Speeling Matters

“We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can

articulate we can imagine or explore. All you have to do to

educate a child is leave them alone and teach them to read. The rest is

brainwashing.”

- Ellen Gilcrist

• Impressive stats. (narration gives where it’s from)

The City University of New York is planning to withdraw admission to its four-year schools if students fail placement exams…the 22-campus California State University reported that a record 47 percent of freshmen had to take remedial English…

- Michael KirstStanford University, 1998

$1,000,000

approximate annual cost to freshmen atCal State University Long Beachfor remedial English courses

Any company with employees who can write clearly and concisely has a competitive edge over others who are still struggling to communicate.

-Gloria PincueZineArticles

Employees' poor writing skills cost American corporations $3.1 billion annually in training costs, the National Commission on Writing estimated in a September report.

-Christa CaseChristian Science Monitor

$4 billionannual spending on writing remediation

• Quotation and study citation connecting vocabulary growth to reading, writing and thinking ability. (find this source)

• Timeline of American spelling education methods (highlight only major trends)

• Facts about the number of words in the English language between now and Shakespeare’s time.

• Research showing the average vocab size of an adult American.

• Plus sign under the no smoking sign (acknowledge that it doesn’t add up)

• Picture of brain showing activity related to language acquisition. (make point about how activity in this area can help)

• List of major studies in the last 30 years dealing with spelling instruction with their basic findings (speak to the majority findings, not the details of each. This should be visually appealing, not designed for content.)

• Picture of clock (make point it’s time to look at the research and make informed decisions).

• Dollar sign, brain, something denoting scholarship, quill (make point we have all of the reasons we need to care)

• Picture over a little kid’s shoulder as he attempts to spell and makes obvious errors (comment this is the only reason we need to care because if we don’t…)

• Famous quotations with obvious spelling errors. (…it will lead to this