Subjects like “Spelling” have traditionally been part of early education, but clearly have exposed some problems with the educational process. Often words are grouped into categories where rules like “i before e etc.” are applied. A student has many “spelling rules” to learn and then must also learn the “exceptions” to those rules. When a student is tested the test itself often has three incorrect spellings of the word and one correct spelling and the student must pick out the one correct spelling. At times the word may be spoken verbally and then the student must write the spelling word down on their paper. The multiple choice method is naturally the method used in standardized testing.
My problem with this traditional approach to the teaching of spelling is the student concentration on both correct and incorrect spelling and the learning of words in an order based on rule application rather than natural language acquisition.
Through the use of computers it is possible to present a spelling word, then present the word being used in a sentence and then have the student type the word into the computer. Many years ago I designed and wrote such a program along with fellow programmers in Qbasic. The program was used in some local schools, but never received much attention. The computer was just beginning to be used as an educational tool and I was a bit busy teaching my normal classes to effectively promote the concept and program. We no longer use Qbasic and the program sits in my files needing an upgrade into perhaps Visual Basic.
This article however, is not about the program itself, but more about the concept. We should not be giving students the ability to concentrate on “incorrectness” at any point in the educational process. When a student sees a set of multiple choice possibilities they begin the process of spelling each of the words supplied and they are in effect practicing three incorrect spellings and one correct spelling. They are in effect setting up their memory of more incorrectness than correctness.
When a word is spoken and then provided in a sentence, this improves the process of learning from a “correctness” perspective, but the speaker of the word and sentence could have unique speaker characteristics that still could make the process difficult.
This problem so clearly visible in the teaching of spelling is not limited to spelling, but in concept can be extended to every content area of the curriculum, because we obviously use “multiple choice” exams in virtually every subject.
Our excuse is that there is little choice in our process of evaluation that effectively works in a standardized manner across the curriculum. True/False questions don’t get much in the way of evaluation in many respects and fill in the blank and essay are much harder to grade.
The bottom line here is that we must reduce or whenever possible eliminate student exposure to “incorrectness”. Even the presentation of an “incorrect” response in order to demonstrate how a correct response would be formulated has the potential for teaching the incorrect choice. The teaching of spelling rules with exceptions dramatically demonstrates the problem.
More than the teaching of “Spelling” the concept of teaching “correctness” embodies a component of a comprehensive philosophy of education across the curriculum.
