“With a little help from my friends”: Effects of a self-reflection tool and social interaction on orthographic performance

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of peer orthographic revision using a self-reflection tool on orthographic performance in order to improve the understanding and applying of phonological, contextual and morphological rules in third-grade students. Children were assigned to one of three groups: two experimental groups (individual group, dyadic interaction group) and a control group. In the experimental training programme, a self-correction orthographic rubric was used, but while children in the individual group self-corrected the words, children in the dyadic interaction group did it in pairs and interacted in a way such that they should always reach an agreement on the correct spelling. The results showed that although both experimental groups decreased the number of misspellings in the post-test, the dyadic interaction group had the best results, differing significantly from the others, suggesting that self-correction strategies based on rubrics that explicitly display orthographical rules along with collaborative peer learning have a very positive impact on orthographic.