Julie J. Masterson

The Spelling Sensitivity Score: Noting Developmental Changes in Spelling Knowledge

Spelling is a language skill supported by several linguistic knowledge sources, including phonemic, orthographic, and morphological knowledge. Typically, however, spelling assessment procedures do not capture the development and use of these linguistic knowledge sources. The purpose of this article is to describe a new assessment system, the Spelling Sensitivity Score (SSS), and then demonstrate initial evidence of its usefulness for detecting developmental changes in spelling knowledge. Two studies that examined spelling knowledge across an academic year in kindergarten, first-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students using the SSS and a traditional correct/incorrect scoring are reported. For all grades, the SSS system, unlike traditional scoring, was able to reveal specific increases in the children’s linguistic knowledge across time. Furthermore, for the kindergarten children, the SSS metric was more sensitive than traditional scoring for noting general and specific developmental changes across the year. Collectively, the SSS appears to be a viable tool for documenting changes in underlying linguistic knowledge that children apply to their spelling.

Learning to SpellImplications for Assessment and Intervention

Background information regarding spelling development and factors that influence spelling performance are presented. The use of this information in assessment and intervention activities with a student who had deficits in spelling is illustrated. After 6 weeks of treatment, the student showed improvements in both formal and informal measures of spelling performance. Implications for optimal assessment and intervention methods, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

Linking Characteristics Discovered in Spelling Assessment to Intervention Goals and Methods.

This article presents two approaches to determining the goals and methods of instruction in spelling. One approach is to administer a standardized test, document the students grade-level performance, present lists of words at that grade level to the student, and then test his or her performance each week. The other approach is prescriptive and tailored in both assessment and treatment methods. A sample of words at the appropriate developmental level is elicited, and the students spellings for each sound are scored to identify the orthographic patterns that are not mastered. Next, the misspellings are analyzed to determine a likely cause for each. Omissions are classified as problems in phonemic awareness, illegal misspellings as difficulties in orthographic knowledge, and legal misspellings as deficiencies in storing mental graphemic representations. Finally, problems with juncture modifications or affixes are considered deficits in morphological knowledge. A case study illustrating treatment ramifications of each assessment approach is presented.

Effect of modality on spelling words varying in linguistic demands.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which spelling accuracy is influenced by response modality. A spelling list consisting of 40 words that varied in linguistic complexity was administered to students in Grades 2 through 6. Each student completed three tasks: (a) a words-per-minute measure to determine keyboarding proficiency, (b) spelling a word list via handwriting, and (c) spelling a word list on a computer. Independent variables included response modality, linguistic complexity, and grade level. Dependent measures included the percent words spelled correctly. Keyboarding proficiency was included as a covariate. Modality rarely affected spelling accuracy, regardless of the linguistic complexity of the target words. These findings suggest that spelling knowledge draws on modality-free, lexical representations stored in long-term memory. Further, they suggest that computer-based instruments are a viable option for spelling assessment.

Phonemic awareness and early spelling skills in urban Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.

This study investigated the phonological awareness and early spelling skills of 10 Australian Aboriginal and 10 non-Aboriginal children in their first year of schooling at urban schools. Phonological awareness was assessed using a standardized test (the Queensland University Inventory of Literacy), and children completed a standard spelling task that required them to generate spelling attempts in response to 12 line drawings of familiar animals. Spelling was analysed using the Spelling Scoring Sensitivity procedure. All children performed within the normal range for scores on the QUIL. However, as a group, Aboriginal children performed more poorly than their non-Aboriginal peers. Statistically significant differences were found on the subtests non-word spelling, non-word reading, and phoneme segmentation. Both formal scoring and informal observations were used to examine the spelling skills of participants. Possible explanations of the differences between groups are discussed in terms of health and cultural factors, and implications for the education of Aboriginal children are suggested.

Not Using a Computer in Language Assessment/Intervention: In Defense of the Reluctant Clinician

Clinicians who are not yet making direct use of computer applications with their school-age clients may have good reasons. Factors that hinder the clinical use of computers by school clinicians inc...

Training Analogical Reasoning Skills in Children With Language Disorders

The benefit or effects of direct training of analogical reasoning was examined in school-aged children with language disorders. Analogy training was divided into two phases. The first phase consist...

Motoric versus contrastive approaches to phonology therapy: a case study

A child with two phonological errors was seen for four semesters of therapy. One phonological error, sibilant distortion, was determined to be primarily due to articulatory (motor) difficulties, whereas the other (/r/ simplification) was not. Simplification of /r/ responded well to a cognitive-linguistic treatment approach centred around the use of con trasts. In contrast, sibilant distortion required motoric-based treatment in order for consistent accuracy at the conversational level to occur. Possible explanations for the different responses to treatment are discussed, and clinical implications and directions for future research are suggested.

Lexical Analysis of Words on Commonly Used Standardized Spelling Assessments.

The purpose of this study was to examine the morphological characteristics (i.e., number of morphemes in each word, degree of transparency between a derived morpheme and its root word) and frequency data (i.e., the standard frequency index; SFI) of six commonly used standardized spelling assessments and their alternate forms (when available). Results indicate high variability among the assessments and their alternate forms on the use of multimorphemic transparent and opaque words. Variability based on the SFI index between tests and their alternate forms was relatively low. Findings are discussed in regard to providing researchers and practitioners with a deeper understanding diagnostically of the morphological and frequency requirements and complexities of these standardized spelling assessments.

The reliability of the time-sharing paradigm ☆

Abstract The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability of the time-sharing paradigm as a function of the age of the child and the concurrent speaking task employed. Subjects were 40 normal right-handed children, 10 at each of four age levels: 3, 5, 7, and 9. Each subject was presented with three concurrent speaking tasks, syllable repetition, sentence repetition, and story telling. There were control tapping and verbal conditions as well. The entire experimental procedure was administered two times within a 2-week interval. The principal finding of the study was that children were more likely to show the predicted asymmetry on the first administration of the paradigm than on the second one. The sentence repetition task was the one most likely to show the predicted asymmetry between hands, though children showed the most consistent performance on the syllable repetition task. Based on these findings, it was suggested that the time-sharing paradigm might not be particularly reliable in showing the predicted asymmetry in repeated administration of the same tasks with the same linguistic stimuli.