Spelling Performance Of Children Research Articles

Contribution of orthographic knowledge to reading and spelling in Bosnian highly transparent orthography.

The link between orthographic processing skills and reading and spelling abilities has been demonstrated in different studies and languages. However, previous research has not fully clarified this relationship. We examined the relationship between orthographic knowledge and reading and spelling performance in children from the second to the fifth grade of elementary school. We included measures of orthographic knowledge in two scripts (Latin and Cyrillic) for the same language, at both the lexical and sublexical levels. Word-specific orthographic knowledge was assessed by presenting children with pairs of words in which one word followed the orthographic rules of the Bosnian language, while the other was spelled incorrectly. General orthographic knowledge was assessed with an orthographic word-likeness task, where children had to choose the correct pseudoword, which followed legal orthographic patterns, while the incorrect ones did not. Reading and spelling, phonological awareness, and working memory were also included in the research. In Latin, no relationship was found between reading and spelling and orthographic knowledge, independent of the measure of orthographic processing. In Cyrillic, spelling performance predicts progress in general orthographic knowledge. The results of the study suggest that orthographic knowledge does not contribute to reading and spelling between Grades 2 and 3. General orthographic knowledge was an independent predictor of spelling in Grades 4 and 5 for Cyrillic, the second script. The findings suggest that the development of orthographic knowledge should be considered in the context of the specific language, script, and orthography.

Continuous norming in learning progress monitoring-An example for a test in spelling from grade 2-4.

One of the main goals of the teacher and the school system as a whole is to close learning gaps and support children with difficulties in learning. The identification of those children as well as the monitoring of their progress in learning is crucial for this task. The derivation of comparative standards that can be applied well in practice is a relevant quality criterion in this context. Continuous normalization is particularly useful for progress monitoring tests that can be conducted at different points in time. Areas that were not available in the normalization sample are extrapolated, closing gaps in applicability due to discontinuity. In Germany, teachers participated in a state-funded research project to formatively measure their children's spelling performance in primary school. Data (N = 3000) from grade two to four were scaled, linked and translated into comparative values that can be used in classrooms independently from specific times. The tests meet the requirements of item response models and can be transferred well to continuous norms. However, we recommend using the 10th or 20th percentile as cut-off points for educational measures, as the 5th percentile is not discriminating enough.

Spelling predictors; investigating the role of phonological ability and rapid naming in a large cross-sectional British study

This study aimed to identify predictors of single word spelling performance in children using a novel test containing regular words, irregular words and pseudowords. We assessed reading ability, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatised naming (RAN) in children aged 4–12 years (N = 641). Mixed model analyses with hierarchical nested data were conducted with Year_group (Yr R to Yr 6) included as a factor, PA and RAN as predictors, and reading and letter-sound knowledge as covariates. For irregular word spelling, PA and RAN were significant predictors, but the associations were dependent upon the year the children attended. Interestingly, for regular words and pseudowords PA was not significantly related. For pseudowords, only RAN was a significant predictor and only in Yr 2. We argue that a better understanding of spelling development can be achieved using tools that distinguish between regular and irregular words and pseudowords, as different processes seem to be associated with the different types of letter string across the variable levels of spelling experience.

The contribution of individual differences in statistical learning to reading and spelling performance in children with and without dyslexia.

Using an individual differences approach in children with and without dyslexia, this study investigated the hypothesized relationship between statistical learning ability and literacy (reading and spelling) skills. We examined the clinical relevance of statistical learning (serial reaction time and visual statistical learning tasks) by controlling for potential confounds at the participant level (e.g., non‐verbal reasoning, attention and phonological skills including rapid automatized naming and phonological short‐term memory). A 100 Dutch‐speaking 8‐ to 11‐year‐old children with and without dyslexia participated (50 per group), see also van Witteloostuijn et al. (2019) for a study with the same participants. No evidence of a relationship between statistical learning and literacy skills is found above and beyond participant‐level variables. Suggestions from the literature that the link between statistical learning and literacy attainment, and therefore its clinical relevance, might be small and strongly influenced by methodological differences between studies are not contradicted by our findings.

Effects of Word Attributes on Kanji Spelling Performance in Children and Adolescents with Developmental Dyslexia

Effects of Word Attributes on Kanji Spelling Performance in Children and Adolescents with Developmental Dyslexia

The Effects of Script and Orthographic Complexity on the Handwriting and Spelling Performance of Children With Dyslexia

Handwriting and spelling problems are often associated in dyslexia. However, the nature of their association is still unclear, and most of the existing research in this area is on deep orthographies (mainly English). The extent to which findings are applicable across languages is uncertain. This article examines the effects of script (manuscript/cursive) and orthographic complexity (complex/simple spellings) on the word dictation and word-copying performance of a group of 24 Italian children with dyslexia and handwriting difficulties (DH group, aged 8–10). Their performance was compared with that of a chronologically age–matched group (CA) and a group of younger children matched to the DH group for their handwriting skills (HA: handwriting age group). Children performed two classical handwriting tasks: the alphabet task and a sentence-copy task, and dictation and copy tasks of orthographically complex words and orthographically simple words. Copying was performed in manuscript and cursive. The results show that although the DH group shows a significant deficit in graphomotor processes, orthographic complexity more than the visual-motor characteristics of the task (i.e., script) affects their performance in handwriting. An advantage for cursive script in DH children, but not in the other two groups, emerges from the study.

Staying rooted: Spelling performance in children with dyslexia

ABSTRACTSpelling is a key, and telling, component of children’s literacy development. An important aspect of spelling development lies in children’s sensitivity to morphological root constancy. This is the sensitivity to the fact that the spelling of roots typically remains constant across related words (e.g.,singinsingingandsinger). The present investigation examined the extent to which children with dyslexia and younger typically developing children are sensitive to this feature of the orthography. We did so with a spelling-level matched design (e.g., Bourassa & Treiman, 2008) and by further contrasting results with those for a sample of children of the same chronological age as the dyslexic group. Analyses revealed that the dyslexic children and their spelling-ability matched peers used the root constancy principle to a similar degree. However, neither group used this principle to its maximum extent; maximal use of root constancy did emerge for age matched peers. Overall, the findings support the idea that sensitivity to root constancy in children with dyslexia is characterized by delayed rather than atypical development.

From the Editors

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one –Baltasar Gracián This final issue of Topics in Language Disorders for 2018 addresses a critical foundational skill for writing proficiency—spelling. Issue editors Annemie Desoete and Christel Van Vreckem invited authors to address spelling development and skills in alphabetic orthographies that vary considerably in their transparency: (a) German—a moderately transparent orthography that is heavily inflected and preserves morphological information in word spellings; (b) Dutch—a somewhat more transparent orthography with some irregularities in word spellings; and (c) Italian—a highly transparent, or regular, orthography. The issue begins with Kargl and Landerl's (2018) large-scale descriptive study of German spelling skills in typically developing students across Grades 4–7. As expected, these older students performed quite well when spelling regular words that could be encoded by relying just on phonological knowledge, and both phonological spelling skill and morphological awareness performance predicted overall spelling accuracy. Perhaps, most importantly, morphological awareness uniquely contributed to predicting overall spelling accuracy beyond phonological spelling skill, highlighting the importance of morphological knowledge in German with its dense inflectional system and strong preservation of morphemic units in the orthography. Given the notable importance of morphological awareness in German, the authors describe a computer-aided spelling intervention called MORPHEUS that focuses on morpheme-level spelling and present related efficacy studies using the intervention program. Then, Van Vreckem and Desoete (2018) present data that show the differentiation of spelling skills in Dutch-speaking children in Grades 2–6 with and without dyslexia. Examining spelling performance in children with dyslexia is quite appropriate, given the fact that beginning of year word reading skill is robustly related to spelling achievement (e.g., Foorman et al., 2006), spelling abilities predict later reading success (Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002; Treiman, 1998), and, more generally, reading and spelling skills are reciprocally related (e.g., Conrad, 2008; Ehri, 2000). Van Vreckem and Desoete employ a unique spelling assessment to highlight phonological, orthographic (e.g., rule-based), morphological, etymological, and combined spelling skills. Their descriptive research portrays children with dyslexia in these grades to be generally 2 years behind their peers without dyslexia. Moreover, the younger children with dyslexia struggled even with basic phonologically derived spelling words, as well as the more demanding skills associated with the other Dutch spelling patterns. In addition, children with dyslexia struggled with spelling both real words and pseudowords, and the authors suggest the use of pseudowords in spelling assessment as a means of helping differentiate children with and without dyslexia. Finally, Arfé, Cona, and Merella (2018) present an intervention study to address the spelling problems of Italian children with dyslexia in Grades 2–4. Their experimental intervention modeled the implicit synchronized auditory–phonological and visual–orthographic mappings for spelling Italian words. What is perhaps most interesting in the line of work Arfé et al. are pursuing is that children with dyslexia can benefit from instruction that is not explicit in the traditional sense (i.e., context-sensitive spelling rules and phoneme–grapheme correspondences are not explained to students as part of instruction). Of course, the transparent nature of the Italian orthography may render such explicitness as relatively less important than when intervening on behalf of children with dyslexia in more opaque orthographies such as English. Nevertheless, the possibility of helping students implicitly recognize statistical regularities in the associations of sounds with letters through modeling those associations is exciting because English orthography is rather irregular, with hundreds of associations that cannot all be explicitly taught, and thus much spelling knowledge must be acquired through implicit means (e.g., Arciuli, 2018). We think this issue sheds light on the complexity of spelling skills across languages and language systems, and the particular spelling difficulties experienced by children with dyslexia. There are some key assumptions relayed in this set of articles that readers should consider in their own work with children. First, spelling proficiency relies on diverse knowledge sources and varied aspects of language, and these must be considered when evaluating spelling performance and progress and designing instruction. Second and relatedly, in languages in which morphological information is preserved in word spellings, morphological awareness and knowledge should be incorporated into the teaching milieu. Third, degree of orthographic transparency plays an important role in facilitating or hindering spelling development, but all alphabetic orthographies have some consistent phoneme-to-grapheme mappings that teachers and interventionists should reinforce. Finally, implicit and explicit learning processes are likely involved in spelling acquisition, so spelling instruction and intervention should probably reinforce both of these processes. —Nickola Wolf Nelson, PhD Editor-in-Chief —Gary A. Troia, PhD Associate Editor

Cognitive factors contributing to spelling performance in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.

Heavy prenatal alcohol exposure is associated with impaired school functioning. Spelling performance has not been comprehensively evaluated. We examined whether children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure demonstrate deficits in spelling and related abilities, including reading, and tested whether there are unique underlying mechanisms for observed deficits in this population. Ninety-six school-age children made up 2 groups: children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure (AE, n = 49) and control children (CON, n = 47). Children completed select subtests from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition and the NEPSY-II. Group differences and relations between spelling and theoretically related cognitive variables were evaluated using multivariate analysis of variance and Pearson correlations. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to assess contributions of group membership and cognitive variables to spelling performance. The specificity of these deficits and underlying mechanisms was tested by examining the relations between reading ability, group membership, and cognitive variables. Groups differed significantly on all variables. Group membership and phonological processing significantly contributed to spelling performance, whereas for reading, group membership and all cognitive variables contributed significantly. For both reading and spelling, group × working memory interactions revealed that working memory contributed independently only for alcohol-exposed children. Alcohol-exposed children demonstrated a unique pattern of spelling deficits. The relation of working memory to spelling and reading was specific to the AE group, suggesting that if prenatal alcohol exposure is known or suspected, working memory ability should be considered in the development and implementation of explicit instruction.

Multilayered word structure model for assessing spelling of Finnish children in shallow orthography

This study explores Finnish children's word‐level spelling by applying a linguistically based multilayered word structure model for assessing spelling performance. The model contributes to the analytical qualitative assessment approach in order to identify children's spelling performance for enhancing writing skills. The children (N = 105) participated in two dictation assessments at the end of their first and second grades. The results indicate that long consonants and consonant sequences are the most problematic structures in both the first and second grades. The less‐advanced spellers were significantly weaker than others also in coding the overall syllable number, heavy unstressed syllables and long vowels in the first grade. In the second grade, they still had more difficulties in spelling heavy unstressed syllables and long quantities of vowels and consonants. The multilayered word structure model seems to give more information about the quality of spelling than error‐based holistic analyses. The model is applicable for other shallow orthographies as well.

The role of stroke knowledge in reading and spelling in Chinese

The present study examined the types of orthographic knowledge that are important in learning to read and spell Chinese words in a 2‐year longitudinal study following 289 Hong Kong Chinese children from Grade 1 to Grade 2. Multiple regression results showed that radical knowledge significantly predicted children's word reading and spelling performance across the years. Stroke knowledge contributed both concurrently (Grade 1) and longitudinally (Grade 2) to children's spelling performance after controlling for rapid naming, phonological awareness, morphological awareness and radical knowledge. These findings support the significance of radical knowledge in Chinese reading and spelling and the specific role of stroke order knowledge in Chinese spelling. The findings have implications for the design of an effective curriculum for teaching children to spell Chinese characters.

Supplemental Material for Cognitive Factors Contributing to Spelling Performance in Children With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Supplemental Material for Cognitive Factors Contributing to Spelling Performance in Children With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Effectiveness of treatment approaches for children and adolescents with reading disabilities: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Children and adolescents with reading disabilities experience a significant impairment in the acquisition of reading and spelling skills. Given the emotional and academic consequences for children with persistent reading disorders, evidence-based interventions are critically needed. The present meta-analysis extracts the results of all available randomized controlled trials. The aims were to determine the effectiveness of different treatment approaches and the impact of various factors on the efficacy of interventions. The literature search for published randomized-controlled trials comprised an electronic search in the databases ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Cochrane, and an examination of bibliographical references. To check for unpublished trials, we searched the websites clinicaltrials.com and ProQuest, and contacted experts in the field. Twenty-two randomized controlled trials with a total of 49 comparisons of experimental and control groups could be included. The comparisons evaluated five reading fluency trainings, three phonemic awareness instructions, three reading comprehension trainings, 29 phonics instructions, three auditory trainings, two medical treatments, and four interventions with coloured overlays or lenses. One trial evaluated the effectiveness of sunflower therapy and another investigated the effectiveness of motor exercises. The results revealed that phonics instruction is not only the most frequently investigated treatment approach, but also the only approach whose efficacy on reading and spelling performance in children and adolescents with reading disabilities is statistically confirmed. The mean effect sizes of the remaining treatment approaches did not reach statistical significance. The present meta-analysis demonstrates that severe reading and spelling difficulties can be ameliorated with appropriate treatment. In order to be better able to provide evidence-based interventions to children and adolescent with reading disabilities, research should intensify the application of blinded randomized controlled trials.

Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: the case of consonant clusters

This paper investigates Spanish dyslexic spelling abilities: specifically, the influence of syllabic linguistic structure (simple vs consonant cluster) on children's spelling performance. Consonant clusters are phonologically complex structures, so it was anticipated that there would be lower spelling performance for these syllabic structures than in simple ones, because of the poor phonological processing of dyslexic children. The participants were 31 dyslexic children, 31 chronological age‐matched children and 31 reading level‐matched children. A dictation task with words and pseudowords (with and without consonant clusters) was used. Word lexical frequency was controlled. The results show that the spelling of consonant clusters presents difficulties for dyslexic spelling performance despite this structure being orthographically consistent. Dyslexic children present a higher performance difference in items with consonant clusters than in simple items, compared with typically developing children. The work raises questions about the items used for the identification of dyslexic children's difficulties.

Influence of L1 Orthography on Spelling English Words by Bilingual Children: A Natural Experiment Comparing Syllabic, Phonological, and Morphosyllabic First Languages

This study examined the influence of first language (L1) orthography on bilingual children's spelling performance in their second language (L2), English. The subtests of spelling and letter-word identification from the Woodcock Proficiency Battery were administered to a sample of 285 six-year-olds in Singapore. All children received literacy instruction in English through the “look-say” method. Analyses of covariance showed a statistically significant effect of L1 on conventional spelling but not on phonological spelling, controlling for reading proficiency. The Chinese (morphosyllabic) group not only scored higher than the Malay (alphabetic) and Tamil (syllabic) groups overall, but also made more real-word substitution and transposition errors. The results are discussed in terms of the influence of L1 orthographic depth on spelling, and how learning disability specialists can utilize the information while evaluating the spelling/literacy skills of English L2 learners.

Developmental changes in category-specific brain responses to numbers and letters in a working memory task

Neuroimaging studies have identified a common network of brain regions involving the prefrontal and parietal cortices across a variety of working memory (WM) tasks. However, previous studies have also reported category-specific dissociations of activation within this network. In this study, we investigated the development of category-specific activation in a WM task with digits, letters, and faces. Eight-year-old children and adults performed a 2-back WM task while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Overall, children were significantly slower and less accurate than adults on all three WM conditions (digits, letters, and faces); however, within each age group, behavioral performance across the three conditions was very similar. FMRI results revealed category-specific activation in adults but not children in the intraparietal sulcus for the digit condition. Likewise, during the letter condition, category-specific activation was observed in adults but not children in the left occipital–temporal cortex. In contrast, children and adults showed highly similar brain-activity patterns in the lateral fusiform gyri when solving the 2-back WM task with face stimuli. Our results suggest that 8-year-old children do not yet engage the typical brain regions that have been associated with abstract or semantic processing of numerical symbols and letters when these processes are task-irrelevant and the primary task is demanding. Nevertheless, brain activity in letter-responsive areas predicted children's spelling performance underscoring the relationship between abstract processing of letters and linguistic abilities. Lastly, behavioral performance on the WM task was predictive of math and language abilities highlighting the connection between WM and other cognitive abilities in development.

Spelling in Children With Dyslexia: Analyses From the Treiman-Bourassa Early Spelling Test

We examined the oral and written spelling performance on the Treiman-Bourassa Early Spelling Test (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000a) of 30 children with serious reading and spelling problems and 30 spelling-level-matched younger children who were progressing normally in learning to read and spell. The 2 groups' spellings were equivalent on a composite measure of phonological and orthographic sophistication, representation of the phonological skeleton of the items, and orthographic legality. The groups showed a similar advantage for words over nonwords on the phonological skeleton and orthographic legality measures. The children with dyslexia and the comparison children also showed an equivalent advantage for written over oral spelling on the composite and phonological skeleton measures. Further analyses revealed that children with dyslexia made many of the same linguistically based errors as typically developing children but also pointed to some subtle differences between the groups. Overall, the spelling performance of children with dyslexia appears to be quite similar to that of normally progressing younger children.

Speaking to read: The effects of speech recognition technology on the reading and spelling performance of children with learning disabilities

In recent literature on persons with learning disabilities (LD), speech recognition has been discussed primarily as an assistive technology to help compensate for writing difficulties. However, prior research by the authors has suggested that in addition to helping persons to compensate for poor writing skills, speech recognition also may enhance reading and spelling; that is, what was designed as assistive technology appears to serve remedial functions as well. The present study was conducted to determine whether elementary and secondary students with LD who used the technology to write self-selected compositions and class assignments would demonstrate improvements in reading and spelling. Thirty-nine students with LD (ages 9 to 18) participated. Nineteen participants used speech recognition 50 minutes a week for sixteen weeks, and twenty students in a control group received general computer instruction. Results indicated that the speech recognition group showed significantly more improvement than the control group in word recognition (p<.0001), spelling (p<.002) and reading comprehension (p<.01). Pre- and posttests on five reading-related cognitive processing measures (phonological, orthographic, semantic processing, metacognitive reading strategies, and working memory) indicated that for the experimental group, only phonological processing improved significantly over the treatment period when compared to controls (p<.04). Further ANCOVA suggested that growth in phonological processing was associated with significant differences among conditions for all three academic measures: word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension.

Neuropsychological aspects of reading and spelling performance in children with learning disabilities

For a sample of 1347 (1004 boys, and 343 girls) learning disabled children, scores on the Halstead‐Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (HRNB) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children‐Revised (WISC‐R) were regressed on both reading and spelling subtests of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT). The results showed 39% of reading and 33% of spelling variability was accounted for by neuropsychological functioning. Common neuropsychological predictors were found to be the most salient for both areas of achievement. Scores on neuropsychological measures were regressed on an index which conceptualized reading and spelling on a continuum. The results suggest that reading and spelling should be viewed as separate functions that share some common neuropsychological elements.

Strategic Keyboard Training and Spelling Improvement among Children with Learning Disabilities and Mental Retardation

The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of a strategic keyboard training program for improving the spelling performance of children with mild disabilities. The sample consisted of 36 mildly disabled students divided into two groups: 18 learning disabled students, and 18 educable mentally retarded students. The teachers used strategic procedures emphasising awareness of word structure and spelling strategies, combined with keyboard training, for a duration of three months (45‐minute sessions, twice weekly). The results demonstrated a significant decrease in spelling errors, as assessed through computer typing and handwriting. However, the comparisons between the group achievements of the learning disabled and mentally retarded children did not reveal significant differences in the development of the spelling performance. Analysis of the results, and of the four case‐studies, pin‐pointed attention onto the initial individual differences in the spelling performance, and onto the students’ i...