Spelling Mastery

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 4 claims (4 for) · 4 studies (3 causal, 1 quant-synthesis), q3 · 4 of 4 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description

A McGraw-Hill Direct Instruction spelling curriculum for grades 1–6 that uses phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word strategies in scripted daily lessons across six levels.

Components

• Spelling Mastery Direct Instruction spelling curriculum with phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word strategies: Spelling Mastery is a Direct Instruction spelling curriculum from McGraw-Hill for students in grades 1 through 6 that "explicitly teach[es] spelling skills" through three strategies: a phonemic strategy teaching sound–symbol correspondence, a morphemic strategy teaching "meaningful prefixes, suffixes, and word bases," and a whole-word strategy using memorization for irregularly spelled words. Instruction is delivered in daily 15–20 minute sessions across six levels (A through F), each with 60 to 120 lessons, using fully-scripted lessons with immediate feedback and cumulative integration of concepts. Each level provides a teacher presentation book, teacher/series guide, student workbook, and (Spelling Mastery)

Claims

• Spelling Mastery has potentially positive effects on writing for students with learning disabilities, based on two RCTs with a small extent of evidence [+W]
• Spelling Mastery produced statistically significant positive effects on all three writing measures in a fourth-grade RCT against Visual Imagery instruction [+W]
• Spelling Mastery showed substantively important but not statistically significant positive effects on all four writing measures in a grades 2–4 RCT against basal spelling instruction [+W]
• On the TWS-3 subtests in the 2006 RCT, Spelling Mastery favored the Predictable Words subtest (effect size 0.57, WWC-adjusted p = 0.07) over the Unpredictable Words subtest (effect size 0.11) [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse. (2014, January). Students with Learning Disabilities intervention report: Spelling Mastery. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/InterventionReport/579

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	spelling-mastery
title	Spelling Mastery
description	A McGraw-Hill Direct Instruction spelling curriculum for grades 1–6 that uses phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word strategies in scripted daily lessons across six levels.
status	review
moved_from	element/spelling-mastery-curriculum
product_kind	curriculum
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — us-department-of-education-institute

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