Teaching spelling in context can also be explicit and systematic

This article shares a few practical insights from an intervention study that focussed on building teacher capacity for effective instruction in spelling. For the study, four schools in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) were selected to participate through a stratified random sampling process. In total, 572 students across 31 classes in Years 3 to 6 participated. Of the 31 classes, 14 were involved in a ten-week intervention while the remaining 17 classes formed a 'comparison' group whereby a 'business as usual' approach to teaching spelling was adopted.