The thing that interests me about the Spelling Bee example is that surely the results are biased by the fact that learning to visualise individual words on cards is, in my understanding, the gold standard of learning to spell a word? They aren't just working harder - they are working smarter. Someone who worked just as hard - however that is measured, say by hours alone in a room - but with a less useful approach might not do as well.
My first boyfriend - who if he disagreed with the dictionary was generally correct and would go to getting a bigger better dictionary to prove it - did more for my spelling than any of my prior schooling ever had and I was at university at this point. He insisted that good spellers have a visual check and I had to stop "hearing" the words and start looking at the shape of the word and knowing if it is right or not. My spelling has been steadily improving ever since.
And this gels nicely with the reading I have just been doing about visual-spatial learners and teaching them to spell. Which is all about teaching them to SEE the word as a picture.
I have also come to realise this "seeing the word" may be part of my DDs problem with spelling. She is learning to see her weekly spelling list as a LIST. So she will ace her spelling test and then spell the words incorrectly in her writing - because she didn't learn the words, she learned the list! She needs flashcards.
