Spelling – using word study techniques

The 250+ graphemes used to spell words in English mean that children need to be taught a variety of techniques to be able to spell accurately, with specific techniques required to recall spellings of highly irregular high-frequency words. Word study is one approach to teaching reading which is built upon the finding that our brains are primed to detect patterns and organise information into groups.   What does it mean? Once children have developed an understanding of the approximately 40 phonemes used in speech, and become increasingly able to decode the written word, they need to develop an understanding of the ways in which spellings of English words broadly follow conventions, and that words are built upon meaningful roots. Several studies have shown that a generalised kind of visual memory contributes very little to our ability to spell, and that methods requiring children to learn lists of words without input is not generally effective (Puttnam, 2017). Word study,