Specific Spelling Research Articles

Integrated Morphological Awareness Intervention as a Tool for Improving Literacy

This study evaluated the effects of an intervention program aimed to improve reading and spelling ability through instruction in morphological awareness together with other forms of linguistic awareness, including knowledge of phonology, orthography, syntax, and semantics. Sixteen children aged between 8;07 (years;months) and 11;01 who demonstrated specific spelling difficulties were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Participants received an average of 19.4 sessions of intervention that focused on increasing awareness of the morphological structure of words, with particular attention to the orthographic rules that apply when suffixes are added to the base word. Participants in the experimental group made significantly greater gains in reading and spelling accuracy than those in the control group on both experimental and standardized measures of reading and spelling. The results also show that participants were able to generalize to new words what they had learned in the intervention sessions. Practitioners should consider the likely benefits of literacy intervention that focuses on developing morphological awareness in conjunction with other types of linguistic awareness.

Strategy Instruction During Word Study and Interactive Writing Activities

In this project, a teacher researcher and a university researcher used qualitative data collection and analysis procedures to collaboratively investigate the efficacy of interactive writing as a context for guided practice in the use of specific spelling strategies that had been taught during daily word study lessons. The researchers also examined first‐grade, Title I children's use of those strategies during independent writing events.Findings of the project indicated that the teacher researcher taught a number of fundamental spelling strategies during word study instruction, which were categorized as Tools of the Trade and Tools of the Mind. Results also demonstrated the ways in which interactive writing provided meaningful opportunities for the teacher to scaffold the children's use of the strategies that were taught. Finally, the project suggested that students appropriated a number of those strategies and used them independently during writing activities in the regular classroom. The project supports the use of both word study and interactive writing instruction in the early literacy program.

Central and peripheral aspects of writing disorders in Alzheimer's disease

It is currently assumed that lexical and phonological dysgraphia emerge in different stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as a consequence of the progressive impairment of lexical and phonological knowledge. We studied patients affected by mild and severe dementia. No differences emerged in the distribution of surface and orthographic errors in the two groups of patients. Attention and memory disorders correlated with central and peripheral errors and language disorders with central errors. Our data suggest that AD dysgraphia is firstly produced by a reduction of general cognitive resources and only marginally by disorders of specific spelling sub-components.

What young children do and do not know about the spelling of inflections and derivations

Morphemes have a powerful impact on the spellings of words in English. We report on two experiments examining young children's knowledge of the effect of suffix morphemes on spelling. In Experiment 1, 5- to 8-year-olds demonstrated awareness of the role of inflections, but not derivations in spelling. Experiment 2 examined whether children might show an understanding of the impact of derivations on spelling when they are provided with the specific spelling pattern. There was support for this idea; 7- to 10-year-old children took advantage of the derivations that were given to spell other derivations, but not the endings of control words. The results of these experiments suggest that young children are aware of the role that suffixes play in determining spelling, but that there are limits, such as those imposed by spelling difficulty, that constrain the execution of this knowledge. These findings provide new insights into current theoretical debates on spelling development.

Can Adult Low-Skilled Literacy Learners Assess and Discuss Their Own Spelling Knowledge?

This qualitative study investigates the ability of adult low-skilled readers to talk about the thought processes and phonetic strategies they use to make decisions about their spelling. Four adult learners, all exhibiting word knowledge at a second-grade level or below, participated in individual 45-minute audiotaped interviews. Selected portions of these interviews are included in the article to give examples of specific spelling strategies used by the four participants, such as sounding out, transferring information through use of rhyme, “looks right,” and guessing. The accuracy of the participants' analysis of their own spelling needs was assessed by comparison with their actual spellings as well as with the instructor's perception of their spelling problems prior to the interviews. A high level of agreement was found. Perhaps the most important finding was that all the participants, in spite of very low reading skills, were able to “think about thinking,” a metacognitive skill, and enter into relevant conversation on the subject of their spelling. The study indicates that these adults, including those with very limited reading skills, are able to talk about their thinking processes and can benefit from collaborative classrooms where they share in planning their own instruction and identifying their own needs.

What Can Children's Spelling of Running and Jumped Tell Us About Their Need for Spelling Instruction?

This article describes effective instructional strategies for teaching verbs with inflected endings. The ability to spell past and present progressive verbs provides an example of how children need to learn to integrate their developing understanding of letter‐sound correspondences with knowledge of morphological and orthographic patterns in order to spell and write effectively. Furthermore, multisensory instruction that enables children to discover phonological, morphological, and orthographic patterns as well as instruction that incorporates opportunities for generalizing learning to context provides teachers with options for addressing these specific spelling deficits in children's written performance. While the instructional strategies described in this article were specifically designed for students who demonstrate difficulty spelling verbs with inflected endings, it is important to note that instruction in past and present progressive verbs also sets the groundwork for all students' future spelling development as they learn to spell words with multiple morphological units.

Possible definitions and subsequent incidence of circumscribed reading and spelling disorders--theoretical considerations and empirical findings in a representative sample of young adults

With reference to an epidemiological sample of adolescents and young adults the impact of different models on the number of children classified as having specific reading and spelling problems is investigated. Using the same set of data, the effects of alternative measurement models, definitions and methodological procedures on the prevalence of specific spelling problems are shown. The virtual consequences of various norm-oriented definitions of cases are discussed with reference to external empirical criteria. In the present study case definitions of specific spelling retardation based on substantial criteria result in prevalence rates between six and nine percent.

Differences in learning to spell: Relationships between cognitive profiles and learning responses to teaching methods

AbstractThis research investigated the impact of linking teaching approaches to cognitive profiles in two children with poorly developed literacy skills but with differing patterns of cognitive deficit. One child presented average ability levels but specific deficits in spelling and poor scores on tasks related to motor skills. The second child showed more wide ranging deficits and below average ability. Both children were taught spellings via six teaching programmes over a period of 15 months. Improvements indicated that the child with specific spelling deficits benefited greatly from teaching programmes that built upon visual/phonological strengths compared to areas of weaker motor skills. The child with low attainment levels in all areas except motor skills presented little evidence of learning with any method of instruction. The results are interpreted in terms of current theories of literacy development and disability. They indicate the need to consider effective individual strategies for learning beyond the application of one favoured teaching strategy, and how profiling strengths and weaknesses may inform strategy selection.

Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties: A specific disability in regular orthographies.

Two large studies identified substantial numbers of German-speaking children (Grade 3) with marked dissociations between reading and spelling difficulties. These dissociations were expected because German exhibits high regularity in the direction of graphemes to phonemes (forward regularity) but not in the direction of phonemes to graphemes (backward regularity). High forward regularity allows reliance on phonological processing in reading (even in advanced fluent reading), whereas low backward regularity requires reliance on orthographic memory representations in spelling. Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties was associated only with a naming speed deficit—assessed at school entrance— but not with phonological memory or phonological awareness deficits. In contrast, a specific spelling deficit was preceded by phonological deficits. In orthographies with regular grapheme–phoneme relations, difficulties in learning to read take another form than they do in English. In English, the typical problem of children who are dyslexic is to read correctly unfamiliar words, whereas in more regular orthographies, the typical problem is to read fluently. To illustrate, in Landerl, Wimmer, and Frith’s (1997) comparative study, a majority of the 11-year-old English children who were dyslexic had a problem with the word character. Some children refused to read it and others produced misreadings ranging from chancelor and calendar to nonwords such as tshraekter. In contrast, the German children who were dyslexic for the close to identical word Charakter produced few misreadings (all nonwords), but their reading time was between 2 and 3 times higher than that of their peers who read normally. The massive reading fluency impairment of German children who were dyslexic in the context of relatively few errors (even under speed instruction) has been obtained in several studies (Klicpera & Schabmann, 1993;

The issues involved in developing a spelling program for adults with dyslexia

The focus of this paper will be the issues involved in developing a spelling program for an adult with dyslexia. Thus a review of research and identification of the implications of such research will be undertaken. It is appropriate to address spelling because it is poor spelling rather than poor reading which remains a weakness for the dyslexic adult (Singleton, 1991). Spelling is also perceived as being more difficult (Miles 1993). Yet another value in teaching specific spelling skills to dyslexic learners is that some research suggests that spelling training given in conjunction with phonological awareness training facilitates reading development at a faster rate (Ehri, 1989). No attempt will be made to develop specific teaching strategies orto evaluate specific methods for the teaching of dyslexic learners, although reference may be made to either or both of these aspects.

Antisocial behaviour and spelling disability in a population sample of 13 year old twins.

The aetiology of the co-morbidity of specific spelling retardation and antisocial behaviour was investigated in a general population sample of 213 pairs of 13 year old same-sex twins. The rate of co-morbidity was 2.45 greater than that expected by chance. Using multiple regression it was shown that the heritability (hg2) of spelling disability was high whilst that for antisocial behaviour was not significant. A bivariate hg2 analysis showed that the co-morbidity was not due to common genetic factors. The data were not consistent with either one condition leading to the other nor with each resulting from a common origin linked with hyperactivity. The co-morbid children resembled the children with antisocial behaviour alone on family and social characteristics and the heritability of spelling disability is as high when co-morbid with antisocial behaviour as it is when occurring alone. It is concluded that co-morbidity arises by the genetic factors leading to spelling disability being associated with environmental factors leading to antisocial behaviour. The mechanisms are discussed whereby fathers genetically predisposed to spelling disability might create an adverse environment leading in some cases to antisocial behaviour in their children.

A developmental study of specific spelling disability

Previous studies have identified a group of individuals with specific problems in spelling, and compared them to a group with problems in reading and spelling. Those who are poor at reading and spelling are thought to have more severe underlying language problems. This study compared the cognitive abilities of three groups of children: one specifically spelling disabled, one spelling and reading disabled, and one control group without reading or spelling problems. The groups were identified at age 14. A five-year retrospective analysis of their performance revealed that both of the disabled groups had been significantly poorer than the controls, not only in spelling but also in reading. Both the disabled groups showed other signs often associated with dyslexia such as poor WISC-R Coding and Digit Span. Analyses of their spelling errors did not reveal the superior phonetic abilities which some other studies have found to differentiate specifically spelling disabled from reading + spelling disabled groups. The specific spelling disabled group did show some evidence of superiority in Verbal IQ subtests. These results are consistent with the idea that specific spelling disability is a residual problem of individuals who, possibly by means of underlying verbal strengths, have managed to compensate for earlier reading difficulties.

Techniques for Identifying a Group with Spelling Difficulties in the Absence of Reading Difficulties

This article describes the application of various techniques for identifying individuals with specific spelling difficulties to a group of schoolchildren at two points in time. Comparisons are made between the number and characteristics of children identified by each method. The difficulties of distinguishing a subgroup with specific spelling difficulties are discussed, and the implications of methodological differences between techniques are considered.

Factors associated with reading-plus-spelling retardation and specific spelling retardation.

Factors associated with reading-plus-spelling retardation and specific spelling retardation were investigated in a large sample of Dunedin children who were studied longitudinally between the ages of three and 11 years. Those with reading-plus-spelling retardation showed poor performance on WISC-R Verbal subtests relative to non-retarded children, but superior performance on Picture Completion and Object Assembly subtests. The group with reading-plus-spelling retardation also had poor speech articulation but no significant language, motor or neurological dysfunction. Their educational attainment in reading, writing and mathematics was consistently poor. Specific spelling retardation was associated with deficits on WISC-R Arithmetic and Coding subtests, teacher ratings of low attentiveness and poor achievement in writing and mathematics. No language, motor or neurological deficits were apparent in this group.

The Relationship between Conceptual Learning and Curricular Achievement

The relationship between performance on concept attainment tasks and information processing tasks and performance on selected curricular achievement tests was examined through factor analytic procedures. Results indicated that information processing of exemplar information and concept attainment of exemplar information are highly related to curricular factors. Other specific information processing factors, namely science and spelling, were only moderately related to curricular achievement. From these relationships, it seems likely that there is a high relationship between exemplar information processing and concept attainment of exemplar information with curricular factors generally and that more liberal generalizations of research results from tightly controlled experimental settings to conventional learning situations seem justified.