Spelling rethought: Linguist calls for reform in teaching!

Spelling rethought: Linguist calls for reform in teaching!

On June 26, 2025, the discussion about German orthography will be heated up again. Nanna Fuhrhop, a renowned linguist and professor of German linguistics at the University of Potsdam, deals intensively with this topic. Fuhrhop, who was also appointed to the German Spelling Council, argues that many people can write well intuitively and criticizes the traditional teaching of spelling rules in German lessons.

In her work “Spelling Separately and Together: Core and Periphery: Spelling Didactic Consequences from this Distinction,” Fuhrhop examines how the teaching of spelling should be designed to do justice to the learners. She places particular emphasis on the fact that understanding the space is of central importance when learning to write. Fuhrhop sees spelling as an applicable skill that goes beyond simply spelling it out and argues that the value of a text should not be measured solely by its spelling.

Spelling and its didactics

Fuhrhop emphasizes that texts with good content are often negatively evaluated because of small spelling errors. Nowadays it is important to focus on the reading aids that spelling provides. According to Fuhrhop, the proportion of words affected by exceptions is comparatively small at only around 5 to 10%, and at least 90% of the German vocabulary follows clear rules. This could mean that learning to spell is easier for many than traditionally thought.

The challenges of teaching spelling are also complicated by historical attempts to standardize German spelling, which Fuhrhop criticizes. Your call for better formulated rules, without always requiring clear regulations, illustrates the complexity of the issue. She also shows that spelling didactics have developed significantly over the last 25 years, moving away from methods such as copying and memorizing towards a perspective that focuses on novice writers.

The house-garage model

A central aspect of modern spelling didactics is the so-called house-garage model, which was developed by Ursula Bredel. This model uses the syllabic principle and helps students learn four construction patterns that are important in writing. While some children understand these laws intuitively, others need explicit explanations. The goal is to write correctly without having to constantly think.

However, teachers face the challenge of familiarizing themselves with this model, which is sometimes perceived as complicated. This makes it all the more important to address the topic early on in class so that learners can write without difficulty in the long term. The model and its principles are also covered in textbooks for secondary school level 1, such as “Deutsch kombi plus 5” and “Deutsch rechner 5”.

Fuhrhop's work and research, including her extensive studies of “borderline cases of morphological units,” aim to understand spelling as an integral part of the reading and writing process. Their valuable insights and suggestions have the potential to profoundly change the way spelling is taught and breathe new life into a debate that has been going on for decades.