Thread by @rkomesidou

I'm sorry to hurt your feelings but teaching spelling is not "unnecessary", "useless", or "outdated". Let me tell you why! #spellingmatters #EBP #ELAchat

1/ Think about the role that spelling plays in our daily life. Notes, homework, grocery lists, texting, tweeting, medical forms, job applications etc. Spelling instruction must be part of the curriculum so that no student feels incompetent and embarrassed.

2/ And by 'spelling instruction', I don't mean endless lists of words to memorize. This is a disservice to the richness and beauty of the English language and every language. I mean instruction that is explicit and systematic.

3/ You may say "Oh, the English spelling system is way too complicated!" Actually, it is more regular than most of us believe. Hanna et al. (1966) estimated that only 4% of English words are truly irregular, once you consider sound/letter patterns, word origin, and word meaning.

4/ This amazing article by Joshi, @Treiman, Carreker, and @LouisaMoats provides some great information about the English spelling system (seriously, read it!)
aft.org/sites/default/…

5/ What else can I say to convince you? Oh wait, I forgot the most important. SPELLING SUPPORTS READING!

6/ Catherine Snow and colleagues (2005) wrote "Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word. Knowing the spelling of a word makes the representation of it sturdy and accessible for
fluent reading.”

7/ In 2017, @RTreiman and colleagues published a study showing that spelling performance at the end of kindergarten is a significant predictor of later reading ability.
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

8/ Spelling also supports writing! See for example work by Singer and Bashir (2004) or Puranik and Al Otaiba (2012).
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23087544

9/ And that's not all. There is so much exciting research happening around spelling by @RTreiman @kennapel @LLEADLab @ricketts_lara @tiffanyphogan @ReadOxford @literacyspeech and so many others!

10/ We know a lot about the importance of spelling. Dismissing it means taking away from your students the opportunity to be the good spellers they deserve to be. Spelling is truly the window to a language's secrets. Open it and see what happens!