A Challenge to Educational Researchers

To adequately establish the relationship of reading test scores to spelling, a baseline study must be conducted.  The last such study was done in 1954!  For a better study to be made, we need the input of researchers as well as teachers, parents, and employers.  We will assist you in any way we can to get grants for this purpose.

• Word Difficulty Survey This test demonstrates that almost everybody recognizes that the word difficulty factor is not as much related to either length or frequency but to whether or not the significant pattern in the word has been taught.

• Summary of Traditional Spelling Research

• Research Proposal to U.S. Dept. of Education and University Researchers

• Spelling Research Survey Form

• 97 Percent Literacy by Age 15--An Achievable Goal if Set

• Starting at Square One– A phonics curriculum FREE to AVKO members. This is the only one ever based on systematic learning AS the alphabet is being mastered, not after.  It is also free to researchers who want to enter uncharted waters.

In order for AVKO to improve our research and for researchers to see the importance of having another study conducted, please print out our Spelling Research Survey Form and disseminate it to as many of your colleagues as you can and then return them to us:

Don McCabe
Research Director
AVKO Foundation
3084 Willard Rd.
Birch Run, MI 48415-9404

If you have comments about this website or additional summaries of specific spelling research along with citations, questions concerning spelling, phonics, learning disabilities, homeschooling, etc., you are encouraged to e-mail DonMcCabe@aol.com.  We appreciate any comments that will help us make this website even more useful. 

Call Toll Free:  1-866-AVKO-612
Fax:  (810) 686-1101
E-mail: Webmaster: avkoemail@aol.com 
or  Write:  
Don McCabe, Research Director

AVKO Educational Research Foundation
3084 Willard Road, Suite W
Birch Run, MI 48415-9404

All donations are greatly appreciated.  If you would like to support our mission which is to raise the level of literacy to the point where the words, illiteracy, phonemic awareness, learning disabilities, dysgraphia, family literacy, adult literacy, and illegible handwriting will no longer have relevance, please mail your tax-deductible check (in U.S. dollars) to The AVKO Educational Research Foundation, 3084 Willard Road, Suite W, Birch Run, MI 48415-9404.  The AVKO Foundation is recognized by the IRS as a 501(C)3 publicly supported organization working with teachers, parents, tutors, and homeschooling parents, publishing materials developed by its research, and providing free daily tutoring at its local reading clinic.