Words You Want to Learn

An approach to teaching spelling similar in some ways to the Breakthrough to Literacy scheme for teaching reading – where children choose for themselves the words they want to learn – is being developed by David Moseley, reader in applied psychology, School of Education, Newcastle University. The classroom study described here suggests that the principles underlying the precision spelling course and related computer programs, which have been used successfully with pupils who have specific spelling difficulties, could be usefully adapted to help pupils with mild and moderate learning difficulties.