The purpose of this study was to compare two methods of spelling instruction, the test-study method and study-test method, with the spelling achievement of selected fourth grade students. The effects of gender and spelling ability level on the spelling method were also studied. The participants were 80 fourth grade students from four intact classrooms in two elementary schools in a small suburban midwestern school district.Third grade standardized test scores were collected from students' permanent record cards and used for grouping students into spelling ability levels. A Spelling Criterion-Referenced Test was used as a pretest (covariate) and a posttest (dependent variable). An analysis of covariance was used to test three null hypotheses at the .05 level of significance. The three null hypotheses were not rejected. The following results were suggested:1. Both fourth grade boys and girls achieve equally well in spelling whether they use the test-study method or the study-test method of spelling instruction.2. Fourth grade students achieve equally well in spelling whether they use the test-study method or the study-test method of spelling instruction.3. Fourth grade girls and boys achieve equally well in spelling.Teachers should consider integrating spelling into all areas of the language arts by supplementing the spelling textbook with words the children are using in their writing. / Department of Elementary Education

A central concern of education internationally and in South Africa is to develop children's literacy skill. However a literacy crisis exists in spite of efforts to counter this. Some researchers have explored the issue of literacy focusing on second language learners‟ spelling in English as Additional Language. There is, however, insufficient literature that looks into spelling experiences of isiXhosa background learners in English First Additional Language. Hence this study investigated the nature of spelling errors of Grade three isiXhosa background learners in English First Additional Language. In understanding the nature of spelling errors of Grade three isiXhosa background learners, the features of words that learners find difficult to spell and the features of words that learners find easy to spell were investigated. Moreover, learners' barriers in acquiring spelling skills in English First Additional Language and teacher practices for teaching spelling were examined. In exploring these issues the study adopted a qualitative approach in order to ensure reliability and validity of the study. The data gathering process was in the form of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and document analysis. One isiXhosa medium primary school in a Black Township in Buffalo City Municipality in the East London District was purposively selected to form the context of the study. In this school English is taught as a subject in grade three. Participants were eight grade three learners and one Grade three class teacher who teaches these learners. The findings of the study revealed that learners with an isiXhosa background seemed to be struggling with understanding basic English words and terms. This is exacerbated by the fact that the learners seemed to struggle to understand the rules of the English language. The words that learners find difficulties in to spell in English Second Language were diagraphs. Barriers to spelling were influenced, among other issues, by learners' pronunciation and their heavy reliance on their mother tongue.

The present study was designed to examine differences between subtypes of readers and spellers in their performance on several phonological, orthographic, and memory tasks. A central question involved whether subtypes of readers and spellers could be distinguished based on their performance across the tasks administered. Based on their performance on a standardized achievement test, fourth and fifth grade children (N=50) were classified as having no difficulties with reading and spelling (good readers and spellers), difficulties with spelling, but not reading (mixed readers and spellers), or difficulties with both reading and spelling (poor readers and spellers). Each student was given a series of tasks to assess their use of phonological and orthographic information for memory and spelling. These tasks included: 1) rhyme judgment, 2) cued recall, 3) reading pronounceable pseudowords, 4) deciding which of. two pseudowords looks most like a real word, and 5) reporting on the kinds of strategies used to spell words. An error analysis was also conducted. Students with reading and spelling difficulties performed consistently lower than good and mixed readers and spellers on tasks assessing their use of phonological information. Good and mixed readers and spellers were not distinguishable on these tasks. Students with no reading and spelling difficulties or with spelling difficulties only performed better than poor readers and spellers on some tasks assessing orthographic processing. Specifically, mixed readers and spellers were distinguishable from good readers and spellers by their poorer recall of visually similar words. Good and poor subtypes were not distinguishable on this task. Poor readers and spellers also achieved comparable scores to the good and mixed readers and spellers on a measure of orthographic awareness. Overall results provided evidence supporting subtypes of reading and spelling ability groups. Students with no reading and spelling difficulties, or difficulties with spelling but not reading were similar in their use of phonological information. However, students with reading and spelling difficulties were more similar to the good readers and spellers in their use of orthographic information in memory. The findings from the present study have implications to subsequent research examining spelling ability, provide further evidence of the unique processing characteristics of the paradoxical good reader but poor speller, and suggest the possibility of unique programming needs to remediate spelling difficulties in mixed and poor readers and spellers. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

No description available.

"This study was designed to explore the possibilities of sleep instruction in spelling and to determine approximately seven weeks later the amount of recall which could be attributed to the sleep instruction. It is presented primarily as an attempt to develop methodology which might be useful for larger and more complex studies"--Introduction. / "June 6, 1953." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Ralph L. Witherspoon, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-42).

published_or_final_version / abstract / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Literacy development, particularly spelling development is an important topic in SLA because spelling ability is the foundation of literacy skills (Venezky, 1989). However, little is known about the development of spelling in ESL. Research on the development of spelling skills has focused on native English language. This study investigated English L2 spellings among Korean L1 learners of English on the basis of linguistic differences in their L1 and L2 phonology and orthography. Two groups of 3rd graders, Korean L1 English learners (N=36) and native English speakers (N=30), performed a pseudoword spelling task, in which they listened to an audio recording of a total of 34 pseudowords and dictated what they heard. The task material targeting phonological difference consists of two types of pseudowords: the consonants that exist in both English and in Korean (congruent type) and the consonants that do not exist in Korean but exist English (incongruent type). The task material targeting orthographic difference consists of two types of pseudowords: more consistent vowels and less consistent vowels. Data were tested with an experiment with a 2 x 2 factorial design with “group” and “word type” as independent variables. The groups included two groups who are from contrasting L1 backgrounds: English and Korean. For phonological difference, word type included two contrasting types: congruent and incongruent. For orthographic difference, word type included two contrasting types: more consistent and less consistent. The results support the prediction that Korean L1 learners of English would have difficulty in spelling pseudowords containing phonemes which do not exist in Korean but are present in English phonology and that learners whose L1 is relatively transparent had difficulty in spelling L2 words whose grapheme phoneme correspondence is less transparent. Further analysis on error types and pedagogical implications regarding English L2 spellings are addressed. / Department of English

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-50). / ix, 71 leaves, bound 29 cm

The research in this project shows that spelling needs to be taught through patterns, rhymes and the use of analogies. Weekly spelling tests are effective to assess spelling patterns, instead of useing a pre-determined collection of random words. Additionally, spelling needs to be taught within writing, not as a completely separate subject.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy