| Teaching Spelling – A Guide for Teachers and Parents ‘Teaching Spelling is not a list of words to learn, but instead a useful and quick guide to problems that reduce the ability to learn to spell accurately and strategies to overcome them. It also contains a checklist of the high frequency words identified by the National Literacy Strategy.’ Reviewed in (Special Needs Information Press) SNIP -------------------------------------------------- 'In this book the author provides a number of strategies, focusing on building confidence to develop an individual’s spelling. She describes why some children have difficulties in applying the rules of spelling to their written work and provides practical suggestions on how to overcome them. She states that the best way to help is to develop a technique that will work for each individual. By taking this approach the words to be learnt become less important, because once the technique has been successful it can be used to learn all the words that the child may face. The book is useful for both practitioners and parents in that it gives tips to encourage the youngster to become a more independent accurate speller. It outlines the requirements of the curriculum at certain ages and the 36 pages are full of valuable information on developing accurate spelling. … (the book) comprises short areas of questions and answers to the different problems and different approaches. It then progresses through the normal types of spelling and the reasons why we need to build on the words that we write, by using the most commonly used words as a starting point. The last section of the book gives some exercises to test knowledge and the techniques learnt and it also refers the pupil back to work to strengthen areas still completely mastered. I think this is an excellent concise approach that parents would be able to follow to support their child’s progress. It is also written in such a way as to help harassed professionals deal individually with each child’s spelling problems in a systematic and successful manner. I thoroughly recommend this to both.’ Reviewed in Special! Magazine (2001) -------------------------------------------------- 'Jean Alston, the author of this informative, concise little book provides a number of different strategies, focusing on building confidence, to develop a student's spelling. She describes why some students have difficulty in grasping the rules of spelling and suggests practical ways of overcoming these difficulties. By developing a technique that will work for each individual, the spellings to be learnt become less important as, once the technique has been successful, it can be applied to learn all the words the student may face. The 36 pages contain valuable information for both teachers and parents with hints to assist the student to become a more accurate and independent speller. The author gives answers to questions such as 'Are there different kinds of spelling problems?' and 'What are the most important things we need to know about words?' She also outlines the requirements of the curriculum at certain ages providing lists of key words with picture sheets for the students to colour in as a record of spellings learnt. The book then progresses through the different types of syllable structure to developing spelling through meaning from the 'root' word by the addition of prefixes and suffixes. The final section of the book gives exercises designed to test knowledge and the techniques learnt. Students are referred back to the relevant pages if revision is necessary. I would thoroughly recommend this useful book for busy parents and practitioners. It is written in such a way to allow both to deal individually with each student's spelling problems in a systematic and successful manner.' Reviewed in Learning Support Service News (Autumn 2002) -------------------------------------------------- |