Chris Nugent rightly makes a strong connection between spelling and literacy learning. As i read it, he is saying that if u know how to spell words u will be able to read them.

But he misses the even greater connection. If our words wer (sic) spelt in a regular, logical and predictable way, they would not giv many of the problems their current slackness throws at learners, who often cannot cope with them.

A regular spelling system would only require (probably in the first school year) the learning of its rules or conventions which, because of the lack of exceptions, would always apply and could be relied on.

In riting, correct spellings could be predicted; in reading, spellings would reliably indicate the correct words. This is not the present situation.

Until such time as we take steps to upgrade our spelling for it to do what it is supposed to do – help the learning of literacy – we will struggle with below-possible literacy levels, and spend inordinat time teaching it.

"Until such time as we take steps to upgrade our spelling..."

The idea has been around for a long time. Though a spoof, AllanJC, this is one example needing only ordinate time to teach:

"Simplified English Spelling

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, s will be used instead of the soft c. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard c will be replaced with k Not only will this klear up konfusion, but keypads kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome ph will be replaced by f This will make words like fotograf 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent es in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing th by z and w by v

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary o kan be dropd from vords kontaining ou and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru."

Reply to: ALLAN and TREVOR
The point I tried to make is that the official teaching of English spelling (just as it is and without changes) is the stuff that needs to be restored to literacy teaching curricula around the whole of Australia. For significantly more details on the actual ERADICATION of English spelling from Australian primary English curricula I would ask you to visit my website ( www.literacytesting.com ) .

Also, if either of you is actually interested in a serious proposition for English spelling reform, I ask you to contact me and ask for a PDF file of my paper entitled VIRTUAL PHONETICS. My email address is:
literacytesting@bigpond.com : Yours sincerely : Chris Nugent

...So very well done Wm Trevor...I c nuzing, I do nuzing and I no nuzing!!

Simplified spelling is just an excuse for further dumbing down our education system. Generations of people have mastered the intricacies and oddities of English spelling, it teaches you to think, it exercises your brain (if it is taught at all, of course). As a student during the crossover from imperial to decimal measurements, and having subsequently spent time in primary classrooms I am convinced that the decimalisation of maths has led to a lowering of expectations in primary maths. Not that I am advocating a return to pounds, shilling and pence, but knowing how to add and multiply 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound before age 10, as all my contemporaries did, is streets ahead of what is required now.

Reply to CANDIDE
Actually, simplified English spelling is worse than a mere excuse: it has been an outright impossibility since at least the work of John Hart, a 16th century writer on English spelling reform. But simplified ways of actually presenting our existing spelling is not an excuse: it is a practical reality. I'll happily email my work along these lines to anyone who wants to email me on: literacytesting@bigpond.com : Some of this work can already be viewed on my not-for-profit website which is: www.literacytesting.com

Candide: I was a teacher at the time of decimalization in New Zealand. I found that it reduced the time we needed to teach monetary maths, time which we devoted to other learning.

So with upgraded, sensible spelling. It is not the function of spelling to "exercise the brain". Spelling is a tool subject, not a substantiv (sic) one, just as a skilsaw is a tool, making possible the creation of beautiful furniture or buildings. Spellings function is to allow us to record and read the language.

The language is whats important. If we can all learn the spelling code in the first school year (as do Finns or Estonians) and then use it confidently to read and rite to our potential, it has achieved its purpose.

If brighter pupils with good visual memories find our current mish-mash attractiv and inspirational, good on them. But most of us dont, and yet we too deserv to be literat.

Allan JC - it wasn't just monetary maths, it was measurements as well. Calculations in inches, feet and yard required a whole lot more mental dexterity than just shoving a decimal place to the right or left. Given that we are going backwards in maths on the PISA rankings, perhaps the extra stuff you had the time to teach wasn't all that helpful.

The problem for all English-speaking countries is that English spelling inconsistencies (e.g. speak, seek, shriek, seize, cedar) make not just learning to write exceptionally difficult, but learning to read too (treat, great, threat, creative, reaction). People who suggest a reduction of these difficulties by means of spelling reform are often thoughtlessly accused of wanting 'to dumb things down', while their aim is the exact opposite. They would like to see English spelling become a bit more like the Finnish system -http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/finnish-and-english-spelling_22.html - which enables children to learn to read and write exceptionally fast and enables them to rank consistently high in all international educational comparisons.

Reading and writing are essential for other learning. A spelling system which makes the acquisition of those skills exceptionally difficult, as English spelling conventions do, puts its users at a great disadvantage. People who oppose modernisation of English spelling tend to be unaware of its costs - http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/costs-of-english-spelling.html - and also how the system became as chaotic as it is: http://englishspellingproblems.co.uk/html/history.html.

Nothing but a modernisation of English spelling will ever extricate English-speaking countries from the educational mire they are all in. There is plenty of evidence that nothing else can do so while it remains as learner-unfriendly as it has been for the past three centuries. Thoughtless clinging on to old habits comes at a price.

government literacy curricula throughout Australia have been oriented
Chris Nugent,
So that's where they went wrong, that's why the Asian students are so far ahead of ours. Had they orientated literacy curricula towards actually eradicating correct spelling from the testing and teaching of basic English at all levels in Australia it might have turned out differently.

To 'orient' is a verb. To 'orientate' is to get confused with orientation, which is a noun.

Re standardised spelling - first you would need standardised pronunciation. How, for example, would you spell dance? It is pronounced either dans or darns. Would words be spelt as they are said colloquially or as they would be said with perfect enunciation? You could have international committees of language experts tied up for years. Would the British ever agree with the Americans, would the Glaswegians ever agree with the Brummies, and who would win the battle of the 'h'?

Such a short article to contain so many misconceptions.

First, the Gonski plan referred to a different way of funding education from the previous method based on the socio-economic status of the parents of the enrolled child. Gonski has nothing to do with curriculum content.

Second, the internet contradicts the main point of Chris Nugent’s article. Anyone with an internet connection is welcome to type in “Australian Curriculum” and then, on the ACARA page “spelling” as I did. Up come 48 responses, covering each year from Foundation/Kindergarten/Prep to Year 10.

Third, Nugent refers to a Victorian LAP Survey in 1996 and sees something sinister in the fact that the same words were repeated, yet a bare 4 paragraphs later lauds an ACER Spelling list and test in which the same 50 words were to be learnt, and spelled, by 8 year olds to 13 year olds, although with different expectations of correctness.

Fourth, as a student who began High School in 1960, I remember very well those same awful spelling lists. Each week from 3rd class on to the end of Primary School [6th class] we were expected to memorise and learn a long list each week of words we had never met or used and whose meaning was never explained to us. They were disembodied and completely lacking in context yet they were somehow ‘important’, important enough for mums and dads to take hours each week working us through this list. I remember all too well learning not to laugh at my father’s mispronunciations and his frequent wide-of-the-mark attempts at giving a meaning. He had a hard hand, which impelled me to learn how to use a dictionary at an early age.

Fifth, as a student at a selective high school in the very early sixties, I learnt to cope with the semi-annual spelling test taken with half-yearly and yearly exams from First Year to Fifth Year and solemnly reported on each report, albeit with a mark out of 50 instead of the 100 each other subject was entitled to.

[continued in next post]

As a specialist teacher of science from the late 1960s through to today, I ran across a number of unusual words in each topic and was enjoined by my subject head and senior teachers to highlight these to the students in my class and help them learn the meaning, the spelling and the use of these technical words.

As Head of Science from 1988, I made sure that that every unit of Years 7 to 10 Science had a full suite of Language Development Activities, including a writing task and a context-driven list of words to be learnt, whose meanings were to be mastered and whose spelling was to be learnt and tested as part of the end-of-unit test. In this test, marks were deducted for incorrect spelling. This was accepted by colleagues, students and parents.

Following my move to Queensland in the mid 2000s, I started a PhD in Science Education, looking at the ways that science teachers [8-10] and primary teachers of science to their classes [5 to 7] developed literacy in the students they contacted, including spelling.

I can assure Chris Nugent that I have never encountered a school in which spelling was not taught and tested. What I did notice was that words were not tested in isolation from their meaning and their context: when there was a need for students to recognise, use and spell a word, it was taught and tested.

His references to “whole-word” approach, while meant as a criticism, neatly reflects the point that English is not, and never will be, a phonetic language. This explains why the spelling of many words has to be learnt by heart as the sound does not match the shape of the word. Teaching, and learning, the meaning and spelling words in the context in which they are used is all important.

I urge Chris Nugent to read the learned journals available to him before he writes a similar, conceptually inaccurate article again.

Reply to BRIAN OF BUDERIM
Such a long and critical 'reply' that seemed to aim at almost everything that I didn't write. If the learned academic really desires to be relevant, he should first carefully read as well as understand the material that he criticizes before giving vent to a rampant pen.
Sincerely: Chris Nugent

To 'orient' is a verb. To 'orientate' is to get confused with orientation, which is a noun.
Candide,
So, Agatha Christie was wrong. It should have been the oriented Express. And, the East was wrongly called the Orient ? Many of the early explores got lost in the East because they became disoriented & not disorientated ?
I'm confused now or rather dis-oriented after getting totally disorientated. I always thought it The orient & To orientate. Silly me.

Candide: U ask how updated spelling would cope with dialects. and quote "dans or darns" (probably u meant dahns) as examples. My anser: As we do now.

I grew up in Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand, and on Saturday nites often went to the "Town Hall 'dans' ", which was the local pronunciation. I later moved to the North Island, where they said "dahns". I married a local and now am a "dahnser", even tho we moved south to Christchurch!

In effect, the spelling is seen as representing "standard English". by both the "dans" and "dahns" factions. So it would be with logical, predictable, learner-frendly spelling – based on standard English (an amalgam of the RP-British and General American varieties) and accepted by us non-British and non-American riters.

Candide
Allan has explained very well that accents would be no barrier to modernising English spelling.
Perhaps u imagine that spelling reform must inevitably be a radical transformation of English spelling. Please have a look at what i am actually proposing: http://improvingenglishspelling.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/modernising-english-spelling.html
I am merely suggesting tidying up and regularising the very worst spelling irregularities – the ones which are chiefly and needlessly responsible for making English literacy acquisition exceptionally slow. The surplus endings on 'arE, gonE, promisE', for example, do nothing but make learning to read harder (cf. car, care, on bone, tennis surprise). We could surely at least get rid of those?

The clearest proof that consistent alphabetic spelling enables children to read far more easily comes from China. Chinese children are now first taught to read using phonically spelt Chinese, with Roman letters, which they are able to do very quickly.
They then spend several years learning to read the traditional characters, with Roman letters as subtitles (or learning aids), until they don't need them any more.

Finnish and Korean children just learn to read with their simpler spelling systems. They do so exceptionally quickly, like Chinese learning to read with phonic spellings. They regularly beat the rest of the world for educational attainment.

Learning to read English could be made much easier with just some tidying up. Once children can read, they have a better chance of learning to spell too.

It could be a misquote but apparently Noam Chomsky thinks English spelling is about 'optimal' for meaning.

The idea that there is something wrong with English spelling is unhelpful.

Dane

Chomsky has since said that he has been misunderstood and misquoted about English spelling being optimal.

U say,
"The idea that there is something wrong with English spelling is unhelpful."
Why? And to whom? Even though that is the truth?

Perhaps u need to find out a little more how English spelling ended up in its current sorry state: http://englishspellingproblems.co.uk/html/history.html

For teachers, it is very helpful to know which spelling irregularities are the worst impediments of reading progress and which of writing

Here are some useful articles about spelling.
O’Sullivan, Olivia 2000 Reading/ Literacy Volume 34 Issue 1, pp 9-16 Understanding Spelling
Spencer, Ken 2002 Reading/ Literacy Volume 36 Issue 1, pp 16-25 English spelling and its contribution to illiteracy: word difficulty for common English words
Jane Medwell and David Wray 2007 Literacy Volume 41 Number 1 10-15 Handwriting: what do we know and what do we need to know?
Medwell, Jane and Wray, David 2008Language and Education, Volume 22, Issue 1, pp 34 -47 'Handwriting - A Forgotten Language Skill?'

Unfortunately, none of these articles is available ‘free’. I’ve got access to them which is why I can name them but I dare not send free copies out electronically.
The major references are the first two, by O’Sullivan and Spencer. The other two, both by Medwell and Wray, talk mainly about handwriting and mention spelling as something that interferes with the áutomaticity’ of writing.
It would be worth trying Google Scholar with these names to see what comes up: it can be surprisingly fruitful, as a last resort, if you pick your search terms carefully and are prepared to recast, over and over.

Here are two more articles by Ken Spencer

1999: Predicting Word Spelling Difficulty in 7 – 11 year olds, and

2007: Predicting children’s word-spelling difficulty for common English words from measures of orthographic transparency, phonemic and graphemic length and word frequency.

Both are available as downloadable pdf files from Google Scholar using search term “Ken Spencer”

Happy Hunting – there may ne more

Spencer's 2002 article can be retrieved from Google Scholar, free, using the search term "Ken Spencer" and putting 2002 in the "from" and "to" boxes.
Keep searching!

Further references:
Why is reading English so difficult?
in EL Gazette, by Professor Sine McDougall, Bournemouth University
http://mag.digitalpc.co.uk/Olive/ODE/ELGAZETTE/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=RUxHQVBENC8yMDEwLzA2LzAx&pageno=MTA.&entity=QXIwMTAwMQ..&view=ZW50aXR5

English is toughest European language to read
Radio National interview with Prof Philip Seymour, Dundee University
http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/seymour.php

Mashabell,

My problem is with teachers who tell children that English spelling is silly or illogical. There is nothing silly or illogical about it, as the webpage you link to touches on, English spelling is the way it is because of historical influences. Can we get away from the childish temper tantrums about 'irregularities' because the spelling aint going to change in a hurry.
Most people in Europe consider English an easy language to learn. Its grammar is easier than most european languages.

Who could imagine the Russians, whose grammar is comparible to latin, saying their language should be 'simplified' for kids?

I get a bit tired of the cultural cringe. Foreigners and kids should be taught to appreciate the rich historical tapestry that is modern English, not to think that it's somehow wrong because teachers want something easier to teach.

Btw. It's a bit rich to say that if we change our spelling we'll be just like the Fins. If we want to be like the Fins maybe we should reinstate an academic curriculum, competition, school autonomy and the plethora of things that the Fins do to achieve success. Instead, we waste more money every year on fads. Then when our results continue to get worse, people like you blame English spelling!

Wouldn't it just be a lot easier to dump the teaching fads of the past 30 years and reinstate rigor in education rather than saying we should wipe a thosand years of historical influences from our language?

Only an educationalist could think up something like this. You must be a consultant, bureaucrat, or even worse, ....an academic.

Brian,

The Gonski plan does not refer to “a different way of funding education from the previous method based on the socio-economic status of the parents of the enrolled child”.

The method previous to the Gonski plan is not “based on the socio-economic status of the parents of the enrolled child” but on the socio-economic status of the neighbours of the enrolled child, determkend via census collector districts.

The Gonski plan is also based on the socio-economic status of the neighbours of the enrolled child, which it has renamed “capacity to contribute”, that renaming being in itself sufficient to fool every commentator in the country for the first 13 months following the report’s release and all but two for the subsequent nine months.

The Gonski plan did not get rid of the SES funding model, but the average government school recurrent costs formula. The Gonski plan specifically endorsed he SES funding model via recommendations 2, 3 and 21.

Dane: I wont argue with u about being like the Finns, including their teacher status and practices. Enviable!

I will take issue with your "dumping the teaching fads of the past 30 years and reinstating rigor in education." U sound as tho u believe that there was once a golden age when our spelling and literacy rates wer (sic) excellent, to be admired. No such age existed in English-speaking countries.

In 1931 an English examiner's Junior County Scholarship Examination report complained there was evidence that the candidates "were quite unable to write a few words without gross errors of spelling, grammar and composition."

In 1950 inspectors complained that in a Birmingham secondary school illiteracy persisted "into the fourth year".

In 2008 a Massey (NZ) University study of historical documents showed the idea that in the past all children knew about grammar was not supported. ‘‘There was a huge lack of knowledge of spelling rules."

In 2008 the Observer, London, reported: "The golden age of exams is a myth as even 50 years ago the standard of English in O-levels was deemed 'very unsatisfactory', an educational assessment body has claimed."

I hav no reason to believe Australian inspections of the time would not hav found similar failings.

If we want optimum results, we must first check that our teaching tool is not faulty. English spelling is.

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/16sp.htm

The Sixteen-Word Spelling Test
for anyone who thinks they are a good speller
Some or all of these words may be incorrectly spelled. Write them out correctly.

acomodate . . . . exessiv . . . .miniture . . . . siv . . .
gage . . . . .unparaleld . . . disapoint . . . . . gardian . . . . mischivus . . . . psycology . . . . . . . sovren . . . . . .disiplin . . . . . iliterat . . . . . . . . ocasion . . . . . recomend . . . . . tecnicly . . . .

The reason why hardly anyone can spell even these 16 words 'correctly' is because there is no need for them to be there, so it is difficult to remember what they are and where to put them.

How did you rate? Hundreds have tried this test, at conferences, exhibitions, schools and games-nights.

Average scores

16 Primary Teachers at a voluntary in-service course on teaching spelling - 2 had perfect scores.
Average score- 14.8

45 Experts at an International conference on Intelligence, 4 perfect scores.
Average score- 13.8

50 Reading Experts at an International Conference, 12 had perfect scores.
Average score- 13.6

30 Cognitive psychologists at an International.Conf.erence on Reading, 5 perfect scores.
'Psychology' was the only word they all got right. Average score- 13.6

7 Lawyers concerned with delinquents' illiteracy. No perfect scores . Average score- 12.8

30 Post-graduate teacher trainees. One perfect score. Average score- 12.0

75 Undergraduates. 8 perfect scores. Average score- 12.0

100 Secondary school students, mean age 15, No perfect scores. Average score- 6.9

25 Students of English as a foreign language undertaking tertiary courses in an Australian University.
No perfect scores. Average score- 4.3

30 Aboriginal students preparing for University - only 2 dared take the test. They got 2 correct each.

There is a simple spelling experiment of Parallel Texting that gives a chance to the unfortunate people who have not been able to read, or very badly, or toiled as children harder than we super-literates had to. Think of what they miss out. Think of the cost to society a chance. That is, a parallel text shorn of the spelling difficulties is set next to the present text.

I try to persuade teachers to give it a trial. It harms no one. But everyone is afraid to start, altho my example has stood the test of time and experiment since the 1970s.

One side of each page in a reading book is normal spelling; the other side is ‘spelling without traps’ which helps beginners to read present spelling. Or even one double page set out in this way, as a trial.
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/paraleltexts.htm
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/litreadingcribs.html

Try this, or think what u would do.
http://www.ozreadandspell.com.au/

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spelling.htm

What would ‘spelling without traps’ look like?

1. 36 very common irregularly-spelled words are kept, to learn to recognize because they make up 12% of everyday text - ALL ALMOST ALWAYS AMONG COME SOME COULD SHOULD WOULD HALF KNOW OF OFF ONE ONLY ONCE OTHER PULL PUSH PUT TWO THEIR THEY AS WAS WHAT WANT WHO WHY VERY, and international word endings -ION/-TION/-SION/ZION. Almost everyone can learn up to 40 ‘sight-words’ – it is having to learn a dictionary full of words that is too hard for many children.

2.After that, only 6% of surplus letters in words in everyday text need be cut, and 3% of misleading letters changed. That is not much, but like having the right screws in building something, makes all the difference. Many of the disadvantaged can then read normal texts when Parallel Text is given next to it.
Those who do not need that help, can just read the normal text.

Dane: In response to mashabell u criticize teachers for telling "children that English spelling is silly or illogical". But it is, and they ar (sic) only being honest. And this being "because of historical influences" doesnt make it less silly and illogical. Its the fact we didnt always adapt the spelling of foreign words to English norms when "borrowing" them that has been a major cause of the problem.

I agree that ESL learners say English, in spite of irregular verbs (eg, run/ran) and plural nouns (child/children), is easier to learn than other European languages, but its spelling is not.

The "rich historical tapestry that is modern English" does not apply to its spelling. Its the spelling that needs upgrading and modernizing, not the language.

Dane

I think that teachers SHOULD "tell children that English spelling is silly or illogical", because it most certainly is. U ar attached to it because u had to spend many years learning it. But looked at objectively, hundreds of its spellings are insane.

Decorating words like 'frend, bild, cruse' with clearly surplus letters (friend, build, cruise) is stupid and extremely unhelpful to children learning to read and write (cf. send, bill, ruin). What few people realise is that this is because in the 16th century, when printing first really took off in England after Tyndale translated the Bible into English, printers were paid by the line. This made them fond of making words longer with extra letters (olde, worlde, worde, hadde, fisshe, shoppe) and so they deliberately messed up many earlier more sensible spellings (lern, frend, reson).

The mindless habit of sticking a useless –e onto hundreds of words is especially nasty (e.g. give, promise) because it undermines the main English method of spelling short and long vowels (spiv - five, tennis- surprise).

I realise that "the spelling aint going to change in a hurry", but overall literacy standards in Anglophone countries won't improve until it does. The Russians simplified their spelling after the 1917 revolution.

English is "an easy language to learn" but ITS SPELLING MAKES LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE EXCEPTIONALLY DIFFICULT.

Learning about its history is fine for the intellectually able, but learning to read and write are essential life skills and should not take as long to learn as they do, if we want to attain higher overall educational standards.