1940s Spelling & Counting Board
How it works
Students learning to read and write practiced spelling basic words by sliding the letters around the ring and moving specific letters towards the center. The board allows students to manually and strategically move the blocks around to visualize the words and number problems in a more interactive format than paper and pencil. The front side of the wooden pieces serve as letters and the back side serve as numbers for counting and performing basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Through bright colors and graphics, the spelling and counting board encourages students to practice spelling and math in an interesting, interactive way in and out of the classroom.
Students learning to read and write practiced spelling basic words by sliding the letters around the ring and moving specific letters towards the center. The board allows students to manually and strategically move the blocks around to visualize the words and number problems in a more interactive format than paper and pencil. The front side of the wooden pieces serve as letters and the back side serve as numbers for counting and performing basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Through bright colors and graphics, the spelling and counting board encourages students to practice spelling and math in an interesting, interactive way in and out of the classroom.
History
MOTAL’s spelling and counting board is from the 1940s and was made in the USA. It consists of a round plastic board with wooden letters, widely used into the 1950s and 60s as an educational tool for the classroom.
Spelling and counting boards have helped children practice since the late 1800s and whereas we have one example in our collections,
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has 43 examples from many other eras, both older and newer than ours. Their collection may be found by going to americanhistory.si.edu, visiting the Collections section, and in the search bar typing “spelling and counting boards”. Spelling activities help with word recognition skills but do not really provide opportunities to learn phonics.
Reading instruction over time has oscillated between two different approaches. One is the “sound” method, associated with “phonics” and repetition to learn the way words are constructed. The second is the “meaning” method associated with whole word teaching or “sight” reading. Recent research leans toward phonics as a teaching method for learning to read and write by understanding the rules of the language, instead of simply memorization of thousands of words. Using phonics, students can learn to read and spell words they have never seen before on a “sight” words list, through full understanding of the fundamental building blocks of the English language. However, truly competent readers have well-developed comprehension that is helped by many experiences with science, social studies and the world around them, plus many experiences with a variety of writing genres.
MOTAL’s spelling and counting board is from the 1940s and was made in the USA. It consists of a round plastic board with wooden letters, widely used into the 1950s and 60s as an educational tool for the classroom.
Spelling and counting boards have helped children practice since the late 1800s and whereas we have one example in our collections,
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has 43 examples from many other eras, both older and newer than ours. Their collection may be found by going to americanhistory.si.edu, visiting the Collections section, and in the search bar typing “spelling and counting boards”. Spelling activities help with word recognition skills but do not really provide opportunities to learn phonics.
Reading instruction over time has oscillated between two different approaches. One is the “sound” method, associated with “phonics” and repetition to learn the way words are constructed. The second is the “meaning” method associated with whole word teaching or “sight” reading. Recent research leans toward phonics as a teaching method for learning to read and write by understanding the rules of the language, instead of simply memorization of thousands of words. Using phonics, students can learn to read and spell words they have never seen before on a “sight” words list, through full understanding of the fundamental building blocks of the English language. However, truly competent readers have well-developed comprehension that is helped by many experiences with science, social studies and the world around them, plus many experiences with a variety of writing genres.