PREFACE
To teachers and the public alike, probably no subject taught in the public schools has been more disappointing than spelling. This disappointment is undoubtedly due to:
1. Defective material for study and poor methods of teaching;
2. Too much testing and too little teaching;
3. Finding errors rather than preventing them;
4. The use of a theoretical, rather than the practical, vocabulary of children and adults.
The teaching of spelling must be done from a spelling book in the hands of the children, since the individual teacher does not have the time to prepare lists of words which will produce as good results as the lists given in a spelling book, the selection and preparation of which are the result of years of special observation and testing.
A plan of teaching spelling to secure the best results should consist of a thoughtful, systematic, and comprehensive presentation of the words and spelling facts which every pupil must learn. It must contain an adequate and simple system of phonics for the primary grades, since a large percentageof the words in common use are purely phonetic and present no spelling difficulties once a sane and practical phonetic foundation is fixed. It must have a vocabulary selected and graded with such care that it will give the child the ability to spell correctly those words which he needs to use in his written work, and that it will also develop and broaden his vocabulary for his future needs. It should contain suitable directions and hints to the teacher, sufficiently removed from the pupil’s text so that he may not be confused by them. It may, and in many grades should, contain information and suggestions to the pupil that will help him to master the many peculiarly non-phonetic words which present their individual problems and must be individually mastered. It should contain a very few of the most important spelling rules simply stated. It should contain a large variety of sentences for dictation, which may wisely take the form of gems of thought. Such a plan, well taught, constantly supplemented by the teacher with such words as the peculiar difficulties of individual pupils and classes may require, will produce a maximum of ability to spell correctly.
In the Aldine Speller the authors have presented a plan of teaching which in actual results has proved singularly effective. The vocabulary has been selected and graded with unusual care to meet the actual needs of life and to develop a spelling sense. In its preparation a careful comparisonwas made of the vocabularies of several of the most popular spelling books of the day in respect to both gradation and selection. Paralleling this, the various recent tests and investigations, notably those of Ayres, Jones, and Cook and O’Shea, have been checked. The resulting vocabulary is thought to represent the real writing vocabulary of the average child of the grade in which it is taught. Special and repeated drills are given on the real trouble makers—the one hundred and more words that comprise four-fifths of the misspelled words of the schoolroom.
In the primary grades use is made of exceptionally valuable phonetic lists. Emphasis is placed upon this important and very practical foundation for the development of a spelling sense, and its mastery in the primary grades will do much to train children to spell correctly. A few comparatively uncommon words are used in these lists chiefly for the value of the phonetic drill.
As every error creates a tendency, and if repeated quickly establishes a habit, it is important that the correct spelling of words be taught before children have occasion to write them. Every worth-while test and investigation shows the most common and most useful words in our language to be the words used early by children. It is likewise certain that very many of the misspelled words are one-syllable words in very common use. It would, therefore, seem essential that the real teaching of spelling should be done as early as possiblein the grades—somewhat earlier than has frequently been the case—that correct habits, rather than incorrect ones, may be formed.
Obligation is expressed to Dr. Leonard P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation for kind permission to make use of his list of “The Thousand Commonest Words.” These and some four thousand other very common and important words constitute the Aldine vocabulary.
That the Aldine Speller may lead to some real teaching, and decrease “lesson hearing,” is the hope of the authors.