THRASS

THRASS is an acronym for Teaching Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills. New teachers must be aware of the high level of use Thrass charts receive in the primary school classroom.

"THRASS will help you to teach children that, basically, when reading we change spelling choices to speech sounds and when spelling we change speech sounds to spelling choices" (Thrass, 2007, p. 3).

The THRASS chart helps teachers to educate students about the breakdown of words and the graphemes (spelling choices) of the English language.

For articulate spellers who are unsure of how to spell a word, we break it into speech sounds and then pick the most accurate spelling choice from the sound. The THRASS chart offers the entire range of graphemes, and for students who do not have a wide knowledge of graphemes they are able to refer to the chart to make a more informed choice of how to spell the word. From a "greater understanding of graphemes, learners become more confident in the skills of reading and spelling" and the chart promotes larger grapheme awareness (Thrass, 2007, p. 5).