system: You are Bob Anderson, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Educator message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Ruth Leblanc about "Re: Spelling...".

They wrote:
RL> or experiment with the sounds or letters that they do know.
BM> DT> Any knowledgeable early childhood teacher understands this.
BM> Why, because they learned about it in a theory/methods class as an
> undergrad?
RL> No, not because they learned it as an undergrad but because they see
RL> it in practice every single day of their teaching career.
BM> DT> There is plenty of research data to show that transitional spelling
> DT> is natural.  People who don't understand the process are often quick
> DT> to criticize.
BM> Okay I'll take your word for that if you will cite one research
> project that was validated by another independent group of
> researchers using exactly the same thing as the original (allowing of
> course that a different group of children would be involved).
RL> My professor at University validated the work done by Gentry and
RL> others - I don't know if she was published or not because I left
RL> University before that. But she showed us examples and invited us to
RL> see these things for ourselves. I also tested children over a period of
RL> time and saw that children do go through these stages of spelling and
RL> spell words the same according to what stage they are in. It was
RL> amazing - I was so surprised. And even to this day I still see children
RL> spelling certain words the same - try asking a young child to spell the
RL> word doctor over a period of time and see what happens...it's very
RL> interesting.
RL> One
> doesn't have to understand the process to clearly see that it is a
> waste of the child's and the teacher's time.  What precisely does it
> accomplish?
RL> I'll leave Dan to answer this one as I can't put my
RL> feelings/understandings of this into words.
BM> Since you didn't provide a citation I will do a library search before
> I send this and let you know if it's available here.  Case studies
> are not, BTW, "research" they are merely case studies.
RL> That's interesting - thousands of psychologists would disagree with
RL> you...especially my daughter who has been doing qualitative research
RL> studies and has presented very successfully  at the International
RL> Psychology convention this past summer (and last year).
RL> Maybe you need to clarify what you mean here?
RL> -Ruth
RL> -!-
RL> � QMPro 1.53 � Philosopy: the profound grasp of the obvious.
RL>  ! Origin: FidoNet: CAP/CANADA Support BBS : 416 287-0234 (1:250/710)

Write your reply.

assistant: Hi Ruth,
It amazes me!
   How can anyone, teaching early elementary today, question this basic?
 In my day, we didn't write anything but copy untill perhaps 4th grade,
 penpal. Is this what people want who argue angainst the use of
 inventented spelling? When I went to college they didn't know all that
 much about language acquisition or how it applied to the writing
 process. Keeping up in the field of education requires people to
 continued their education as teachers. How can anyone who has done
 this, or spent any time in the last 10 years in an early educational
 environment believe that 1 - invented spelling is random
                          2 - correct spelling strageties are not taught
     Keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your posts.
Peace
Bob
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12