Spelling Abilities of University Students in Developmental Writing Classes

Abstract

Forty-four students at a mid-sized urban university were given a pseudo-word spelling test to explore the relationship between their spelling ability and their placement in college writing courses. Half the students required a developmental writing course and half took college-level classes. Number of correct (i.e., orthographically possible) spellings and types of spelling errors were recorded. Students in developmental classes misspelled considerably more words, and made more errors per word, than the students in college-level classes. In particular, developmental students made more substitution errors, using an inappropriate letter to represent a sound, especially misrepresenting vowels. These results are similar to findings reported for younger students with learning disabilities, raising the possibility that some developmental college-age students may have language learning disabilities that are undiagnosed and untreated.