By Helen Barsham

(Cover image by Vinicius Imbroisi from Pixabay)

Helen is a Head in an all through co educational school who successfully passed her EdD viva in July this year. As part of the INSTRUCT lab under Prof Michelle Ellefson - her research uses the cognitive science of ‘desirable difficulties’ (first named by Prof.Robert Bjork) to improve learning and test taking strategies in schools. You can follow her on Twitter @barsham_helen

I was reading a paper about whether or not teaching spelling still matters given the spellcheck function and textspeak of today’s generation [1] and if it does still matter, then how should it be taught? I’ll come back to these ideas.

 Before I do, I want to add my experience to the debate. As a teacher who has taught English for twenty-five years, I have some thoughts. In my experience, words spelt correctly in spelling tests are often incorrectly spelt in a piece of writing – even in the same week.

 Spelling Test: Teacher “astronaut”,  Student “astronaut”

Written Task: The astronaught landed on the moon.

 If you think about the way that spelling is often tested in primary schools (after some explicit instruction, e.g., in suffix endings (tautology?)) and with spelling lists learned for weekly tests, the method commonly used is a classic example of blocked practice [2] and blocked practice can lead to perceptive fluency [3]. Perceptive fluency is the state of thinking ‘I got 20/20 so I know this now’. Learning for a test but not being able to recall the correct spelling a week later or, indeed in a different context. The image in my mind is of putting on a rucksack (backpack of knowledge or spellings) but taking it off straight after the test.

I decided to change the way spelling was taught in a primary school where I was the headteacher (prinicipal). I discussed the idea with staff and parents and issued the stark warning: your children will no longer get 20/20 every week because the school is going to use principles from Desirable Difficulties [4] to teach spellings. This experiment was not measured scientifically, but all the teachers and parents involved were surveyed to gain their thoughts about the old and new spelling systems and their ‘buy in’ was essential at the start.

 We did not stop using the spelling test. Testing is one of the best methods for learning [5] but the recall must be effortful. For many students, learning weekly spellings is simply not effortful retrieval [6]. Week 1 spellings may be forgotten as Week 2 spellings are learned and this can be a good thing. This process may be attributable to retrieval induced forgetting [7] but that’s another article. Essentially, many students are learning a block of words for a weekly spelling test that is not revisited afterwards. Blocked practice.

 We used interleaved spaced retrieval [4] to mix up the weekly spelling lists so that recall of the correct spelling was much harder. Weekly spelling strategies were taught explicitly but the tests were on random spellings from various weeks and not just on the spelling pattern of the week. Time was devoted to meaningful feedback afterwards and opportunities to look up the correct spellings given. Words that students experienced particular difficulties with were noted by the student and teacher and re-tested in subsequent weeks. The learning was harder but stronger and lasted longer [8].

 It turns out, I am not the first person to think of testing spelling in this way. One of the most important spelling schemes to have been used consistently in the U.S from the 1920’s Speller [9] used a similar idea of distributing the practice but this thorough and at one time popular scheme has largely fallen into disuse. Today, generally, spellings are tested weekly, but they are not interleaved with previous week or week’s spellings to allow forgetting and re-testing and thus the weekly spelling tests become single units of massed or blocked practice.

 For my school, the real learning was about learning to learn [10] and learning that it’s ok to make mistakes and that mistakes are some of the best learning opportunities and that this type of learning is learning for life not just a mark or grade on a spelling test. Getting things wrong is one of the best mnemonics.

 The teachers and parents when surveyed felt that the trial of interleaving weekly spelling lists thus spacing the learning was a good idea and neither teachers nor parents wished to return to the weekly blocked tests. This feedback was without exception.

More research is needed. For example, in what ways would this method affect students who have dyslexia? How can we better measure the impact of such a scheme, scientifically?

 To return to my opening comment and to highlight the salient comments from the paper that I mentioned there, the authors conclude that we do need to teach spelling in schools because although, on the one hand we have the informality from texting and spell check, spelling skills are still valued. They outline the circumstances where spelling correctly is an important skill and note also that spellcheck does not pick up on common homophones such as break and brake! First impressions seem to count, and the authors say, misspellings can affect work recruitment chances; application forms that are misspelt can be rejected immediately; on websites, misspellings are quick to turn off potential consumers. It seems that, as a society, we are quick to judge misspellings and in a negative way.

 However, the argument in this article has mutated from whether or not we should be teaching spelling, as it is clear that we should, to how we should do it and that becomes the key question. Using interleaved spaced retrieval is teaching students how to learn and how to learn from mistakes and creating an awareness of the power of effortful retrieval; this kind of knowledge is powerful and can be transferred to other learning contexts and can last for life. Effortful recall creates powerful memories.

References

 [1] Pan, S.C., Rickard, T.C. & Bjork, R.A. Does Spelling Still Matter—and If So, How Should It Be Taught? Perspectives from Contemporary and Historical Research. Educ Psychol Rev(2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09611-y

 [2] Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266

 [3] Bjork, R.A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013). Self-regulated learning: beliefs, techniques and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 417-44. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143823

[4] Bjork, E.L., & Bjork, R.A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M.A. Gernsbacher, R.W. Pew, & J.R. Pomerantz (Eds.), & FABBS Foundation, Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (pp.56-64). Worth Publishers. https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wpcontent/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf

 [5] Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x

 [6] Bjork, R. A. (2011). On the symbiosis of remembering, forgetting, and learning. In A. S. Benjamin (Ed.), Successful remembering and successful forgetting: A festschrift in honor of Robert A. Bjork (p. 1–22). Psychology Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-23868-001

 [7] Anderson, M. C., Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1994). Remembering can cause forgetting: retrieval dynamics in long-term memory. Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 20(5), 1063–1087. https://doi.org/10.1037//0278-7393.20.5.1063

[8] Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L., McDaniel, M.A. (2014) Make it stick, the science of successful learning. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2015.1053373

[9] Horn, E & Ashbaugh, E.J. (1920) Lippincott’s Horn-Ashbaugh speller for grades 1-8. Lippincott. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33826/33826-h/33826-h.htm

[10] Bjork, R.A. (2014, March 30) Learning to Learn. Conversation with Bob Bjork (Part 1) You Tube [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTtbp6TyBrI