Why Is Spelling So Much Harder Than Reading

Out of 4 language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which one is the most difficult to master in English, from your own experience?

For me, speaking is the most difficult. I am not talking about answering questions and providing very simple and short answers. I am talking about making a speech, or discussing a certain scientific topic, or retelling a complicated and long book or a movie. That's difficult if you don't use the foreign language on a daily basis.It is also difficult to make a meaningful conversation with a complete stranger in a foreign language without making any mistakes, because you cannot know what they'll want to talk about. You don't have time to prepare the answer. Everything is taking place in the real time frame. It can be stressful. Especially if you worry about your pronunciation, the right usage of vocabulary and tenses, while focusing on the content and providing useful information.The problem with speaking is that it has to be normal-paced and there is very little time for you to think before speaking.Writing is a bit less difficult because there is more time to think. Also, you can read your piece of writing many times to check for the mistakes. You can see if all the tenses are used correctly, if the articles are in the right places and so on. Writing is less stressful. However, it implies that the person has mastered their spelling and text formatting. I have never had problems with spelling, so writing is less difficult for me.Listening comes third. If the language isn't very specific (science, economy), listening is not that difficult. But, it depends on whether the speaker uses the standard language or not and wherever they speak at a normal pace or not.Reading is the easiest skill to master.

Why can I read and understand words in English but often struggle to spell them?

When young American children learn to read and write, they are taught word attack skills.Word attack skills include:Knowing how to spell the sounds in a wordKnowing how to say words by reading their lettersKnowing how to break a word into pieces so you can say and spell the wordKnowing how to read and write all the words we use a lot (words like the, now, day, etc.)Knowing parts of words that have a meaning (like "un", which means "not")Knowing spelling rules (there are about 30)Teachers teach word attack skills for years, and they practice this with the students with spelling lists and lessons. Unfortunately, when people learn English in other countries, most schools never teach them these word attack skills.  The teacher tells the student to learn lots of words, but nobody teaches the students all the things that help American children read and spell and say the words.  Then, students learning English try to learn English words but it's very, very hard for them.  They don't know any tricks to make studying and reading easier.  They write and read English, but they do this slowly and it's very hard.  You see, if you can't spell and say a word easily, that word isn't really yours.  When you read, you read very slowly because you don't "own" the words.  When you write, you are nervous because your spelling is wrong.The answer is to teach the word attack skills.  The teachers should teach the skills when you are very young-- the same age as the American students.  You should learn word attack skills for years.  You start with small, easy words and then learn long words.Why don't English teachers do this?  It costs money and it takes time.  Also, in most countries, the teachers do everything an old way.  They don't want a different way of teaching, or they don't know a different way.  Also, there are not a lot of books for this, and the good English books are expensive.What can you do?  It helps if you use a dictionary and find the parts of the word.  The words have parts for a reason.  When you know these parts, you can:say the word correctlypractice your spellinglearn and remember what the word meansread that word fast and easilyread and spell other, similar words

How important is spelling and grammar in today’s world where no one seems to spell properly or even read books/articles anymore and we have spellcheck?

Kweshton iz: How impourtant is speling an grammer in today’s werold were no one seems spll properly or even reed boks/articls ehneemor an we have spelchek?i think u can answr tht 4 urself jst lking at what im writing its so much harder 2 ndrstan what im tryng 2 say by how my splling and grammer is. N fact, I thnk that u r prbly veree confoosd by my ritng.Anyways, that was just a test. Without proper formatting, grammar, and spelling, the language becomes much harder to understand. If nothing else, spelling and grammar establish standardization which allow anybody who can read English to comprehend a text.As for the part about reading, this isn’t exactly true. Around 74 percent of Americans still read at least one book for pleasure,[1]and one fifth of Americans now listens to an audiobook.Additionally, the literacy rate in the US remains very high, at about 99%. So, it’s not that people aren’t reading, it’s that they are switching to new formats.Footnotes[1] Print books still much more popular than e-books, audiobooks