ConstructivismAndRoteMemorization < Kitchen

04 Mar 2006 - 15:21

constructivism and rote memorization

I'm frequently struck by how much rote memorization is required — whether implicitly or explicitly — by constructivist curricula.

Here's an example:

The whole-word approach to spelling instruction has both advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage to the whole-word approach is that it works very well for words that are considered irregular. Irregular words are words that cannot be spelled by applying general spelling conventions. Some examples of irregular words are: yacht, quiet, and friend. The disadvantage to the whole-word approach is that it relies on rote memorization for all words, instead of taking advantage of phonemic rules that can simplify the task of spelling. Relying solely on rote memorization for spelling could be compared to requiring students to memorize the answers to all multi-digit subtraction problems instead of teaching them the rule for borrowing (Dixon, 1993). To summarize, rote memorization is not the most efficient strategy for spelling instruction, unless the spelling words are irregular, meaning that they cannot be spelled by applying general spelling rules.
source:
Spelling Research (pdf file)
Flint Simonson, Lee Gunter, Nancy Marchand-Martella, Ph.D.
(research paper commissioned by SRA)

Although Megawords, the program I'm using with Christohper, does not use the term 'morphograph,' my sense is that it's a 'morphographic' spelling program. Here's more from SRA:

A morphograph is the smallest unit of identifiable meaning in written English. Morphographs include prefixes, suffixes, and bases or roots. Many words in the written English language can be created by following a small set of rules for combining morphographs. For example, the word recovered is made up of the prefix re, the base cover, and the suffix ed. Using the principles that govern the structure of words, the morphemic approach to spelling instruction teaches students the spellings for morphographs rather than whole words and the rules for combining morphographs to spell whole words correctly. For example, using a morphemic approach, students would be taught that when a base ends in the letter e (e.g., make) and is to be combined with the /ing/ suffix, the letter e is always dropped (make becomes making).

Louisa C. Moats on spelling and reading

According to Louisa C. Moats, the spelling of English language words isn't as irregular as most people believe:

The spelling of words in English is more regular and patternbased than commonly believed. According to Hanna, Hanna, Hodges, and Rudorf (1966), half of all English words can be spelled accurately on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone, meaning that the letters used to spell these words predictably represent their sound patterns (e.g., back, clay, baby). These patterns, though, are somewhat complex and must be learned (e.g., when to use “ck” as in back and when to use “k” as in book). Another 34 percent of English words would only have one error if they were spelled on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone. That means that the spelling of 84 percent of words is mostly predictable. Many more words could be spelled correctly if other information was taken into account, such as word meaning and word origin. The authors estimated that only four percent of English words were truly irregular. Thus, the spelling of almost any word can be explained if one or more of the following five principles of English spelling is taken into account:
1) Words’ language of origin and history of use can explain their spelling.
2) Words’ meaning and part of speech can determine their spelling.
3) Speech sounds are spelled with single letters and/or combinations of up to four letters.
4) The spelling of a given sound can vary according to its position within a word.
5) The spellings of some sounds are governed by established conventions of letter sequences and patterns.
source:
How Spelling Supports Reading And Why it Is More Regular and Predictable Than You May Think (pdf file)
Louisa C. Moats
AMERICAN EDUCATOR
Winter 2005/2006

Left to their own devices, most students don't just happen to pick up on these 5 principles.

They have to be taught.

skills taught in Megawords

from the website:

6 types of syllables

syllabication rules

Prefixes

Suffixes

Schwa sound

Vowel variations

Consonant variations

Unaccented vowels

Writing

Reading

Spelling

Affixes and roots

r-controlled vowels

Digraphs

Accent patterns

Assimilated prefixes

Parts of speech

We're 3/4 of the way through the 3rd book,^* and I would agree with every item on this list except for 'writing' — partly because we haven't been doing the final page of each unit, where the student is supposed to write several original sentences.

We've spent a HUGE amount of time on the schwa sound.

Don't ask me what the schwa sound is.

It's some kind of namby-pamby, swallowed-up, semi-vowel sound that's not much of a sound at all.

The schwa sound is HELL on spelling.

update: morphemes versus rote memorization

This is a useful passage:

The morphemic approach to spelling instruction offers several advantages. First, morphographs are generally spelled the same across different words. For example, the morphograph port is spelled the same in the words porter, deport, and important. Second, when the spelling of a morphograph changes across words, it does so in predictable ways. The morphograph trace is spelled differently in the words traces and tracing, but the change is governed by the rule for dropping the final e. Third, the number of morphographs is far fewer than the number of words in the written English language, and the number of principles for combining morphographs is relatively small. Therefore, teaching students to spell morphographs and teaching the rules for combining morphographs will allow students to spell a far larger set of words accurately than by teaching individual words through rote memorization of a weekly spelling list.

in a nutshell

morphographs are generally spelled the same across different words

when the spelling of a morphograph changes across words, it does so in predictable ways

the number of morphographs is far fewer than the number of words in the written English language

the number of principles for combining morphographs is relatively small

therefore, teaching students to spell morphographs and teaching the rules for combining morphographs will allow students to spell a far larger set of words accurately than by teaching individual words through rote memorization of a weekly spelling list

Nick's Mama likes this book

The ABC's and All Their Tricks by M. Bishop

I just looked at the pages Amazon has posted online; 'ABC's' looks looks terrific. Thanks for the tip!

does good spelling help produce good reading?

I suspect that the answer to this question will ultimately be yes, if only for the reason that an expert speller has automaticity with morphemes that he or she can (probably) read novel passages featuring novel, multisyllabic words without stumbling.

This passage is interesting:

Use of the morphemic approach to spelling instruction is supported by research studies that have compared the characteristics of intact groups of good and poor spellers (Bruck & Waters, 1990; Waters et al., 1988). The findings from these studies confirm that good spellers have a stronger grasp of the principles for combining morphographs than poor spellers. Bruck and Waters (1990) divided students into three groups, based on academic skills: (a) good (good readers; good spellers), (b) mixed (good readers; poor spellers), and (c) poor (poor readers; poor spellers). The most significant difference between students in the good, mixed, and poor groups was that good students showed better skills related to the use of morphographs.

Christopher is in category (b): good reader, poor speller.

I'd put money on it that if I could turn him into a good speller he'd be a better reader, too.

spelling and writing

It looks like we do have enough research to conclude that good spelling supports good writing (or, rather, that poor spelling causes poor writing):

Research also bears out a strong relationship between spelling and writing: Writers who must think too hard about how to spell use up valuable cognitive resources needed for higher level aspects of composition (Singer and Bashir, 2004). Even more than reading, writing is a mental juggling act that depends on automatic deployment of basic skills such as handwriting, spelling, grammar, and punctuation so that the writer can keep track of such concerns as topic, organization, word choice, and audience needs. Poor spellers may restrict what they write to words they can spell, with inevitable loss of verbal power, or they may lose track of their thoughts when they get stuck trying to spell a word.

Automaticity again.

Spelling is to writing what math facts are to doing math.

Obviously, that's not quite true; when you're writing you can throw any old spelling on the page, and correct later.

You can't do that with a complicated calculation.

Still, the principle is the same.

The idea that you don't need automaticity because you can 'look it up' later doesn't work out so well in real life.

update: another recommendation

I can't remember who left this recommendation, but the book sounds great:

Spelling Power

a575224128a0522aebdc6010._AA240_.L.jpg

spelling, reading, 4th grade slump, & multisyllabic words

learning to spell by memorization versus morphemes
spell check
bad spelling on job applications
sea sponges in legal documents

^*There are 8 books in all, starting in 4th grade and going through 11th. We started with Book 1 at the end of 5th grade and will be able to start the 7th grade book before this school year is over. The books are inexpensive compared to school textbooks: $9.85 apiece & $7.95 for the corresponding teacher's solution guide (which you definitely need no matter how well you spell.) I've come to think the Megawords books are terrific for teaching vocabulary as well as spelling. Each book also has timed reading tests for gauging and teaching fluency as well.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Mar 2006

Back to main page.

Comments

After entering a comment, users can login anonymously as KtmGuest (password: guest) when prompted.
Please consider registering as a regular user.
Look here for syntax help.

Here's another great book on spelling and phonics:

A Complete Guide to Phonics and Spelling: ABC's and All Their Tricks by Marget Bishop http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0880621494/sr=8-1/qid=1141486698/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3096559-5707930?%5Fencoding=UTF8

-- NicksMama - 04 Mar 2006

oh wow!

thank you!

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Mar 2006

According to Hanna, Hanna, Hodges, and Rudorf (1966), half of all English words can be spelled accurately on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone, meaning that the letters used to spell these words predictably represent their sound patterns (e.g., back, clay, baby). These patterns, though, are somewhat complex and must be learned (e.g., when to use “ck” as in back and when to use “k” as in book). Another 34 percent of English words would only have one error if they were spelled on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone. That means that the spelling of 84 percent of words is mostly predictable. Many more words could be spelled correctly if other information was taken into account, such as word meaning and word origin. The authors estimated that only four percent of English words were truly irregular.

Let's rewrite parts of that:

Only half of English words can be spelled accurately on the basis of sound-symbol correspondences alone. Thirty-four percent of English words will have one error when spelled the same way. Another twelve percent of words can only spelled with a deep understanding of etymology and shifts in spelling based only on usage. Four percent of English words are spelled completely unpredictably.

In that previous paragraph, I count 63 words. Using the above numbers, phonetic spelling would result in 32 words spelled correctly, 21 words with a one-letter mistake, 6-7 words spelled as another word, and 2-3 words nearly unrecognizable. English spelling is hard. (I say this as a "naturally" good speller.)

If you compare this to (say) German, the difference is striking. The vast majority of German can be spelled correctly at first hearing (if you can actually hear the language as a native would). I can only recall three possibly confusing letters/dipthongs: 1) ts, tz, z; 2) e, ä; 3) s, ss, ß.

The concept of a "spelling bee" is essentially unknown in German.

Edit: Corrected spelling of "hear" (from "here"). 8-/ (No, it wasn't intentional.)

-- DougSundseth - 04 Mar 2006

I wouldn't be surprised if the statistics about how many words can be spelled via different strategies shift dramatically depending on the set of words to chosen.

The OED? American Heritage Dictionary? Five years of The Economist? Five years of The National Enquirer? The vocabulary of an "average" adult fluent in English?

While statistics can help understand many things when used appropriately, improper or intentional misuse can easily be used to mislead. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" (usually attributed to Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain)

-- AndyLange - 06 Mar 2006

WebLogForm
Title:	constructivism and rote memorization
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	ConstructivistTeaching, LanguageArts
LogDate:	200603041020

Navigate KTM

Kitchen Table Math

KTM User Pages

Service Groups

Parent Groups

Personal Pages

Blogs

Special lists

Help

constructivism and rote memorization

Comments