For The Love Of Literacy
For the Love of Literacy provides podcasts about the exciting advances in literacy instruction, from morphology and orthography (the spelling system), to meaningful sight word memorization, and sentence construction and comprehension. We focus on the often overlooked aspects of literacy and their links to language development.
We tie learning to read, spell and writing to their roots in spoken language. This makes teaching and learning these abilities much easier because literacy learning is driven by language learning. The major components of spoken language plus vocabulary knowledge strongly predicting and largely determining growth in reading, spelling and writing.
Our guests are not just knowledgeable the links between language and language but know how to implement this learning in the classroom.
You will hear from noted researchers including Linnea Ehri, Marcia Henry and Peter Bowers as well as teachers who have developed lessons that engage students and enrich language abilities. Check back weekly to discover more Fulfilling Literacy Lessons and Clarifying conversations. Feel free to reach out to me at Bruce@ReadingShift.com.
For The Love Of Literacy
Spelling-Meaning Connections for Memory and Comprehension - Kimberly Murphy with Peter Bowers
“Spell what you mean, not just what you hear,” is researcher and speech pathologist Kim Murphy’s advice to students. While spelling instruction often focuses on pronunciation, spelling-meaning instruction makes so much more sense to students and their teachers. Graphemes (letter patterns) and morphemes, the meaningful core of every written word, spell words in predictable and consistent ways, even as their pronunciation shifts.
Joined by Peter Bowers, creator of Structured Word Inquiry, Kim shows that yes, English spelling is complex, but it doesn’t have to be confusing. In fact, students enjoy learning spelling-meaning connections, as they make sense and are easier to memorize and recall accurately when writing.
Kim and Pete also explain why spelling lists pale in comparison to morphological word sums and matrices, which organize the spelling of words around a common base. As a bonus, Kim shows how spelling-meaning connections benefit reading comprehension. Bruce@ReadingShift.com ReadingShift.com
Kim Murphy:
Contact Kim at The Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center in Richmond, VA.
Perfetti, C., & Stafura, J. (2014). Word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 22-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.827687
Free access link https://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/perfettilab/pubpdfs/WordKnowledge.pdf
This article describes the Reading Systems Framework, in which the lexicon, or word knowledge, is a central connection point between word identification with reading comprehension. Aligned with the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007; Perfetti & Hart, 2002), the lexicon is seen as a ‘pressure point’ in the reading system.
Murphy, K.A., & Justice, L.M. (2019). Lexical-level predictors of reading comprehension in third grade: Is spelling a unique contributor? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28(4), 1597-1610. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_AJSLP-18-0299
Free access link https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=cdse_pubs
This study examines the contributions of lexical-level skills to reading comprehension, and whether spelling adds anything unique to the prediction of reading comprehension. Spelling was scored using binary (correct-incorrect) and non-binary (partially correct) methods. Results showed that spelling uniquely predicted reading comprehension, above and beyond the contribution of word recognition and vocabulary combined when scored using Correct Letter Sequences. This highlights the importance of including assessment of spelling skills when evaluating children for reading comprehension difficulties.
Murphy, K.A., & Diehm, E.A. (2020). Collecting words: A clinical example of a morphology-focused orthographic intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(3), 544-560. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00050
This paper describes a morphology-focused orthography intervention for children with word-level reading and spelling difficulties, using Structured Word Inquiry. Results comparing pre- and post-test scores showed that children improved in reading and/or spelling, and that their largest gains were in spelling affixes correctly. The study supports the use of interventions that integrate morphology with orthography and phonology to improve children’s literacy skills.