Literacy Leadership Brief: Teaching and Assessing Spelling

International Literacy Association | 2019

LITERACY LEADERSHIP BRIEF

Teaching and

Assessing Spelling

Unfortunately, spelling is

more likely to be tested than

it is to be taught.

misspelled word on a restaurant menu causes snick-

ering. A spelling error in a newspaper headline is met

with criticism. Spelling matters to most of us. Right

or wrong, we use it as a quasi-measure of intelligence

at best and an indicator of attention to detail at the least.

However, beyond the imperative to get spelling right to avoid

the public judgment of others, spelling matters because of the

role it plays in successful reading and writing.

Spelling is not just a public performance skill, and spelling

words correctly is not simply a party trick—although televised

spelling bees can make it feel like one. Spelling is integral to

reading and writing. The skills required for good spelling reflect

those required for successful reading and writing. Teach spell-

ing well, and reading and writing also improves. Unfortunately,

spelling is more likely to be tested than it is to be taught, and

this is probably a consequence of a general perception that

English spelling is a skill more amenable to rote memorization

than to any considered teaching.

How Does English Spelling Work?

English spelling is complex because of the inconsistencies be-

tween sounds and letters in English. One letter can represent

multiple sounds. For example, consider the multiple sounds the

letter a can make in words like cat, was, many, scar, scare, wa-

ter, oat, age, average, and pizza. Conversely, consider the num-

bers of letter patterns that can represent a single sound. For

example, the /sh/ sound that we hear at the beginning of ship

can be represented by ocean, magician, action, chef, sugar, cre-

scendo, tension, tissue, and nauseous.

This opaque sound–letter relationship gives English spell-

ing the reputation of being random and somewhat confusing.

However, these complex relationships between sounds and let-

ters are often explained by the origin and meaning components

within the words. For example, the spelling of the /sh/ sound

in magician is explained when we separate the base word and

suffix magic + ian. Similarly, the spelling of the /sh/ sound in

action is explained by breaking the word into act + ion. The /sh/

in chef is explained by its French origin, and the /sh/ in sugar is

explained by a democratic shift in pronunciation  years ago,

from a formal-sounding /syugar/ to a more common-sounding

/shuga r/.

English spelling is the consequence of , years of lin-

guistic evolution. English began as a Germanic language spo-

ken by new settlers in the land we now know as Great Britain.

Latin-speaking Christian missionaries arrived and transcribed

the sounds of that foreign language using their own Latin

alphabet—and there began the first challenges of English

spelling.

There were Germanic sounds that did not have a Latin letter

equivalent, so best guesses and compromises were made. Those

compromises have continued on through the wonderfully di-

verse linguistic history of the English language. The Roman,

Norse, and French invasions brought new words that were wel-

comed into the lexicon, keeping the original spellings while

applying a variety of English pronunciations. The Renaissance

brought an influx of Greek and Latin words that continues to

this day—new inventions and discoveries are often given a

classical name. By the s, England had become the global

invader and trader, importing words from vanquished nations,

with a preference for maintaining the spelling patterns of the

original language rather than transcribing into more common

English spelling patterns.

From the very beginning, English spelling was destined to be

alphabetic but not phonetic. English represents spoken sounds

through letters but is rather loose on what those letters might

be. Letter patterns are more likely to be explained by the word’s

history than by an infallible phonic rule. It has been estimated

that for every consonant sound we have in English, there is an

average of nine spellings, and for every vowel sound we have,

there is an average of  spellings.

However, this is not to say that English spelling is chaotic.

Complex, yes. Inexplicable, no. The spelling of English words is

reasonably systematic; however, the system reveals itself only

through investigation. Words need to be viewed through mul-

tiple lenses to reveal layers of history and meaning that shine a

light on why words are spelled the way they are.

There is a lot of engaging teaching and learning awaiting

those who seek to teach spelling for what it really is—a fas-

cinating tapestry, the threads of which are rich with stories,

meanings, and patterns. The assessment of spelling should also

track learning across all those threads.

The spelling of English

words is reasonably

systematic; however, the

system reveals itself only

through investigation.

The Threads of the Spelling Tapestry

Spelling involves the successful conversion of the spoken word

into the written word. However, many descriptions of the spell-

ing process reduce it to simply mapping sounds onto letters.

In some phonologically consistent languages, like Finnish or

Greek, this may be an adequate description of spelling, but for

English, which is phonologically opaque, it is an inadequate de-

scription of the skill set required for effective spelling.

Good spellers draw on several linguistic resources, alongside

a metacognitive disposition to have a conscience about their

spelling—a felt responsibility to get it right for their readers. The

linguistic resources they draw upon are phonological knowledge,

morphological knowledge, orthographic knowledge, etymologi-

cal knowledge, visual knowledge, and semantic knowledge.

Phonological Knowledge

English may not be a phonetic language, but teaching sound–letter

relationships is still important. Although we cannot rely on our

sounds (phonemes) to always be represented by the same letters

(graphemes), hearing phonemes within words and knowing the

range of graphemes possible for those phonemes is a key skill in

spelling.

The majority of spelling programs in schools focus on devel-

oping phonological knowledge, particularly in the first years

of school. However, as phonology alone cannot explain English

spelling, students who have only this skill are destined to be-

come poor spellers. It has been estimated that by fifth grade, stu-

dents encounter more than  new words each day that cannot

be spelled, or read, through phonological strategies alone.

An analysis of spelling errors of students in the upper elemen-

tary grades demonstrates errors are made primarily through

an overreliance on phonological processing. So although pho-

nics work is necessary in teaching students to spell, it is not

sufficient. Neither is it prerequisite to the development of the

other threads in the spelling tapestry.

Morphological Knowledge

Morphological knowledge is understanding the morphemes in

words. Morphemes are the parts of the word that carry mean-

ing. For example, the words birds and magician contain the fol-

lowing meaningful components, or morphemes:

Good spellers draw

on several linguistic

resources, alongside a

metacognitive disposition

to have a conscience

about their spelling—a felt

responsibility to get it right

for their readers.

• bird: base word meaning “flying animal”

• -s: plural suffix meaning “more than one”

• magic: base word meaning “mysterious trickery”

• -ian: noun suffix meaning “the person who does”

Base words, suffixes, and prefixes are all morphemes. In

English, many words are created by adding prefixes and suf-

fixes to a base word. This makes English a morphophonemic

language; that is, words are spelled according to both their

sounds and their meaning.

For example, if English were a phonetic language, we might

expect jumped to be spelled jumt because those are the most

common letters for the sounds we hear in the word. However,

we know that jumped is made from two morphemes: the base

word jump and the suffix -ed, which is a marker of the past

tense in this verb. It is the morphemes in jumped that lead us to

the correct phonemes and graphemes.

Whenever a word consists of more than one morpheme, then

spelling the word is usually better achieved by considering

meaning (morphemes) before sound (phonemes). Morphemes

generally have fixed spellings, regardless of the ways in which

pronunciation changes (e.g., critic and criticize, music and mu-

sician, cup and cupboard). Very often, morphological knowledge

steps in when phonological knowledge misleads.

Morphological knowledge becomes increasingly useful as

students move through the grades and encounter more and

more multimorphemic words—words typical of Tier  and

Tier  vocabulary. Understanding how words are built through

morphemes not only makes spelling simpler and more accu-

rate, but also increases students’ vocabulary, helping them

tackle unknown words when reading and selecting appropriate

words when writing.

Morphological knowledge is a linguistic resource that is in-

dependent of a student’s efficacy with phonological knowledge.

Therefore, it can be taught alongside phonic work. Even very

young children are capable of understanding how morphemes

work within words. Indeed, they use morphological knowledge

in their spelling regardless of whether we have taught it to

them. For example, the spelling of goed in I goed home shows

this -year-old’s understanding of the meaning of the suffix -ed

as a marker of past tense in verbs.

English [is] a

morphophonemic language;

that is, words are spelled

according to both their

sounds and their meaning.

Morphemes, which are anchored in meaning, can be easier to

teach to young children than phonemes, which are an abstract

concept. For example, teaching the s on the end of dogs as a

morpheme that means the plural is easier than teaching it as a

phoneme, particularly because it often makes the sound /z/, as

it does in dogs, rather than /s/.

Teachers in the early years of schooling can use pictures to

teach both the concept of the plural and the spelling of the plu-

ral. For example, a picture of one dog can be labeled dog. When

another dog is added to the picture (e.g., felt cutouts, magnets),

an s is added to the word dog. Add the s in a different color and

emphasize the meaning of the letter—that it means “more than

one.” Repeat the process with other words where s makes the

plural but makes different sounds (e.g., cat/s/, bee/z/). The focus

is on teaching students s as meaning more than one, regardless

of the sound they hear when they say the word.

Orthographic Knowledge

Orthographic knowledge is understanding what letter patterns

are plausible in English spelling and knowing there are con-

ventions that help us decide which letter patterns to use. For

example, there are constraints around the positioning of letter

patterns, such as not starting words with the grapheme ck or

ending them with wh.

Although conventions do not work all the time, knowing to

change the y to i before adding a suffix, for example, works

enough to reduce the seemingly endless possibilities of spelling

a word if you rely on phonological knowledge alone.

Orthographic knowledge makes our spelling efforts plausi-

ble and substantially reduces the margin for error. For exam-

ple, knowing that the word full has two ls when it stands alone

but only one l when it is a suffix is helpful. Show students the

morphemes in helpful, that is, help and full. Thus, to be help-

ful is to be full of help. When we join those two words, full be-

comes a suffix and loses its second l. Have students practice

with other words, such as careful and wonderful. They will be

full of thanks for being shown some of the spelling conventions

of English. Or should that be thankful?

Etymological Knowledge

English is a polyglot language. It is a mixture of German, French,

Latin, and Greek with a smattering of words and associated

spellings from languages all over the world.

Morphemes, which are

anchored in meaning, can

be easier to teach to young

children than phonemes,

which are an abstract

concept.

Understanding word origins, or what is called etymology, is

useful for spelling, as word origins can give clues to phonolog-

ical, orthographic, and morphological components of words.

For example, while the Anglo heritage of English explains ch

making the sound we hear at the beginning of chicken, it is the

French origin that explains why we use ch to make the sound we

hear at the beginning of chef. Meanwhile, it is the Greek origin

of the word that explains why we use ch to make the sound we

hear the beginning of Christmas. And it is our tendency to adopt

the spelling patterns of all the languages we import words from

that allows us to use cz to make the /ch/ sound we hear at the

beginning of Czech.

Etymology is not only the study of words from other lan-

guages. The word itself means “the study of the reason”—etym

+ ology—and in English, the reason for the spelling of a word

is not always connected to the language origin. Portmanteaus,

eponyms, acronyms/abbreviations, and onomatopoeia are all

ways we can make new words, or neologisms, providing us with

additional clues to the spelling of a word.

• Portmanteau is a word coined by Lewis Carroll to describe

a kind of word invention that Carroll himself was fond of:

taking parts of words and blending them to make new

words, for example, smog is made from parts of smoke and

fog, both literally and linguistically. One portmanteau that

Carroll gifted to the English lexicon is chortle, a blend of

chuckle and snort. And many a celebrity couple has seen

themselves branded with a portmanteau, as Brangelina

demonstrated before Brad and Angelina decided to go

their separate ways.

Portmanteaus can help to pique students’ curiosity about

the ways that words are spelled. Give students two words

and ask them to find the portmanteau they make when

combined (e.g., breakfast + lunch = brunch, motor + hotel =

motel).

• Eponyms are words that take their name from a person

or place. Leotards take their name from the French acro-

bat Jules Léotard who made the garment famous. Units

of energy such as watt and joule were named in honor of

the scientists bearing those names, James Watt and James

Prescott Joule.

[Etymology] means “the

study of the reason”—etym

+ ology—and in English,

the reason for the spelling

of a word is not always

connected to the language

origin.

Eponyms are intriguing and provide a memory hook for

the spelling of words. Macadamia nuts were named for

Dr. John Macadam. Give your students names and places

and see if they can uncover what they have given their

name to (e.g., Adolphe Sax, saxophone, General Burnside,

sideburns).

• Acronyms and abbreviations find their way into the lan-

guage as words in their own right. Scuba is Self-Contained

Underwater Breathing Apparatus, and LOL has moved

from an acronym for “laugh out loud” to become a new

word signifying ironic laughter.

• Sometimes spelling is a reflection of the sound the word

itself describes; that is, the spelling is onomatopoeic. Zip

is the sound of the action of the mechanism we now call a

zipper. Many of our speaking words are simply a mimicry

of the sound they describe (e.g., shriek, murmur, gurgle).

Visual Knowledge

Visual knowledge helps us to store words, and the components

of words, in our memories, which allows us to spell in more au-

tomatic ways. Words are stored in the memory through lots of

experiences with the words. However, reading in itself is not

enough exposure for most people. We need to pay attention to

words, their components, and how they are spelled.

Semantic Knowledge

Semantic knowledge may be last in this list, but it is by no means

least. In fact, it is the foundation of all the preceding threads of

spelling knowledge. Meaning is the background canvas all those

threads weave in and out of. Good spellers know the meaning of

the words they spell. Knowing the meaning of the word allows

you to draw upon the other skills. Without meaning, students

are simply left with sounds, which is not enough to spell well in

English.

It sounds simple and logical, yet many students are sent home

to learn lists of words they do not know the meaning of. This is

just one of the ways we make learning to spell difficult for our

students.

Good spellers know the

meaning of the words they

spell...without meaning,

students are simply left

with sounds, which is not

enough to spell well in

English.

A Pedagogy for Teaching Spelling

If English spelling is explained through the threads of knowl-

edge described earlier, then it is clear that a spelling pedagogy

must pay attention to all of those threads. Successful spellers

are able to draw those threads together to reference and cross-

check their spelling.

Many classroom spelling programs take a stage theory ap-

proach to the development of these multiple spelling knowl-

edges. Typically, they focus on the development of skills in a

hierarchical manner, beginning with the phonological, and

perhaps the visual, through strategies such as sounding out or

stretching words or writing words out many times or in differ-

ent colors.

Once these skills are mastered, students may move onto or-

thographic work, learning spelling rules. The next step is often

morphology, where prefixes and suffixes are learned. This of-

ten does not occur until the middle and upper years of elemen-

tary school. Work on etymology may simply be left as extension

work for advanced learners. In a stage theory approach, a stu-

dent who strugles with the initial phonological work may be

left working solely on those skills for years, which are consid-

ered prerequisite, before moving to the next stage of spelling

instruction.

An alternative theory of spelling development is repertoire

theory. Repertoire theory has grown from analyses of stu-

dents’ spelling showing that effective spellers draw upon mul-

tiple sources of knowledge when tackling any one word. Even

children as young as  years old draw upon a range of spelling

knowledge when they attempt to spell words. For example, the

student who wrote I goed home used phonological, orthograph-

ical, and morphological knowledge in the spelling of goed. It is

grammatical knowledge of irregular tense formations that is

missing, not spelling knowledge.

All the spelling knowledge threads are useful at all grades,

although we may expect some to dominate at certain grades,

but never to the exclusion of others. For example, phonological

work would be a major focus in the first year of schooling, but

young children can do morphological work alongside their pho-

nological work. Let’s look at the word starfish for its two mor-

phemes star and fish. Show what each word means by itself and

how the two come together to make a new, compound word. Cut

into the two words and then look at the phonemes within those

All the spelling knowledge

threads are useful at all

grades, although we may

expect some to dominate at

certain grades, but never to

the exclusion of others.

words: the blend st followed by ar and the consonant f followed

by i and the digraph sh. Look at other compound words that can

be made with star (e.g., starlight, superstar).

The easiest morphemes to work on in the early years are

those in the children’s oral vocabulary and that appear in the

words they want to use in their writing (e.g., the plural -s suf-

fix, the past tense -ed suffix, and the continuous suffix -ing).

Children can also do etymological work, understanding that

English words come from other languages. This is not beyond

the cognitive capacity of -year-olds. Large numbers of -year-

olds enter school already competent in a language other than

English and well aware that different languages exist. Their

own language repertoires would make an excellent starting

place for etymological study.

Spelling programs should recognize the multiple linguistic

threads of English spelling. Program design should also recog-

nize English spelling is a social construction and not an innate

capacity. We need to teach spelling explicitly. Good spelling is

learned; it is not an intangible gift that some have and others

do not.

In sum, we can identify three key principles for planning

spelling instruction:

. The starting point for all spelling instruction is meaning.

. Attention should be paid to all the threads of spelling knowl-

edge, in all grades.

. Spelling—the way words work in English—should be taught

explicitly.

Assessment

That spelling is more likely to be tested than taught in schools

is perplexing given its linguistic complexity. The spelling test

is a staple of classroom practice with little evidence it changes

student spelling outcomes. Too often, the spelling test simply

documents spelling failure, rather than addresses it. For those

who strugle with spelling, the test serves merely as a weekly

reminder of their inadequacy.

When spelling tests are collected and marked, very little

analysis of errors occurs. Marks may be tallied and returned

to students, but very little changes in our instructional prac-

tice. Instead, the test may be changed the following week, with

We need to teach spelling

explicitly. Good spelling

is learned; it is not an

intangible gift that some

have and others do not.

fewer words, or simpler words for some students, and bonus

words for more able students. Spelling tests thus inform the

content of future spelling tests rather than inform practice to

improve the spelling skills of students.

This ineffective use of test results is compounded by the ran-

dom approaches to the selection of words in spelling tests. They

may come from high-frequency word lists or from parts of the

curriculum being studied. However, they are rarely chosen be-

cause there is something to be learned from the words them-

selves that could be applied to other words.

This is not to say we shouldn’t assess spelling—the assess-

ment of spelling is crucial to the improvement of spelling.

However, the traditional weekly spelling test is not an instruc-

tive assessment—it simply has become a routine embedded

into the teaching psyche of many.

When we use the weekly spelling test in this way, we miss

important diagnostic information, information that provides

insights into which linguistic threads students are successfully

using. A diagnostic analysis of student spelling errors provides

both a clear picture of students’ strengths and weaknesses in

spelling and a clear direction for instruction.

The -year-old who spells undefeated as underfitted shows

strong phonological and orthographical knowledge, as that

student has chosen plausible letter patterns for the sounds he

or she can hear. However, the student does not demonstrate

morphological knowledge. The follow-up teaching should focus

upon looking at morphemes in words and their meanings. In

this particular word, the morphemes are un–de–feat–ed.

Looking at what resources the student attempts to use is also

important, as this provides essential information about how

individuals attempt to construct their own solutions to the

linguistic puzzle that spelling is. For example, a student who

spells helpful as helpfull requires different instruction from the

student who spells it helpfl. An effective assessment of spelling

must unpack the threads to establish where a student’s capabil-

ities are and then build skills in that student’s weak areas and

capitalize on his or her strengths.

Ultimately, whether a student can spell in a test is a moot

point; the point of spelling is to communicate clearly with oth-

ers. As many teachers and parents have observed, students can

learn words for spelling tests, which they go on to spell incor-

rectly in the course of their everyday writing. Scoring well in

The traditional weekly

spelling test is not an

instructive assessment—

it simply has become a

routine embedded into the

teaching psyche of many.

a spelling test is of no use if the knowledge is not transferred

beyond the test. Thus, a more useful assessment approach will

seek to understand whether students can spell in authentic

communicative tasks and which of the spelling knowledges

they use successfully, and which they strugle with.

Interviews conducted with students about their spelling

attempts can also provide additional insights into students’

cognitive processes for spelling and encourage reflection and

responsibility for their own spelling.

Diagnostic Assessments

The purpose of diagnostic spelling assessments is not to record

how many words on a list students can spell. The purpose is to

monitor student progress (and, by default, monitor our teach-

ing methods) and to diagnose the spelling challenges of those

students who are not progressing. When we look for evidence of

spelling behaviors across the full repertoire of spelling knowl-

edge, we can better understand how students are making their

errors and provide appropriate instruction.

Spelling lists are not necessary for this kind of spelling as-

sessment. Students’ writing is full of words for assessment:

Both words spelled correctly and words spelled incorrectly

show what resources students bring to the spelling task when

they have to simultaneously attend to other aspects of the writ-

ing process, like sentence structure and ideas.

However, there is the possibility that students will mask their

spelling challenges in their writing by not choosing difficult or

challenging words, so spelling inventories can also be used as

part of an assessment program. Spelling inventories contain

words that are selected to assess which of the spelling knowl-

edges are being used by the student.

The following Table shows one way of conducting a diagnos-

tic spelling analysis. The column for etymology is for teachers’

own notes on whether the etymology of the word would provide

helpful information about its spelling that might address any

gaps noted in the preceding three columns. The bottom row

provides space for tallying the instances of use of each spell-

ing knowledge. These tallies indicate patterns emerging in each

student’s use of spelling knowledge. This provides insights into

which kinds of spelling knowledge students draw upon, both

successfully and unsuccessfully, as well as the spelling knowl-

edge they do not use.

A more useful assessment

approach will seek to

understand whether

students can spell in

authentic communicative

tasks and which of the

spelling knowledges they

use successfully, and which

they struggle with.

The student represented in this table shows competency

using phonological and orthographical strategies but would

benefit from building morphological knowledge. Students who

strugle with spelling draw upon fewer threads when trying

to spell a word. Students who are more competent spellers use

more threads, usually as cross-checks to their first attempt.

Students who strugle with spelling are most likely to be suc-

cessful when letters match the sounds in a consistent manner.

However, success with this phonological skill is also responsi-

ble for many of their spelling errors. In other words, sounding

out is their predominant strategy, and given the poor phonetic

match between sounds and symbols in English, as these stu-

dents move through school and are required to spell more and

more words, their phonological skills result in more misspell-

ings than correct spellings.

Deep analyses like what is shown in the Table can also show

when students have weak phonological and orthographic

knowledge. For example, they may use implausible letter pat-

terns, which can indicate an overreliance on their visual mem-

ory or a challenge with phonemic awareness; that is, they are

strugling to hear the sounds in words and may benefit from

activities designed to improve phonemic awareness.

TABLE

Sample Student Diagnostic Spelling Analysis

Actual word

Student

spelling Phonology Morphology Orthography Etymology

Is the spelling

phonetically

plausible?

Number of

morphemes

spelled correctly

Does the

spelling

demonstrate

knowledge

about letter

pattern

conventions?

Is there any

etymological

knowledge that

would help spell

this word?

undefeated underfitted yes 1/4 (ed) yes feat vs. feet

beautiful butterfoll yes 0/2 yes eau: French

letter pattern

beau: French

word

really rilly yes 1/2 yes real and reality

Total

Number of

instances out of

possible number

of instances

3/3 2/8 3/3

With a more nuanced diagnosis of the spelling knowledge

student use, we can devise instruction that both targets the

weak areas and plays to the strengths students display in their

approach to words.

Conclusion

Many of us correct spelling, even those not involved with teach-

ing children. We express disapproval at the spelling errors of

others while we remain blissfully blind to our own fossilized

spelling errors. However, the capacity to spot and correct

spelling errors is insufficient to anyone interested in teaching

students to spell, because correcting spelling is not teaching

spelling—it is copy editing.

Yet this is how we have traditionally approached assessment

in spelling. Spelling is considered simply a convention to mark

as correct or incorrect rather than a communication skill

which provides insights into the linguistic development of the

student.

Good spelling is a result of good teaching. And good teaching

requires a full understanding of what spelling is—not the rote

learning of strings of letters, but a sociolinguistic construction,

each word a wonderful tapestry of meaning and history. The

teaching of all the linguistic threads that weave through words

is key to equity of outcomes in spelling. Orthography, mor-

phology, and etymology are not the preserve of the advanced

learners, something interesting to challenge the gifted. They

are necessary skills, including for the students who are finding

spelling difficult. They may just be the pathway into spelling

that these students have been searching for.

The teaching of all the

linguistic threads that

weave through words is key

to equity of outcomes in

spelling.

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Wolter, J.A., Wood, A., & D’zatko, K.W. (). The influ-

ence of morphological awareness on the literacy de-

velopment of first-grade children. Language, Speech

and Hearing Services in Schools, 40(), –.

MOVING FORWARD

• Do not relegate spelling simply as a skill to be tested; rather, recognize it as a communication skill that

provides insights into students’ linguistic development.

• Understand the types of spelling knowledges and how each informs students’ spelling strengths or

weaknesses.

• Consider using a repertoire theory approach to teaching spelling, which incorporates a range of spelling

knowledge, instead of focusing on a stage theory approach, which addresses skills in a hierarchical

manner.

• Employ diagnostic assessments across a range of spelling behaviors to more accurately inform instruction.

• Pass on the wonder of the English language to students. Understanding how words work should be an

engaging and intriguing exploration of our students—and a joy to teach.

ILA RESOURCES

The Case for Children’s Rights to Read

The goal of ILA’s Children’s Rights to Read campaign is ensuring every child has access to the education,

opportunities, and resources needed to read. This companion resource identifies why the 10 fundamental

rights were selected.

Choices Reading Lists

Download the Children’s Choices, Teachers’ Choices, and Young Adults’ Choices reading lists for high-

quality, popular titles selected by students and educators alike.

Literacy Glossary

Curated by a team of literacy experts, this interactive resource defines the shared language of literacy

research and instruction.

International Literacy Association: Literacy Research Panel 2018–2019

Principal Author

Misty Adoniou, University of Canberra, Australia

Panel Chair

Diane Lapp, San Diego State University

Panel Members

Dorit Aram, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Diane Barone, University of Nevada, Reno

Eurydice B. Bauer, University of South Carolina

Nancy Frey, San Diego State University

Andy Goodwyn, University of Bedfordshire, England

Jim V. Hoffman, University of Texas at Austin

David E. Kirkland, New York University, Steinhardt

Melanie Kuhn, Purdue University College of Education

Maureen McLaughlin, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, Virginia Tech

Donna Ogle, National Louis University

D. Ray Reutzel, University of Wyoming, Laramie

Alyson Simpson, University of Sydney, Australia

Jennifer D. Turner, University of Maryland

Amy Wilson-Lopez, Utah State University

Jo Worthy, University of Texas, Austin

Ruth Yopp-Edwards, California State University, Fullerton

Hallie Yopp Slowik, California State University, Fullerton

Bernadette Dwyer, Dublin City University, Ireland, President and Board Liaison, International Literacy Association

Douglas Fisher, San Diego State University, Immediate Past President, International Literacy Association

Kathy Headley, Clemson University, Vice President, International Literacy Association

Marcie Craig Post, Executive Director, International Literacy Association

This literacy leadership brief is available in PDF form for free download through the International Literacy Association’s website:

literacyworldwide.org/statements.

Media Contact: For all media inquiries, please contact p re[email protected].

Suggested APA Reference

International Literacy Association. (2019). Teaching and assessing spelling [Literacy leadership brief]. Newark, DE: Author.

About the International Literacy Association

The International Literacy Association (ILA) is a global advocacy and membership organization dedicated to advancing literacy

for all through its network of more than 300,000 literacy educators, researchers, and experts across 146 countries. With over

60 years of experience, ILA has set the standard for how literacy is defined, taught, and evaluated. ILA’s Standards for the

Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 provides an evidence-based benchmark for the development and evaluation of

literacy professional preparation programs. ILA collaborates with partners across the world to develop, gather, and disseminate

high-quality resources, best practices, and cutting-edge research to empower educators, inspire students, and inform

policymakers. ILA publishes The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Reading Research Quarterly,

which are peer reviewed and edited by leaders in the field. For more information, visit literacyworldwide.org.

@IL AToday

/InternationalLiteracyAssociation

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literacyworldwide.org