The Effects of Explicit-Strategy and Whole-Language Instruction on Students’ Spelling Ability

Abstract

The authors explored whether explicit-strategy instruction combined with whole-language instruction would improve third-grade students’ spelling more than either explicit-strategy instruction alone or whole-language instruction alone. The students in the strategy conditions received (a) explicit instruction in the use of word building, syllabic segmentation, and imagery as spelling strategies and (b) information about why, when, and where to use each strategy. The students in the explicit-strategy-plus-whole-language condition studied target words in the context of a story, whereas strategy-only students studied the target words in isolation. Students in the whole-language condition used the target words as they completed meaningful reading and writing activities. The students in the explicit-strategy-plus-whole-language condition outperformed students in the other two experimental conditions on a spelling dictation test (containing both target words and transfer words) immediately after, 2 weeks after, 6 weeks after, and 9 weeks after instruction. Also, the two experimental conditions that included explicit-strategy instruction generally were superior to the whole-language condition. Those findings suggest that young children learn to spell best when they are taught a repertoire of effective spelling strategies in a meaningful context.