Learning English Spellings: strategies employed by primary school boys

Abstract The use of visual and auditory information in learning to spell is explored, together with the effect, if any, of semantic information. One hundred boys aged from seven to eleven were tested, using eight nonsense words with contrived meanings. It was expected that visual information would be helpful in spelling irregular words and that, with age, use of strategies would become more flexible, incorporating semantic (along with visual and phonological) information. Contrary to expectations, it was only with the 10- and 11-year-olds that visual information produced better results than auditory presentation alone but for them, in conjunction with oral responses, it did aid spelling. Such a finding is in keeping with Ehri's Amalgamation Theory (1980) which suggests that, in order to be able to manipulate printed words, the learner must draw on several strategies and accepts that no single strategy can be used to overcome all irregularities in written English.