SPELLING: No Instant Recipes
Susan A. Miller


.. teaching spelling is as much about ‘teaching’ 
reading and writing as it is about spelling per se. 
 All teachers know but are reluctant to accept that 
there is no instant recipe for teaching anything.  
Bean and Bouffler, Spelling by Writing,  Heinemann, 1991.


If only I had read this quote twenty-nine years 
ago when I first started teaching, it could have 
saved me a whole lot of head aches.   “Susan,”  
I’d argue with myself,  “why can’t you be 
satisfied with the way you taught spelling last 
year?  OK, so those spelling tests didn’t work, 
but you just made all those wonderful jig-saw 
puzzles with each weeks spelling words.”    And 
so it went for most of my 16 years in elementary 
and middle school classrooms, continual  
frustrations and doubts about the teaching of 
spelling. 

Initially, I’d gone by the book following weekly 
spelling lessons with tests.  I can still remember 
the busy work in the book, which half the time 
didn’t make sense even to me.  This  wasn’t the 
answer:  my good spellers already knew most of 
the words, while my weaker ones didn’t or 
couldn’t  seem to learn them.

In 1987, I started learning more about whole 
language and  writing processes.  Wow, what an 
eye opener!  Finally, someone was confirming 
my beliefs about literacy and learning.  You start 
from the whole and work towards the part.  I 
turned to using the words the children 
misspelled  in their daily writings.  It made 
sense: these were the words they needed, so 
these were the words they should learn. I 
supplemented  with words of the students’ 
choosing from the current theme of class work.


Hanging Wall Dictionary
Hanging in a special place in our room was a 
bright yellow ABC wall hanging which had a 
pocket and picture for each letter.  Whenever a 
child needed a correct spelling during the editing 
of his paper,  I wrote it on a word card which he 
used to correct his draft.  The word later was 
filed  in the appropriate pocket of our spelling 
wallhanging.  As the pockets started filling, 
students were asked to check the wallhanging 
for the correct word before coming to me.  Only 
then could they get a new word card.

Each week, a different child, our “student of the 
week”,  would choose from out of the pockets a 
number of words for the class to study (from 5-
15.)  Magnetic tape was applied to the back of 
each card before placing them on the chalk 
board. (An alternative method is to use Velcro 
backing  before placing the cards on a “flannel 
wall.”)

The rest of the students were responsible for 
choosing  a personal list (3 to 15 words) from 
the class list.  Each child than copied “her 
words”   into “My Special Spelling Book’ which 
was signed by the parents on Monday and 
Thursday evenings.




Spelling Buddies
Children worked with their “spelling buddy” each 
day for 15 minutes.  I usually paired the 
buddies, putting the stronger spellers with 
weaker ones.  Buddies were responsible for 
helping each other learn their words, using a 
variety of strategies:  practicing on little 
chalkboards, writing with a finger on the carpet, 
studying and quizzing, etc.  “Tests” on Fridays 
weren’t dreaded but were anticipated as the 
“Buddies” were  rewarded when both of them 
succeeded--which was usually the case.  Since 
this didn’t always carry over into their writing, I 
continued to improve upon my method; 
however, in 1992  I started my job as the 
primary writing consultant for the Kentucky 
Writing Program  and have been out of the 
classroom for several years. 

By 1992, there was considerable discussion 
about spelling, so I decided to pursue my 
burning question: What is the best way to teach 
spelling?   I talked to teachers at my workshops, 
other professionals at conferences, and read 
books  by the spelling gurus: Richard Gentry, 
Connie Weaver, Regie Routman, Marlene and 
Robert McCracken, Sandra Wilde, and others.  I 
was validated by the discovery that many of the 
techniques and strategies that I had been using 
were sound teaching practices.  However, in the 
last five years I have learned some things that I 
now believe will make my spelling program 
better, and these I’d like to share with you.
	
During this past year in workshops with over 
2,500 teachers I presented them with this 
problem:  How do you figure out how to spell a 
word you don’t know?  I gave them carageen, 
an oriental deciduous plant.)   Invariably, I’ve 
gotten the same list of strategies:
	• sound it out - using phonics

	• divide the word into syllable

	• find small words I know inside the 
larger 	word - chunking

	• use knowledge of root words, prefixes, 
	and/or suffixes

	• think of a familiar word and use that in 
	the spelling (like KERA or Caribbean for 
	carageen)

	• think of where the word might have 
	appeared (like a science book)

	• look it up in the dictionary (if I can 
figure 	out how it starts)
	
	• visualize the word
						
	• write it several times and pick the one 
	that looks right

	• ask a friend

	• spell check on the computer

	• use a Franklin speller

	• keep track of words most often 
	requested  and most often misspelled 
	on a hand-held spelling computer

The next question was, “Do you teach your 
students all these strategies?”  Consistently, the 
reply, “Well, no, not all of them.”   Maybe we 
should. 


Modeled Writings
Many teachers have had the misconception that 
phonics is a no-no in a whole language 
approach.  Quite the contrary, phonics must  be 
taught  but it needs to be taught in context, not 
in isolation.  

Modeled writings such as the Daily News and 
language experience charts are a perfect 
vehicle for this in that children collaborate with 
the teacher to bring sounds and symbols 
together and to make decisions regarding the 
use of print conventions. The teacher writes as 
the children orally compose. The Daily News is 
a way for children to share their own news with 
the rest of the class.  While in the writing of a 
language experience chart, the children are 
talking  and dictating  a shared experience.

After completing a modeled writing, the teacher 
revisits the text, selecting one or two phonics 
elements to teach or review, asking, for 
example, “Who can come up to the chart and 
highlight all the words that start with the ‘sl’ 
sound?......words that end with the “..tion” 
sound?  ......words that have two syllables?”  For 
further extension,  the teacher would make a 
longer list on chart paper of the words 
highlighted and add additional ones that the 
children can think of.  Rhyming word lists are 
fun to make, and encouraging the use of 
dictionaries to extend learning  makes the 
activity even more challenging for a class.  
These charts must be displayed for  reference.

Teaching skills through a collaborative context 
is a strategy for all ages. What better way to 
introduce a new strategy or to practice and 
reinforce one previously taught.  Here is one 
place to continue teaching our spelling 
strategies, such as:
	• syllabication	
	
	• word chunking - finding smaller 	
	familiar words within a larger word

	• root words, prefixes, and/or suffixes

	• word  association: connecting an 
	unfamiliar word with  a  familiar one
	(KERA or Caribbean for carageen)



Word Charts and Word Walls
A  teacher and students could generate word 
charts and display  them for each theme of 
class work studied.  At the end of one theme, 
the charts remain on display or  can be hung 
with clothes pins on a coat hanger in a 
designated place.  These charts are invaluable 
reference materials for writing.
Several years ago, while working in a school in 
Melbourne, Australia, I observed a true whole 
language classroom.  There was print 
everywhere.  In lieu of teacher-made bulletin 
boards, the boards were covered with word 
cards, pinned  and grouped in categories for the 
theme being studied: animals.  Some of the 
categories were:
		animals’ names
		habitats
		foods
		characteristics
		enemies

Students had generated words for each 
category adding to them through individual and 
group research.  Whenever a student needed a 
specific word for writing, he simply unpinned  it 
from the wall  to use.  Great strategy and simple 
to implement!

Another type of word wall, especially for 
emergent learners, is an ABC wall.  As  new 
words arise, each is written by the teacher on a 
word card,  student illustrated, and hung on the 
alphabet wall under the corresponding letter.

These three examples: word charts, word walls, 
and ABC walls serve as a vehicle for teaching:
	• thinking of where the word might have 
	appeared and locating it 
		
	`• looking it up in the dictionary or on the 
	word walls or word charts


Visualizing
As younger students are chanting  favorite 
stories and poems from sentence strips in 
pocket charts, they can  practice spelling a 
familiar word over and over.  They can close 
their eyes and visualize that word, spelling it 
back together.  The teacher might explain how 
this strategy can help with other words.  This 
needs to be done often to be effective and 
needs to be continued throughout the upper 
grades.

Have-A-Go Sheet
The Have-A-Go sheet,  adapted from Australia 
(Jo-Ann Parry and David Hornsby, Write On: A 
Conference Approach to Writing   [Heinemann, 
1988] p. 61), is based on the idea that children, 
like adults, can usually identify a misspelled 
word even if they cannot spell it correctly.   
Children are invited  to choose misspelled words 
from their daily writing and attempt to “have-a-
go” at standard spellings.  The teacher  then 
conferences with the student to guide thinking 
processes and confirm or help with the final 
standard spelling.  This is the technique that I 
use most often when I am unsure of a spelling: I 
write the word several different ways to see 
which spelling looks  right.  Below is a sample 
which you could enlarge or replicate for a 
classroom.

		  Have-A-Go
COPY
WORD
1ST 
ATTEMPT
2ND
ATTEMPT
STANDARD 
SPELLING












































	


Ask A Friend (Peer Help)
This, of course, children already do, and so do 
we.  Students quickly learn who the good 
spellers are and seek them out.  We need to 
encourage collaboration as an important 
spelling strategy.
Technology
Because  English, with all its irregularities and 
exceptions in spelling is a difficult language to 
master, students need to be exposed to tools 
such as Franklin Spellers and other hand-held 
devices.  Of course, a computer’s spell check is 
invaluable though homonyms can be a problem.


Two last suggestions: Read, Read, Read and 
Write, Write, Write. Research confirms the fact 
that good spellers read a  lot. Children need to 
be reminded that reading is also a strategy  for  
learning how to spell.  When children are 
reading and notice words  that  they  find 
interesting they can place these words  in 
individual dictionaries or writer’s notebook.  
These words are ones they might want to use in 
their own writing.

Frank Smith said, “There is not much point in 
learning to spell if you have no intention of 
writing”  (Joining the Literacy Club, Heinemann, 
1988). Children need many opportunities to 
write.  The more they write, the more they are 
able to practice their spelling, and the more 
chances they will have to improve.


If these are the strategies that adults use, then 
these are the strategies that we need to teach 
our children to prepare them for the real world. 
No one strategy by itself will work; rather, it 
will be by using these strategies together, 
interwoven into our classroom instruction, 
that we will find improvement. After all, trial 
and error are two of our best teachers, and the 
best teacher of all is our students!   Let’s 
watch them, make notes about what works and 
what doesn’t.  Let’s learn from our children 
which strategies help them spell correctly. 



Spelling, No Instant Recipe		                			                          Susan A. 
Miller