Orthographic Analysis

1.1 Defining Orthography

Prologue

Decisions about teaching must be made on the basis of strict intellectual rigour. Without it we relegate what we are doing to the realm of opinion and personal impression. This is especially true of orthography.

We must:

• identify our underlying assumptions about orthography, define them and rigorously examine their validity;
• ensure that we are completely au fait with the real conceptual structure of orthography.

As the basis for evaluating a writer's orthographic competence we need two points of reference:

• a rigorously correct conceptual structure of orthography — we need to know exactly what we are dealing with;
• a clear definition of what constitutes a mature speller and a mature reader — we need have an exact grasp of the goal that we are aiming to achieve.