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Supportive Research
Dr. Robert C. Aukerman, in his book, Approaches To Beginning
Reading, describes Spalding as a total language arts program
because it "is an approach to learning the phonetic base of the language
through listening, seeing, speaking, writing, spelling, and reading"
(p.536). He devotes 10 pages to The Spalding Method,
citing national scores from many schools that obtained exemplary
test results.
The Spalding Method was observed in several Honolulu schools in 1967 and
again - in 1982. In January, for example, in a first grade class the
children were reading at an almost unbelievable level of comprehension,
voice inflection, knowledge of word attack. (p. 545)
Scores that are consistently far beyond the national norms and
testimonials of gains made by illiterate adults, new arrivals from
the rim of the Pacific, learning disabled children, and others who
had not previously learned to read in regular classrooms using standard
means should be proof enough of the effectiveness of The Writing Road
to Reading (pp. 545-546). "(Average grade level score of the 14 first
grades in his sample was 2.8; of the 16 second grades, 3.76; of the
12 third grades, 5.24)"
These exemplary results are consistent with the
results of statewide testing in Arizona.
Arizona test scores from 1986 through 1991
(when Arizona ceased testing all children in the
spring of every year) show Spalding schools consistently scored higher
than district, state and national norms. In 1997, Arizona resumed
statewide testing and again, schools which adopted The Spalding Method
as their language arts
program topped district, state and national norms.
Dr. S. Farnham-Diggory, cognitive psychologist and former Director
of the
Reading Center, University of Delaware, implemented The Spalding Method
in the University of Delaware Reading Center for kindergarten through
college students because it was the only program, out of 100 she
examined, that included all the necessary subskills of reading,
important principles of instruction and skill learning, and an instructional
sequence for developing skilled readers.
Farnham-Diggory, S. (1992), Cognitive Processes in Education. 2nd Ed.
New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.
"We have reviewed some of the research that bears on decisions about
the design of a beginning reading curriculum. I wish I could say that there
are many published curriculums which embody the principles that have just been
described. Sadly, there are not (Anderson, Osborn, & Tierney, 1984; Osborn,
Wilson, & Anderson, 1985). I have found only one, which we have adapted for
use in the Reading Center at the University of Delaware. It has been very
successful." (p. 295)
Spalding's program is a full language arts program, emphasizing reading
comprehension, children's literature and poetry, handwriting, creative
writing and spelling, as well as decoding. (p. 298)
"it is quite clear that The Spalding Method works extremely well with
children who may not be native speakers of English and who often test
well below Anglo levels, as documented in the NAEP reports,listed earlier.
We have also conducted evaluation studies of several types. When our program
was first introduced, local schools routinely administered a standardized test
called the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills(CTBS) at the end of each
year. Since only a few classrooms had begun to adopt our program, it was a
simple matter to find a matching classroom that had not.... Except for the
reading program, children from experimental and control classrooms received
the same curriculum.
At the end of the school year, we compared a first, second, and third grade to
their respective control classrooms on the CTBS total reading scale. The
percentile ranks for our Intensive Literacy first, second, and third grade
classrooms were 66th, 67th and 67th, respectively, while the percentile ranks
for the control classrooms were 43rd, 54th and 47th, respectively. These
differences were significant statistically and were also meaningful intuitively.
The control classes were testing at or below average.... whereas the
Intensive Literacy classes had moved well above average.
In Schooling, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990,
Dr. Farnham-Diggory explains how Spalding-taught children learn to read almost
without knowing it.
"Spalding's most remarkable contribution is her invention of a marking system
that enables children to connect spelling rules to reading. The system
consists of five simple conventions... Using those conventions,
students learn to mark the words they have spelled, in an atmosphere of problem
solving. First the words are separated into syllables, and then the syllables
are marked...in notebooks, which eventually become personal glossaries
filled with hundreds of marked words ... After spelling a word, the student
reflects upon it and abstracts both its components and the rules they embody.
(pp. 127-128)
The marking system is the bridge that connects spelling to reading. After a
few hours of practice children find themselves spontaneously marking, mentally,
words they see on street signs, buildings, and so on. They "see" these words
in their marked form. They are developing, in effect, a coded sight
vocabulary. They are not merely recognizing words by sight but are at the
same time, recognizing what parts of them embody generalizable rules. This
ability is a great improvement over the simple acquisition of a list of sight
words, because it provides the student with guidelines for reading by analogy.
All of the analytical work and rule acquisition is done within the context
of spelling (pp. 128-129)
In the Spalding system, reading is never taught as such. Children read the
words they spell, of course. Daily, they read and reread lists and lists of
words. Then on a very special day in the lives of the younger
children, reading in real books begins. The children have in fact learned how
to read , and they can now pick up (simple) books and read. Emphasis is
always upon the classics, great books written for children by authors
who loved words and who were not reluctant to present children with words
they might not immediately know. (pp. 129-130)
One of the most important aspects of this program is its emphasis upon
problem solving. I have seen a number of cases, interestingly, in which
children's arithmetic skills improved following a few months of training in
this literacy program. I believe this is because the children transferred
the analytical, problem solving strategies they were learning in their reading
classes to their arithmetic assignments. They were learning to pay close attention to
details, and they
were learning that rules and strategies can be invoked to deal with new
problems. When they applied those same principles to arithmetic, improvement
was sometimes dramatic. (pp. 130-131)
P.G. Aaron, R. Malatesha Joshi, Reading Problems, Consultation
and Remediation , The Guilford Press, 1992
"The Writing Road to Reading Program was developed by Romalda Spalding and has
been extensively tested, with good results... It is a structured method of
teaching phonics and is available in the form of a single book which makes the
implementation of the procedures relatively easy... It is also called the
Unified Phonics Method because it incorporates hearing, speaking and writing
as well as reading comprehension." (p. 130)
E. McEwan (1998) The Principal's Guide to Raising Reading
Achievement, Corwin Press, Inc.
The Spalding Method ... has withstood the test of time as to
effectiveness and has a broad body of research supporting its
effectiveness ... The Gallego School in Tucson, Arizona has been a
"Spalding School" for 15 years, a remarkable achievement in a
day when innovations appear and vanish overnight. Organized as an
alternative back-to-basics school with heavy parental input, the school's
students do not come from affluent homes. Rather, 60% of the students
receive free lunch and over 80% are Hispanic. The school has, however,
consistently ranked at or above the national and state averages on a
standardized test ... With all of its teachers trained at the Spalding
Education Foundation in Phoenix ... the school enjoys a remarkable
consistency of instruction and purpose ..." (p. 63)
Maureen Street, a Senior Teacher at Youngtown Primary School,
Launceston, Tasmania, implemented The Spalding Method at her
school with grade 3 and 4 at-risk children (including Attention Deficit
Disorder and dyslexic students.) Their success led to a formal
evaluation of The Method.
Spalding spelling classes were begun with Grades 1 and 2 for thirty
minutes, four mornings a week. After eight months, progress was
measured.
| Assessments |
Grade 1 progress
8 teaching months |
Grade 2 progress
8 teaching months |
Morrison-McCall
Spelling Test |
12 months |
14 months |
Waddington Diagnostic
Spelling Test |
14 months |
10 months |
South Australian
Spelling Test |
16 months |
19 months |
Among the outcomes: Spelling improved; all children made
significant progress; the number of children in the "at-risk" category
was reduced; boys made more significant progress than girls (of
significance because of concerns about boys' literacy problem.)
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