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Phonics and Spelling: Learning the Structure of Language at the Word Level

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Reading Development and Difficulties

Abstract

This chapter discusses why phonics in beginning reading and spelling is a critical component of instruction, but more complex and challenging to implement than commonly portrayed. It will argue that phonics is better characterized as an aspect of structured language teaching requiring explicit and systematic skill building within several levels of language organization (phoneme-grapheme correspondences, orthographic patterns, morphology, and etymology). Well-conceived practices supported by theory and research are contrasted with others that do not align with scientific evidence, in spite of their ubiquity. The chapter concludes with a set of well-supported recommendations to improve phonics, word reading, and spelling instruction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moats Associates Consulting, Sun Valley, ID, USA

    Louisa Moats

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  1. Louisa Moats
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Correspondence to Louisa Moats .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York, College at Cortland, Cortland, NY, USA

    David A. Kilpatrick

  2. College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    R. Malatesha Joshi

  3. Department of Psychology, Florida State University Florida Center for Reading Research, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Richard K. Wagner

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Moats, L. (2019). Phonics and Spelling: Learning the Structure of Language at the Word Level. In: Kilpatrick, D., Joshi, R., Wagner, R. (eds) Reading Development and Difficulties. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26550-2_3

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