Direct instruction approaches to the teaching of English spelling skills are described and evaluated. Two commercially available direct instruction spelling programmes (Spelling Mastery and Corrective Spelling through Morphographs) are outlined. Two Hong Kong projects utilizing these programmes are described; one in a primary school and the other in a secondary school. The results indicate that these programmes are effective in improving the spelling skills of pupils in mainstream schools who are of average to below average spelling ability. There is evidence to suggest that the programmes are most successful with pupils who are low-performing spellers relative to their peers.
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