Learning to spell is an ongoing process. It takes years to master all of the intricacies of written language, and what seems to be substantial progress might be followed by an unexplained relapse in spelling mastery later.

It takes patience, practice, and a lot of energy to help children achieve spelling efficiency. Spelling is part memorization, and part critical thinking.

A speller will generally start by learn spelling rules and their exceptions, and will apply these when trying to figure out the spelling of unknown words. For a language that’s as challenging to master as English is, it’s no surprise that spelling rules are complicated by homophones, words from foreign languages, and tricky spelling patterns not found anywhere else that create constant exceptions to those rules. How can a student correctly guess the spelling of “quays” when it can rhyme with both “keys” and “bays” — depending on the pronunciation habits of the region where that student lives?

Spelling is part phonology, part morphology

Spelling calls for a great deal of memorization, because a student needs to be able to accurately recall the orthography of tricky words. But it also calls for critical thinking, and the implementation of the student’s store of existing linguistic and morphological knowledge.

It’s not sufficient to memorize a word’s spelling in blocks; in other words, to memorize “receive” as a whole-word image in your head. While it might be effective, it doesn’t really mean you know how to spell the word, or words with the same letter pattern.

Invented spelling

Invented or inventive spelling is how people try to figure out a word’s spelling by activating their existing spelling knowledge. For example, a learner will rely on pronunciation and spelling knowledge they already possess to decode the spelling of a word like “rough.”

At their first attempt they might get “ruff” instead of “rough,” or come up with “road” when they really meant to spell “rowed.” As a learning strategy, invented learning is useful. It helps the learner draw on their spelling knowledge to figure out the spelling of new words. But it’s not a stand-alone strategy either. Morphology needs to be learned as well, because this is what allows the learner to understand basic spelling rules and principles that govern English spelling.

Memorize or not?

Memorizing spelling patterns helps us get the correct spelling of words, but when homophones come into play, things get really messy. Spelling knowledge cannot be applied in a vacuum.

A word’s spelling is always informed by context, intended meaning, and the speaker’s linguistic competency. This means that even if a word has an homophone, it should be possible to figure out the correct spelling.

Therefore, if a person wants to spell “write” but spells it as “right” instead, that doesn’t mean they fail to memorize the right spelling of “write.” It simply means that they momentarily forgot to activate their critical thinking and linguistic knowledge. By paying attention, they’ll immediately see that even though the two words are homophones, the correct way to complete the sentence, “He _______ a Victorian novel” is with “writes” and not “rights.”

To conclude, memorization alone is not a sure-fire way to master spelling.

While spelling mastery means being able to memorize spelling rules and principles, ultimately what makes someone a great speller is their ability to use linguistic knowledge (both phonological and morphological) to expand their spelling mastery to deal with new words. A student still has to learn how sounds correspond to letters and what exceptions exists. They also need to know basic morphological rules, such as how certain nouns get an –e suffix when turned into a verb, and what changes that causes in pronunciation. For example:

“take a bath” vs. “to bathe”

“hold your breath” vs. “to breathe”

Spelling is a human invention. We took phonetic representation of words and implemented rules about how this would translate into written language. It is also continuously evolving as language and society changes. That’s one reason why spelling cannot be naturally or instinctively acquired like speech is. It has to be explicitly taught. Spelling is best learned through a combination of learning strategies that combine memorization, phonological skills, and morphological awareness. This way, spelling knowledge is comprehensive, critical, and correct.