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  1. Prologue
  2. Orthographic thinking, not just 'correct' performance
    1. Competent literacy is not simply rehearsal and performance
    2. Cognitive processes are not measurable; they are analysed
    3. Accurate spellers, too, need orthographic analysis
  3. Durative analysis is integral to the teaching process
    1. Delegation of analysis to another is abdication of teaching
    2. Readiness for durative analysis
    3. Durative analysis generates integrated teaching response
  4. Durative analysis as a dialogue
    1. The discourse of durative analysis
    2. Banish banality in response
    3. Avoid overload in response
    4. Give positive status to 'mistakes'
  5. The structural focus of durative analysis
    1. Focus on orthographic morphology
    2. Focus on orthographic etymology
    3. Focus on orthographic phonology
  6. Durative analysis of reading
    1. Define first what 'reading' really is!
    2. Real reading is semantic engagement with text
    3. Lexical context has two dimensions
    4. Engaging the syntactic context: a case study

Orthographic Analysis

2.1 Durative Orthographic Analysis

Prologue

A teacher of real orthography has absolutely no need of the orthodox diagnostic gallimaufry of special material, invasive and confrontational practices, reams of paper and time away from real orthographic engagement.

  1. It is not just absence of misspellings that makes a competent speller.
    Only if we ourselves can justify and explain the 'correct' spelling of words can we claim to be teachers or analysers of spelling.
  2. It is not 'decoding' strings of alphabetic signs into supposed 'sound' but knowing what a word means that makes a competent reader.
    Only if we can justify and explain real cognitive engagement with the structures of text for the reconstruction of sense and meaning can we claim to be analysers of reading.

What the teacher of orthography needs, then, is a procedure for analysing the orthographic competence of writers and readers that is thoroughly grounded in the fact that orthography is a cognitive construct.