Summary.The effectiveness of five presentation methods were compared for the teaching of spelling to 359 children in 10 third‐year junior classes. The learning method involved the study of the whole word, the ‘hard spot,’ or the individual letters of each spelling; the presentation of the words being in either list form or in context. Analyses of variance results indicated that the most effective approach to use with a class was one which used a whole word method of learning where the words were presented in co