples.
a b c d e	6. Students are taught the base words and expected to be able to add the -ed's, the -s & -es endings, the -ing's according to rules.
a b c d e	7. Students are not taught how to translate their spoken English into proper written English so they frequently write sentences such as: "Were not usta do in what were sposta" instead of We are not used to doing what we are supposed to

With a's being 4.0 and b's 3.0 etc., if Your Report Card is below a 3.5 Grade Average Compare

The Traditional Approaches to Spelling	AVKO's Approaches
1. Word lists of 10 to 25 words per week.	1. One "rime" such as "ain" with 21 different "ain" words (rain, brain, train, etc.) every day leading up to as many as 105 different words in one week.
Study by writing each word five or seven or some number of times.	No studying. Each word is written only once. But the "rime" within the base word might be written up to 100 times because it is in each of the different words.
Generally just the base word is taught. Separate lessons on rules for forming endings are taught. Students may demonstrate cognitive mastery of the rules on tests without being able to apply them in their regular writing.	Emphasis is on the structural endings, such as the -s, -ed, -ing, -er, est, -le, ly, -y, -ier, -iest. Daily usage of the endings leads to the automatic mastery of endings. The students learn to automatically use endings without necessarily knowing the "rules"
2 Word lists based on curriculum	2. Word lists based on spelling patterns.
1st grade: be.............many	be bee maybe he she agree three see, etc.
2nd grade: nice.....beautiful	ice nice lice slice rice price mice, etc.
3rd grade: nail......cousin	ail nail mail sail rail trail trailer fail, etc.
4th grade: west.....knowledge	west best rest vest invest investment, etc.
5th grade: flesh.....ancient	flesh, fresh, refresh, refreshments, etc.
6th grade: spoil....partial	oil soil spoil broil broiler toil toilet, etc.
3 Word lists based on literature	3 Word lists based on spelling patterns
night	ight as in night knight fight right light flight
before	ights as in nights knights fights rights etc.
Christmas	ighted as in knighted, lighted, sighted, etc.
house	ighting as in lighting, sighting, fighting, etc.
stockings	ighter as in lighter, fighter, tighter, etc.
hung	ighten as in lighten, frighten, tighten, etc.
chimney	ightens as in lightens, frightens, tightens,
care	ightened as in lightened, frightened, etc.
mistletoe	ightening as in frightening, tightening,
sled
toys
tree
decorations
icicles
3. Word Lists Based on "Phonics" such as a "Long E" Week Long Unit.	3. AVKO Word Lists Based on a Few Specific Spelling Patterns Containing the "Long E".
free	Pete
degree	compete
indeed	athlete
cheese	delete
sweep	complete
meal	incomplete
stream	concrete
cheat	mete
disease	meat
believe	meet
niece	sheet
complete	sweet
evening	feet
gasoline	feat
policeman	tweet
beast	greet
beneath	street
conceal	eat
creature	treat
leaps	retreat
flee	beat
deceive	beet
chimpanzee	defeat
4. Word Lists Based on Frequency Word Counts as in 3,000 Instant Words by Saikey and Fry. Words 1-10...965-975 Note that the word "win" is number 973.	4. Word Lists Based on "Ease" of Learning the "Base" Word as determined in AVKO's The Reading Teacher's List of Over 5,000 Basic Spelling Words Arranged by Order of Difficulty.
1. the	Base word of difficulty 1.00 -- in
2. of	kin
3. and	skin
4. a	napkin
5. to	grin
6. in	bin
7. is	fin
8. you	chin
9. that	gin
10. it	sin
965. led	pin
966. march	spin
967. northern	thin
968. create	shin
969. British	tin
970. difficult	win
971. match	twin
972."win"	begin
973. doesn't	din
5. Traditional whole word approach means visualizing the entire word as a unit, writing it as a unit.	5. AVKO's Research based Word Part Approach using color for word parts while showing the word as a whole.
whole	Onset (wh) + rime (ole) = whole
word	Pattern (wor) + consonant = word, worm, worth, world, work, wormy
approach	Pattern (app) +onset (r) + rime (oach) = approach, approve, apply,
missed	Onset (m) + rime (iss) + ed = missed
6. Traditional breaking words into syllables using slash marks (/).	6. AVKO's Whole word but color coding parts approach.
tra/di/tion/al	traditional
mis/un/der/stan/ding	misunderstanding
7. Traditional "Rules" approach uses hundreds of rules with thousands of exceptions.	7. AVKO teaches only a few rules, and these have very few exceptions.
The rule "Use i before e except after c" explains words like believe and receive but doesn't explain words such as vein, stein, foreign, science, conscience, and sufficient.	For the Complete ie/ei Rule see Volume 4, p. 442 in The Patterns of English Spelling.
8. Traditional study test or test-study-test approach.	8. AVKO has NO study and daily testing without grading.
9. Traditional correcting of tests is by teachers, teacher's aides, or by other students with results usually delayed.	9. AVKO believes in immediate student self-correction which research studies confirm is most effective.
10. Traditional approaches have students penalized for making mistakes	10. AVKO helps students discover that mistakes are opportunities to learn.
11. Traditional "Phonics" based approaches teach	11. AVKO's Complete Phonics teaches:
1. sounds of initial & ending consonants	1. The same
2. sounds of blends	2. The same
3. sounds of vowel and consonant digraphs	3. The same plus the ci, ti, si, ssi, ge, gi digraphs.
4. sounds of short and short vowels	4. The sounds of vowels in context of rimes.
5. the phonics of the one syllable based words such as jump, jumping, jumper, stand, standing, understand, misunderstanding.	5. Also the phonics of the words that have come into English that cannot be reduced to one meaningful syllable, such as crucial, precious, chronic, chateau, etc.
6. the "outlaw" words such as was, does, tough, cough, etc.	6. The same plus hundreds of more sophisticated "outlaws" such as victuals ("vittles") gaol (jail), lough (loch "lock"), and quay ("kee").
Many traditional approaches use:	AVKO uses:
1. worksheets	1. daily student self-corrected tests.
2. study sheets with copying	2. no study
3. tests for grades based on whole words	3. tests used for grading based not on whole words learned but on concepts learned.

To view a description of Sequential Spelling and download the first eight lessons click here.

To view a description of If it is to be it is up to me to do it and download the first eight lessons click here.

View a description of The Patterns of English Spelling, the only complete reference tool that arranges words by their patterns.

View a description of The Reading Teacher's List of over 5,500 Basic Spelling Words Arranged by Order of Difficulty.

View a description of Speech to Spelling, the dictation of sentences to help students overcome the "hafta's, sposta's, usta's, yorz, thairz, it-ss, and tooze" problems.

Click here to view a description of Individualized Spelling, a series of diagnostic tests that link to pages in The Patterns of English Spelling

Want to help a child know which is right, "its to bad, it's to bad, it's too bad, or its too bad? Use The it-ss and the Tooze Made Easy.

When do we use apostrophes to show possession or for contractions? See descriptions of Apostrophes Made Easy

And how about what do we do about due/do/dew, new/knew/gnu, threw/through and all those other homophones. See how AVKO handles The Tricky Words.

For diagnostic tests, screening tests, and loads of practical classroom information about spelling and reading: The Teaching of Spelling and Reading: a Continuum from Kindergarten through College. All the chapter titles are listed with links to sample chapters.