ORTHOGRAPHIC SKILLS AND TEACHING ORTHOGRAPHY IN LIGHT OF THE RENEWED ESTONIAN LANGUAGE SYLLABUS

The National Curriculum is a document that prescribes the bases of teaching. All the issues in the National Curriculum are compulsory for each teacher. The issue of spelling skills in the curriculum has always had an active feedback, either positive or negative, among mother tongue teaching specialists in Estonia. Therefore, before starting the next curriculum reform, it is reasonable to analyze former versions and to research what is actually fulfilled or not in the real school life. The modern viewpoint of teaching spelling, described by keywords such as the usage of language and focusing on the text, is the basis of renewing the syllabus of mother tongue in Estonia. It means that orthography is taught and evaluated from the basis of informal teaching approach or in other words, by taking into account the language using situation and/or the language using purposes in teaching orthography. It has a clear and convincing scientific basis and ground, which is described also in the current article. Strong scientific ground and the results of studying the writing skills in students` independent pieces of writing gave a foundation to claim that the curriculum reform team in Estonia is on the right path. The results of the study also confirmed that orthographical skills and knowledge are acquired more effectively and consciously, when they are learned in the environment, where they are really needed or in other words, connected with the process of writing texts. The fact that the most frequently used words are written correctly even at the end of the first stage of compulsory school, makes it possible to draw more attention to teaching syntax, punctuation and writing different texts in different purposes at the 2nd stage of compulsory school.