Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners is 5 years old! I can't believe it. If you haven't got a copy yet, now's your chance, there's 40% off if you buy it from Lulu.com... but only for a few more days.

Photo from Roland Tanglao https://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/3394825139

How to Self-Publish

Ever so slightly off-topic, this one.

My book Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners was self-published. What does that mean? How can teachers self publish? I am giving a presentation at the 49th IATEFL Conference in Manchester called The Why, What and How of Self Publishing. Here are the slides and the handout for those who attend and those who can't.

Handout 1 (for notetaking)
Handout 2 (links and references)
Slides

If you have any questions, please add them to the comments.

Johanna

Winner of the International Literacy Day competition

And we have a winner! 

September 8th was International Literacy Day. To raise awareness of this I ran a competition to win a copy of my book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners. The winner is .... Fitta Astriyani from Indonesia. Fitta says she and her colleagues have not been able to find up-to-date books about teaching English spelling in Indonesia and her students certainly need help in this area. Fitta has a great blog herself - take a look at all the fun and creativity at http://funkreatifittaz.blogspot.co.uk/. So congratulations Fitta - your book will be with you soon!

Everyone else who entered will soon get a voucher for discount on the book. 

But let's get back to the reason for the competition - raising awareness of literacy around the world. Here are some facts:

There are about 775 million illiterate adults in the world (nearly 16% of the global population) and nearly three quarters of them are in just ten countries. By far the largest number come from India, but it does not have the highest percentage of illiterate adults. According to the CIA Factbook, the country with the lowest number of literate adults is Burkino Faso with only 21.8%. 

In Afghanistan, the rate is slightly higher (28%) but it has the lowest rate of female adult literacy: only an unbelievable 12.6% (in 2000). We know that female literacy is crucial to the development of future generations.

But it's not all bad news. Literacy rates are increasing now. According to Unesco, between 1990 and 2011, the adult literacy rate in the Arab States rose from 55% to 77% and the youth literacy rate from 74% to 90%. South and West Asia also saw very welcome improvements.

International Literacy Day 2013 - Win a free book!

It's the UNESCO International Literacy Day on Sunday 8th September 2013.

Competition!
To celebrate I am offering a free copy of Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners to the person who convinces me they deserve it most! And a discount voucher to everyone else who enters the competition following the rules below.

All you have to do is email me at johanna(dot)stirling@gmail.com

• before midnight (GMT+1) Sunday 8th September -  not after please
• say why you deserve a copy of Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners more than anyone else
• The Subject of your email must be "ILD13 Competition"

The winner will get a free copy of the book (Recommended Retail Price £18.50) posted to them free of charge, wherever they are in the world. 

Remember you can't lose! Even if you don't win the book, you get the discount voucher just for bothering to enter. But it must be no later than Sunday 8th September 2013.

Global literacy - did you know?

Thankfully literacy rates worldwide are improving all the time but there are still millions of children who don't go to school or who are leaving primary school unable to read or write. Two thirds of the illiterate people in the world are female.

Literacy infographic here

Back to school - spelling rescue strategies

I want to wish teachers who return to school around now all the best with their new classes. Hopefully you're refreshed after the summer holidays and raring to go! It's the time when I always make resolutions (more logical for teachers than January). Do you?

So, is this the year that you're determined to help out those learners who are really struggling with English spelling? If so, what can you do to really help them make progress?

Here are 6 ideas:

1. Emphasise the positive! Avoid reinforcing the idea that English spelling is chaotic and unlearnable. Instead show links. Ask questions like:
• Can you think of other words with a similar spelling? Are they similar in meaning?
• Why do you think it's spelled like this?
2. Make spelling as visual as you can. Help learners visualise words and their shapes. Good spellers can 'see' words in their heads. Weak spellers need help with this.
3. Remember testing isn't the same as teaching -  consider testing less and teaching, reading and writing more.
4. Teach or remind learners about strategies for learning difficult spellings. Use the Look Say Cover Write and Check chart at http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html
5. Correct spelling mistakes in such a way that students can learn from your corrections. Copy the correct letters they have written, with dashes for the letters that are wrong.
6. Make spelling practice fun and mentally engaging. Help break down fear of words that may have built up from previous negative experiences.

To help you, and give you loads more ideas, I've put a 20% discount on my book - Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners - for a few weeks only. To get it at this price (only £14.80 + postage) you need to go to http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/teaching-spelling-to-english-language-learners/15361505. The book is also available from Amazon.co.uk at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Spelling-English-Language-Learners/dp/1447606787 or Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Spelling-English-Language-Learners/dp/1447606787 .

Have a happy and rewarding year!

Improving spelling - whose responsibility is it?

Whose responsibility is it to see that an individual's spelling improves? Many people would say it is the teacher’s, but is it really possible to take responsibility for another person’s learning? We can do our very best to make the reasons clear, the subject engaging and the progress achievable, but the learner must take the ultimate responsibility for learning. 

Remember, you can lead a horse to water, tell it how refreshing the water is, tell a story about how the water got there, and play horsey games in the water ... but you can’t make it drink. If learners want to improve their spelling they will have to recognise that they are the agents of change.

To help learners to take responsibility for their own learning, we can try the following:

•         make it clear that we expect them to do so;

•         discuss the issues of motivation and self-study with them;

•         teach them spelling strategies that they can use;

•         provide opportunities for them to read more;

•         give them some choice in what and how they learn;

•         let them discover patterns rather than telling them;

•         make practice activities engaging and relevant;

•         show that we value the work they have done;

•         help them see their own progress - rather than compare it to the performance of others;

•         tell them that we can’t  and won’t try to force them to learn.

Learner autonomy is a complex issue and we may not succeed easily in getting some learners to take responsibility, but it’s certainly worth a try.

Lots of activities and techniques for doing the above in my book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners.

Anyway that's what I think. Do you agree?

Discount on Teaching Spelling

First an apology - I put up a blog post last week about the effect of spelling errors in comments and reviews on line. But it disappeared in the Google meltdown and I haven't had time to rewrite it.

Other news:

15% discount 

on 

Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners 

from 17th May to 17th June 2011 only.

Only from www.lulu.com. Here's a direct link to preview and buy it: www.bit.ly/TSTELL

Vowel patterns - Three in a Row Vowels Activity

Learners seem to have many more problems with spelling vowel sounds than consonant sounds. This isn't really surprising as English has only five vowel letters for about 20 vowel sounds, including diphthongs. (For consonants there are 21 letters and 24 different sounds, plus silence.) So vowels need to be used in combination (digraphs and trigraphs) to make certain sounds. Also, unstressed vowels are often pronounced with a schwa /ə/ (like the last syllable of teacher), regardless of the spelling. Added to this, some languages give much less importance to vowels - Arabic and Hebrew, for example - and learners may not realise the precision needed in English.

So, what to do? How can we help learners spell vowel sounds accurately? Here is just one activity from my book which helps learners to notice and practise vowel digraphs.

I hope you find it useful. Feedback always appreciated. 

22.4

Three in a Row Vowels

Aim: To give practice with vowel patterns. (See pages 131 and 135 of book for rationale)

Materials needed: Pencils. For each group of four learners: One game board — enlarged to A3 if possible; two different coloured sets of cards, also enlarged to A3 and cut - these are available on The Spelling Blog downloads page.

Activity:

1.       Learners work in groups of four (or up to six if necessary). Each group has two teams. Give each group two different coloured sets of vowel pattern cards — one for each of their teams. Also give them one game board. The cards are shuffled and placed in a pile, face down, in front of each team.

2.       One team turns up the first card. They make a word containing that vowel or pattern that matches one of the categories on the game board. They write the word in pencil under the pattern and place the card on the game board on top of the relevant category.

3.       The next team turns up one of their cards and does the same. The game continues until one team gets three cards in a row, horizontally, vertically or diagonally. So as well as trying to make a row of three, learners need to stop the opposing team from winning a row.

4.       To play again, learners need to rub out the words they have written on the cards.

Variations: Boards and cards can be laminated for reuse. Then learners write their words with a non-permanent pen (e.g. overhead projector pen) and these can be washed off after the game.

You may want to set a time limit for the creation of each word.

At the end of the game, everyone writes personalised sentences for the words they used to help them remember the spellings within a sentence.

For an easier version of this game, each team spreads out all their cards in front of them and they can choose the pattern they use to make a relevant word.

You could use this idea to make your own game with different spelling patterns or different topics.

Printable spelling worksheets to download free

Printables
I've recently created a new tab on The Spelling Blog for Downloads. There you will find three worksheets from my book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners, that you can download and print absolutely free.

1) The multisensory Look Say Cover Write and Check chart has been popular. It's been available for a while, but this version is easier to download. It's far more than the usual four-column table (that I always think learners could just draw in their books). This one really teaches them to learn spellings by guiding them to use several different approaches at the same time. And there's a cover card too that reminds them of the approach.

2) World Cup Vowels is an activity to get learners to really notice vowels in words (in this case, country names). It is especially useful for Arabic speakers who are often rather cavalier in their use (or non-use) of English vowels. All within a football (soccer) context.

3) The third one is completely new to The Spelling Blog, but also concerns vowels. It is a system for colouring vowels to make them visually salient in difficult words. Full instructions are in the book, but here I make coloured versions available (so your learners don't have to colour them in!). These include a classroom poster and bookmarks for learners.

And more ...
Still to come (early April):

• Two more printable worksheets
• Audio files of some texts and activities from the book that I think could be useful
• Some PowerPoint presentations about features of spelling that may be useful in class.

Dropbox
By the way, I am able to make these available using my favourite webtool, Dropbox. Dropbox allows you to automatically save all your documents online (safely) so they are backed up and you can open and edit them anywhere that you have internet access. It also synchronises your documents if you work on more than one computer. And I've recently discovered that I can host files there that I want to share publicly, such as the downloads above. All this and, guess what, it's free. Well, it's free for 2GB, but you can 'earn' up to 8GB by referring other people. So if you like the sound of it, use this link: http://db.tt/Om5BS9b , to investigate and download Dropbox. That means that you will get an extra 250MB of Dropbox space and so will I. The more space I have, the more activities I can make available here on The Spelling Blog. (You only get the extra space if you use the link above)

Johanna

TEACHING SPELLING to English Language Learners is OUT - 30% discount in March

My book Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners is finally out!!!

It's available now on www.lulu.com

To celebrate, I'm offering a 30% discount for the whole of March.

For more information click here

Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners - nearly here

Book coming very soon - pic from http://photofunia.com/

I've been promising my book would be out soon for a very long time. Now I can really say it will be out very soon.

"Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners" is in three parts:

Part A looks at what the problems are - why English spelling is so hard to learn and teach. So there is an exploration of the language itself and the systems that make up English orthography. This includes a brief look at its history. Also here:  how we spell when we read and write, and why many teachers say they feel ill-prepared for helping their learners improve this vital skill. There is also research into real spelling errors made by English language learners.


In Part B a fresh, new approach to the teaching of English spelling is proposed and described. This is a multi-dimensional attack on this age-old problem. As well as visual, auditory and kinaesthetic methods we get students to use their brains and work out patterns for themselves to promote real learning. There is also a strong focus on building strategies, rather than just learning words in class for a test on Friday (and forgetting by Monday).


In the last part of the book, there are over 70 activities for the teacher to use. Many need no materials and there are photocopiable worksheets for others. 


If you like The Spelling Blog, I think you'll love the book!


More details soon. Watch this space. Or write to me at johanna.stirling@gmail.com if you want to be notified when Teaching Spelling is out and for sale.

Johanna

Spelling tests - a necessary evil?

 by elginwx http://www.flickr.com/photos/92239147@N00/462868700/

Spelling test! What do the words ‘spelling test’ mean to you? They strike fear into some people, boredom in others and smugness in those who are confident spellers. But probably the most widespread opinion is that spelling tests are a necessary evil. Are spelling tests necessary? And are spelling tests evil? Why do teachers give them? How could they be better?

Why give spelling tests?
Spelling tests (I'm talking here about the weekly type that test how well a list of words has been remembered) seem to be very commonplace in the teaching of children and sometimes with older learners too. Why do teachers give them:

• because that's what teachers have always done?
• because the institution demands it?
• because parents / sponsors want them?
• because they know spelling tests are the best way to improve their learners' spelling?
  

What's wrong with spelling tests?
You would hope it's for the last reason, but looking on online forums and teachers' blogs I see so many teachers saying that they know that weekly spelling tests aren't useful. Why?

• They result in 'Friday spellers'  - the many learners who do well on the tests but cannot spell the words within their subsequent writing. After the test they seem to clear their brain of those words to get ready for the next week's list.
• Some always do well, others always do badly and the ones who do badly have often spent far longer trying to memorise the words and stressing over them. The strong ones aren't being stretched and the weak ones are taking a weekly bashing.
• The learning and testing of these words takes up so much time that could be spent doing other more useful (and enjoyable) things, like reading ... or learning to really understand spelling and love words.
• Research confirms that spelling tests are largely ineffective.

So should teachers carry on giving spelling tests?
Some teachers have stopped giving the weekly spelling tests. Others carry on because they are pressurised to do so or just can't think of an alternative. Teachers who have stopped giving them say they notice no difference at all in the spelling that their learners produce in their writing.

But there does seem to be a backlash from parents and the media. I've read comments like,

"If spelling tests were good enough for us, why aren't they good enough for children now?"

And headlines like this: "Outrage at banning spelling tests"

Most of the criticism completely misunderstands the issue. Many think that getting rid of spelling tests means getting rid of spelling instruction. No, no, no! It's making room for instruction, which should be about helping learners to understand the systems of English spelling and learn useful strategies for dealing with spelling that they don't know.

Suggestions
If teachers must give spelling tests, here are some suggestions for making them more effective:

• Be sure of your aim and how you will use the results;
• Make sure the words are related in some way (topic, spelling pattern, lexically, etc);
• Introduce them within texts or use words that have arisen from classwork;
• Include words from previous tests. Warn learners that you will do this but do not tell them in advance which ‘old’ words will be tested;
• Give surprise mini-tests on words from previous weeks so learners know that they can't afford to forget the ones they have learned.
• Consider letting learners choose the words they are tested on from the ones given (they each choose, say, three words and these are all added together for the test);
• Test strategies as well as knowledge;
• Teach learners strategies for learning words and let them share the ones they use (for example my free, deluxe Look Say Cover Write and Check template);
• During the test give words in sentences. They write the whole sentence. Alternatively, with a stronger group, say the word and they have to write the word in a sentence themselves. To make it more challenging, give them a topic for the sentence so they can’t just learn a complete sentence by heart;
• Avoid tests which deliberately present learners with wrong spellings (they might stick better than the real spelling!);
• Learners who struggle are not expected to get 100%, but they are expected to do at least as well as they did on the previous test, aiming for some improvement. If possible, differentiate the test, so that it’s easier for weaker learners and more challenging for stronger ones. Words could have some given letters for weaker students;
• Encourage learners to keep progress charts of their spelling scores (there'll be one in my forthcoming book, Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners).
  

Learned or learnt? Spelled or spelt? - A Google Ngram analysis

 Learned or learnt? Spelled or spelt? Burned or burnt? Which spelling do you use? If you speak American English, probably the ed version, if you speak British English, you probably just write what you feel like on the day. I know I use both, but I also know I need to be consistent in my forthcoming book, Teaching English Spelling. So time for some research and I found this extraordinary and very new tool from GoogleLabs (still in Beta) called Google Ngram. You write two or more (up to five) words or phrases into the Ngram search box and it searches a corpus of 500 billion words from 5.2 million books on Google Books. Then it turns out a graph of how often the word or phrase occurred in books in the years you have specified. You can search all English books, British English books, or American English books. Look, rather than explain, I'll show you what my Ngram results were:

British English 1800 - 2000: learnt (blue) vs learned (red)

We can see learned is more common but declining. The worrying thing is that we just seem to be talking about both of them less! Let's see if the same is happening in American English:

American English 1800 - 2000: learnt (blue) vs learned (red)

Ah, less of a decline there! And a very clear and consistent preference for the ed ending.

Now burnt and burned:

British English 1800 - 2000: burnt (blue) vs burned (red)

Oh, interesting! As the years have passed British English speakers have burned about the same but burnt a lot less. No idea why! And American English?

American English 1800 - 2000: burnt (blue) vs burned (red)

Oh, wow! Completely different. Preference swapped over mid-18th century. No coincidence I suppose that Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828.

What about my big question: spelt or spelled? 

British English 1800 - 2000: spelt (blue) vs spelled (red)

So traditionally spelt in British English but the American English has gained ground over the past 60 years and now spelled has taken over. But in American English:

 

American English 1800 - 2000: spelt (blue) vs spelled (red)

No competition!

So which should I use in my book? You may think spelled wins hands down, but I wonder if I should support the underdog? I'm planning to bring out a British version first, closely followed by an American version. Perhaps spelt needs a little boost from me in the British version, then spelled in the American one. But then again ...

Which will I do? There's only one way to find out ...send me your email address and I'll let you know when the book's out (soon)!

And which should you use? What do you think? Let me know in the comments. 

What do you think of Google Ngram?

How could you use it?

Johanna

Look Say Cover Write Check Template

There's more than one way to crack a nut. And there's more than one way to learn the spelling of a word. It depends on the word and it depends on the person (And it may depend on a load of other things too.) People often learn spellings using the Look Say Cover Write and Check method. Here I've made a template that, though I say it myself, seems much more useful than others I've seen because it offers different ways to learn.

It looks like this:

But you can download a better copy from here.

Before you download the LSCWC template though, let me explain how it works.

In the first column, the learner copies the word very carefully (spending a lot of time learning the wrong spelling would be rather a disaster!). They also say the word and spell it aloud letter by letter. This helps them to notice differences in pronunciation and spelling.

They count the number of letters and write this figure in the second column. This helps them to see they've written it correctly (not left any letters out or doubled one that should be single, for example) and also helps when they are learning the word.

 Next they look at the word and see if there is anything unusual about the spelling or anything they think might be difficult to remember. They can either write it in the third column or overwrite the 'hard spot' in the word in the first column with a different colour pen. This should make it stand out and therefore be easier to memorise visually.

In the fourth column learners make any notes about ways to remember. It could be a mnemonic, something about the etymology, a related or similar word or part of a word, broken down into morphemes, etc.

Their final job before they cover the word is to establish the word shape. They write the word on the middle horizontal line in column five, using the squares to show where there are sticks (tall letters) and tails (letters that drop below the line). Then they draw around the outline of the word. This helps to fix the image of the word-shape in the mind. They look away and try to 'see' the word in their mind's eye.

Then they cover the word and the first five columns. They try to 'see' the word again and then write it in the first WRITE column. They check and if it's correct they tick in the next Check column. Then they write it again, to make sure they weren't just lucky the first time! Later they test themselves again in the final column.

If they get the spelling wrong, they cross out the bit that was wrong and try to work out why they made that mistake. Then try again.

You can also print out the cover card for your students to use to cover the words. The card has reminders and hints about what to write in each column. You can laminate the card, so it can be reused.

You are very welcome to use the template with your learners (or for yourself). If the little boxes in column five have distorted when I converted it to a PDF, sorry about that. The chart will also be in my book, Teaching Spelling to English language Learners due out spring 2011, and I'll make sure it's perfect in that.

I'd be very grateful for any feedback on the chart when you've used it.

In case you missed them, you might like to look at these postings on The Spelling Blog:
Look Say Cover Write and Check:
http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/look-say-cover-write-and-check-lscwc.html
Visual spelling:
http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/seeing-spelling.html
 Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners:
http://thespellingblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/teaching-spelling-to-english-language.html

and the link to the  Look Say Cover Write Check template on GoogleDocs is:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_aRRrHxhdcCNWE2NWU3M2MtOTUzOC00NzkxLWI4MjMtNGUyMjM5ZjQwMDdi&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

Johanna

Spelling bees - how do you spell...?

The spelling bee is a very North American concept. These spelling competitions have never really become popular in the UK, but in 2005 the BBC did run a series called Hard Spell. Children competed against each other to find the best speller - it went on for weeks and drew good audiences I think. But it seems once was enough for the British public.

The Times newspaper has an online spelling bee - compete against yourself or others. I'll give you the link but it comes with a warning: if you are quite a good speller - it's very addictive, if you are not a good speller - it's depressing. If you're really sure you've got time / self-esteem to spare: http://www.timesspellingbee.co.uk/Default.aspx .

While I was playing with the Times spelling bee game (I told you it was addictive) I was trying to work out HOW I knew the spellings that I knew.

Sound
It was partly by sound, but certainly not exclusively. And sometimes I had to distort the real sound (like saying com-fort-able instead of comf-table to spell comfortable), not something we want to encourage in second language learners.

Sight
It was also partly visual - I could usually see the word in my head, at least the rough shape of it. If I took time to glance at the word on the screen, I could tell immediately if it was wrong, even if I didn't know the right spelling.

Patterns
Sometimes I just followed orthographic patterns. I knew to write the suffix 'able' not 'abel', and of course I knew that I needed a 'u' after 'q' in acquaint. I knew that acknowledgement had to keep the 'e' before the suffix to keep the 'g' soft (in British English).

Morphology
Other morphological rules really helped, as they are generally very regular. I knew prefixes had to be added to whole words and when I needed to double a letter before a suffix. I also had a bank of prefixes and suffixes in my head that I could select from. Sub and terra were useful for subterranean. Such chunks have become fairly automatic - I don't have to think about them letter-by-letter.

Lexical spelling
Sometimes I had to relate a word to another semantically linked word: for zealot I had to refer to zeal, I got the 'c' in vivacious because I thought of vivacity.

Etymology
Some understanding of etymology can help too. Although the English word facile isn't one I write often, the French word facile is much more common, so I probably referred to that. There are also certain Greek letter strings that I needed such as 'ch' for /k/ in chronology, or the 'y' in dialysis (like the more common analysis).

Learning by doing
It was also quite a kinesthetic process. My fingers just typed many of the words, or at least parts of those words. The ones I got wrong (oh yes, there were certainly several of those!) tended to be words that I never normally write and that I couldn't relate to any other words or parts of words. And I think my spelling was worse than usual because the words were out of context. I believe that if I'd been writing them as part of a text they would have been more likely to flow out accurately - but perhaps I'm just making excuses!

Teaching and learning spelling
So what does all this tell us about teaching and learning spelling:

• sound indicates spelling sometimes but is probably the least reliable route. And if your pronunciation isn't too good anyway, it could mislead you.
• visual methods of spelling should be encouraged - it's what good spellers do, and weaker spellers can learn to 'see' words too.
• it's worth learning, or at least noticing, some orthographic patterns - great to refer to when we are unsure.
• for long words, breaking them up morphologically can really help. Learners need to know a range of affixes and rules for adding them to words.
• semantic links between words need to be explored and spelling patterns will emerge that often explain a spelling that at first looks completely irregular
• an acknowledgement that English is rather a mongrel of a language and an awareness of some common spellings handed down from different languages can be helpful
• the more we write, the better our spelling gets as it becomes increasingly automatic - both in terms of words and letter strings, so learners need to write often and meaningfully. Writing for an audience will encourage them to aim for accuracy.

And all that, my friends, is what my book (soon to be published) is about - with plenty of activities to help learners discover and practise. For more about it click on the cover below:

'i' before 'e' - the trouble with rules

Last week in the UK there was an item in the news saying the government was telling primary teachers they shouldn't teach their children the spelling rule :

" 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' "

Look at the words below and make up your own mind. How many of these words follow the rule:

Image made by me at Wordle (click on thumbnail to go there)

So is it a good rule? There are SO many exceptions to this that it is confusing. Some people say you should use a fuller rule:

When the sound is ee, 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'

or

'i' before 'e' except after 'c' or when sounded like 'a' as in neighbour and weigh

But they still have exceptions and those rules are now becoming long and complicated. So I agree with the British government (for once) - it's probably not worth teaching.

But what has really interested me about this has been other people's reactions to it in the media. This business about dropping this particular rule was one short paragraph in a 124-page document called Support for Spelling. But the Shadow Children's Minister said:

"Having systematically lowered school standards for a decade, it is sadly no surprise that the Government is now actively telling teachers not to bother trying to teach children how to spell properly."

He added: "The best schools in richer areas will continue to teach children how to spell and the victims of this dumbing down will be, yet again, poorer children living in poorer areas."

Ummm...but this is in a 124-page document detailing some excellent ways to approach English spelling. What is he talking about?

And then I read this from a senior English lecturer at King's College, London:

"It's a very easy rule to remember and one of the very few spelling rules that I can remember and that's why I would stick to it.

"If you change it and say we won't have this rule, we won't have any rules at all, then spelling, which is already terribly confusing, becomes more so."

Both quotes from here.

So she thinks a bad rule should stay because then it makes it look like we have one rule in English rather than none - and that is supposed to be helpful?

And in a discussion about the subject on another site a lot of people called Keith and Sheila had something to say about this rule!! One Keith said it wasn't until he was 25 years old that he learnt how to spell 'their' - when he suddenly realised that the 'ei' was the same as the 'ei' in his name! I've always said we should encourage learners to link what they don't know to what they do know - it took Keith a while but he eventually got there!

(By the way, I was asked to speak about this on National Public Radio - but unfortunately I got the message too late. The item is here, but it's obviously not me speaking.)

As always there'll be more on this and other 'rules' in my book "Teaching Spelling to English Language Learners"