Purpose: Research over the past several decades has revealed that spelling is a complex linguistic process. The purpose of this study was to investigate the spelling abilities of first grade children using an analysis tool that documented the linguistic knowledge evident in their spellings. A second purpose was to determine the relation of their spelling abilities to their reading skills. Method: This study examined spelling development and its relation to reading skills in eighty-seven typically developing first grade children (M=6:6). Across three time points during the fall, winter, and spring of first grade, a spelling dictation tasks were administered and the spelling samples were scored using the Spelling Sensitivity Scoring (SSS) procedure. Additionally the Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test- Revised (WRMT-R; Woodcock, 1987) were administered as measures of reading ability during the Winter and Spring of first grade. Results: The SSS scores revealed general increases in the use of linguistic knowledge resources to spell, from little to no representation of the phonological structure of words to the consistent representation of phonological structure and an emerging knowledge of orthographic patterns. Results of this study indicated that the SSS word scores increased significantly across time and were moderately to strongly correlated with the WRMT-R scores both concurrently and at future times. Across concurrent measures, the Word Identification task most strongly correlated with the SSS word scores followed by the Passage Comprehension and the Word Attack tasks. The SSS word scores were also moderately to strongly related to future reading abilities. Stronger associations were noted between Winter SSS scores and Spring reading scores. Conclusion: The strong associations of spelling and reading abilities in this study provide further support of the shared underlying linguistic resources necessary for word-level spelling and reading. Implications of these findings are discussed. / A Thesis submitted to the School of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2010. / April 19, 2010. / Reading, Multilinguistic Theories, Spelling, Spelling Analysis / Includes bibliographical references. / Kenn Apel, Professor Directing Thesis; Shurita Thomas-Tate, Committee Member; Lisa A. Scott, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_182719 |
| Contributors | Campbell, Kelli (authoraut), Apel, Kenn (professor directing thesis), Thomas-Tate, Shurita (committee member), Scott, Lisa A. (committee member), School of Library and Information Studies (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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