Original article: LINK
By Beverly Weiser and Patricia Mathes
While research shows how reading and spelling abilities work together, teaching encoding (spelling) isn’t a top priority in schools today. However, studies show that directly teaching encoding strategies can help improve reading and spelling skills, especially for students who struggle with literacy.
These studies found that students who received encoding instruction performed much better in reading and writing than those who didn’t get this instruction. The effects were significant across various literacy areas including: phonemic awareness, spelling, reading speed and writing. This suggests that teaching encoding can really boost literacy skills for struggling students, and it can even help older students with learning disabilities. Plus, early encoding instruction has positive and lasting effects on children’s later reading, writing, and spelling performance.
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While there’s been a lot of emphasis on early reading, writing instruction hasn’t received the same attention. This lack of focus on encoding instruction is partly because some believed that encoding skills would improve naturally with reading/phonics instruction. However, research suggests that teaching encoding actuallys help improve children’s decoding (reading) skills.
There’s strong evidence showing that students who are good at encoding are also good readers. Encoding, which involves turning sounds into written words, is closely connected to decoding (reading) ability. Teaching encoding isn’t just about memorising spelling patterns; it also includes taking part in writing activities which encourage children to write words based on their sounds and using tools like sound mats to help build those words.
Despite the importance of encoding, many phonics/reading curriculums don’t integrate encoding instruction effectively. Teachers typically spend very little time teaching encoding and instead focus on decoding and their reading curriculum. As a result, many students don’t make the connection between the knowledge they acquire in phonics lessons and their ability to encode words in writing lessons (and vice versa).
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When young students try to spell words based on their understanding of the connections between sounds and letters, it helps them realise how words are made up of sounds. As students begin to recognise this connection, their writing and reading skills improve together.
Practical implications
Overall, the findings suggest that integrating encoding instruction into your writing teaching can have a significant positive impact on struggling readers and writers. By incorporating activities that strengthen understanding of letter-sound relationships and phonemic awareness, teachers can effectively support students’ literacy development.
The research also suggests that early instruction in encoding has long-term benefits for students’ literacy skills. Studies have shown that students who received early encoding instruction, which involved activities like writing sounds and letters together, continued to outperform their peers in reading, writing, and spelling in follow-up assessments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, explicit instruction in encoding is crucial for students who struggle with early reading and writing. Students who learn to manipulate and understand how sounds and letters relate to each other show significant improvements in various literacy skills. This supports the idea that encoding instruction is essential for early literacy development, especially for students with learning disabilities. Moving forward, the challenge is to ensure that this type of instruction is implemented in classrooms to benefit all students.
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For more information on teaching encoding strategies, see our book Getting Children Up & Running As Writers: Lessons For EYFS-KS1 Teachers.