ABSTRACT
Templeton and Morris advise that beyond instruction in spelling patterns, teaching should begin to emphasize word study as part of language development in a broader sense. The term 'word study' covers a wide range of activities of varying degrees of complexity. Watson has stated that word study makes an important contribution to learning to spell because it helps students recognize connections between words, and how change in meaning can influence the spelling of a particular word. Word Sorts represent an investigative approach to helping students identify orthographic features within and across words. Directed Spelling Thinking Activity (DSTA) is a form of Word Sort that can involve a group of students in comparing, contrasting and categorizing a set of words based on points of similarity or differences. Word families are groups of words that share common visual, phonologic or morphemic features. The aim is to help students attend to spelling patterns, rhyme, and phonic predictability.
