Abstract of

What Can Children's Spelling of Running and Jumped Tell Us About Their Need for Spelling Instruction?

Laura Boynton Hauerwas

Joanne Walker

This article describes effective instructional strategies for teaching verbs with inflected endings. The ability to spell past and present progressive verbs provides an example of how children need to learn to integrate their developing understanding of letter-sound correspondences with knowledge of morphological and orthographic patterns in order to spell and write effectively. Furthermore, multisensory instruction that enables children to discover phonological, morphological, and orthographic patterns as well as instruction that incorporates opportunities for generalizing learning to context provides teachers with options for addressing these specific spelling deficits in children's written performance. While the instructional strategies described in this article were specifically designed for students who demonstrate difficulty spelling verbs with inflected endings, it is important to note that instruction in past and present progressive verbs also sets the groundwork for all students' future spelling development as they learn to spell words with multiple morphological units.

Abstract from Hauerwas, L., & Walker, J. (2004, October). What Can Children's Spelling of Running and Jumped Tell Us About Their Need for Spelling Instruction?. The Reading Teacher, 58(2), 168–176. doi: 10.1598/RT.58.2.5