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A Study of Developing Orthographic Concepts Among First Graders
... Current understandings of a developmental course in spelling skills are informed by what has been called the Rosetta Stone of spelling research (Templeton, 1992) -the seminal work by Charles Read (1971). Over time, Read's findings have been replicated, refined, and embellished (e.g., Beers & Henderson, 1977;Ganske, 1999;Gentry & Henderson, 1978;Read, 1971Read, & 1975Treiman, 1993). Read observed that although individual children take somewhat different routes to becoming literate adults, they nevertheless pass predictable and recognizable landmarks along their journeys, sometimes called phases or stages. ...
... When attempting to spell the two words, young children are apt to use different letters at the end of the two words, demonstrating their primary focus on spelling as an act of 1:1 phonetic transcription. Similarly, children in the early stages of encoding regularly have understandable difficulty spelling words whose oral production includes no discernable vowel sound, such as in the case in the words girl and hurt (e.g., Beer & Henderson, 1977;Gentry & Henderson, 1978;Ganske, 2013). ...
... Items selected for the feature inventories were chosen on the basis of prior research which has described predictable stages of spelling development through which learners pass as they progress toward more conventional spellings (e.g. Read, 1971;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Henderson & Templeton, 1986 The formal DSA protocol assumes that once a student's stage of development has been established based on the DSA stage inventory, a follow up 25-item feature inventory will also be administered. Each of five features characteristic of each stage of development were tested by five different items to allow generous opportunity for chance errors. ...
This study investigated first and second grade teachers’ understanding of their students’ skill in spelling words of varying difficulty. Specifically, teachers judged their students’ item- by-item performance on a twelve-item spelling test adapted from a commercially available developmental spelling inventory. Results showed that teachers’ judgments were accurate 77% of the time, a figure similar to accuracy levels reported in previous teacher judgment research in the area of literacy. The study also included an error analysis task that was designed to assess teachers’ knowledge of developmental spelling. Results revealed a significant relationship (r = .42) between teacher judgment accuracy and performance on the error analysis task. That is, teachers whose error analyses reflected greater knowledge of developmental spelling were more accurate in judging their students spelling skills than teachers whose error analyses attended less to developmental spelling trends.
... Current understandings of a developmental course in spelling skills are informed by what has been called the Rosetta Stone of spelling research (Templeton, 1992) -the seminal work by Charles Read (1971). Over time, Read's findings have been replicated, refined, and embellished (e.g., Beers & Henderson, 1977;Ganske, 1999;Gentry & Henderson, 1978;Read, 1971Read, & 1975Treiman, 1993). Read observed that although individual children take somewhat different routes to becoming literate adults, they nevertheless pass predictable and recognizable landmarks along their journeys, sometimes called phases or stages. ...
... When attempting to spell the two words, young children are apt to use different letters at the end of the two words, demonstrating their primary focus on spelling as an act of 1:1 phonetic transcription. Similarly, children in the early stages of encoding regularly have understandable difficulty spelling words whose oral production includes no discernable vowel sound, such as in the case in the words girl and hurt (e.g., Beer & Henderson, 1977;Gentry & Henderson, 1978;Ganske, 2013). ...
... Items selected for the feature inventories were chosen on the basis of prior research which has described predictable stages of spelling development through which learners pass as they progress toward more conventional spellings (e.g. Read, 1971;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Henderson & Templeton, 1986 The formal DSA protocol assumes that once a student's stage of development has been established based on the DSA stage inventory, a follow up 25-item feature inventory will also be administered. Each of five features characteristic of each stage of development were tested by five different items to allow generous opportunity for chance errors. ...
This study investigated first and second grade teachers' understanding of their students' skill in spelling words of varying difficulty. Specifically, teachers judged their students' item-by-item performance on a twelve-item spelling test adapted from a commercially available developmental spelling inventory. Results showed that teachers' judgments were accurate 77% of the time, a figure similar to accuracy levels reported in previous teacher judgment research in the area of literacy. The study also included an error analysis task that was designed to assess teachers' knowledge of developmental spelling. Results revealed a significant relationship (r = .42) between teacher judgment accuracy and performance on the error analysis task. That is, teachers whose error analyses reflected greater knowledge of developmental spelling were more accurate in judging their students spelling skills than teachers whose error analyses attended less to developmental spelling trends.
... As a measure of performance-based word knowledge, spelling-or more specifically, invented spelling-is particularly appropriate. As Read (1971Read ( , 1975 and other investigators in invented spellings have noted (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Henderson & Beers, 1980), while young children are unable to explain the rationale behind their attempts to represent speech with letters, their spellings nevertheless reveal the sophistication of their analysis on a tacit level. Although the genesis of children's writing may be placed quite early in their development (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982;Harste, Burke, & Woodward, 1981), when the children begin to match letters with segments of sound, their tacit concept of wordness begins to emerge. ...
... The children were instructed to spell the words to the best of their abilities. Errors were scored based on the levels identified by Gentry (1978), and Beers and Henderson (1977); a rank of one through five corresponding to the developmental level evidenced by the spelling was given for each word (1 = deviant, 2 = prephonetic, 3 = phonetic, 4 = transitional, 5 = correct) and a total score computed. ...
Four tasks that measure performance- and reflective-based knowledge of the structural and significative features of words were administered to subjects at two different levels of cognitive functioning as determined by Piagetian assessment tasks. A priori tests of hypothesized relations within and between cognitive levels revealed no significant differences. Post hoc analyses revealed a significantly greater ability to identify whether or not aurally-presented phrases and words (nouns, verbs, functors) were in fact words than to discuss words metalinguistically. Results question a strict Piagetian cognitive-stage position which maintains that language performance must precede metalinguistic knowledge and support instead an interactionist position which holds that the two work in concert toward developing children’s concepts of "wordness."
... Scholars at the University of Virginia questioned Read's findings and undertook studies to build upon his research (see for example Beers, Beers & Grant, 1977;Beers & Henderson, 1977). Like Read, the Virginia-based researchers also utilised error analysis to study the invented spellings of children. ...
... An overview of the various stages, as defined by notable researchers in this area, is presented in Table 1. Table 2 summarises the specific characteristics of each developmental stage, which has been discerned by the author from the work of prominent researchers of the development stage theory of spelling (Bear & Templeton, 1998;Bear, Truex & Barone, 1989;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Bissex, 1980;Gentry, 1982Gentry, , 1987Gentry, , 1993Henderson, 1990;Henderson & Beers, 1980;Henderson & Templeton, 1986). Beers and Beers (1992) concisely summarise the findings that have resulted from the developmental stage theory research as follows: this research has led to several conclusions: (1) the spelling errors that children make as they write are not random errors, (2) there are indeed identifiable stages of orthographic awareness through which children pass as they become more proficient in their writing, and (3) children proceed through these stages at varying rates. ...
New theories continue to emerge to help us understand how children learn and how to effectively teach them. We must be mindful, however, of the value of previously developed and well-established theories. This paper presents findings from a study that investigated the consistency with which children perform within a given developmental stage of spelling. This study expands upon previous understanding of the developmental stage theory of spelling by examining children's spelling consistency across a broad range of spelling related activities (word lists, natural writing samples, editing activities and word sorting activities). The findings of this study indicate that children's orthographic knowledge aligns very consistently with their current stage of spelling development across a range of activities.
... Their errors made sense, based on their operating knowledge of the language. Similar to Read's observations, Beers and Henderson (1977) found logical error patterns that changed both systematically and longitudinally (Henderson, 1987). Bissex (1980) also found these patterns in her research. ...
... The majority of reported practices resemble the basal speller approach with common lists for entire classes, which seems to overlook individual differences. Although research related to the developmental differences in spelling knowledge (cf., Beers & Henderson, 1977;Read, 1971) has not affected the majority of teachers' instructional planning, many seem to be thinking about the instructional implications of such research. In the open-ended questions, some respondents were very concerned about meeting individual needs. ...
Information about current spelling instructional practices across the United States was sought in this national survey with a random sample of teachers of grades 1 through 5. Respondents reported current practices and noted their level of agreement or disagreement to theoretical statements about spelling. Teachers responded to open-ended statements regarding concerns and problems they encounter in teaching spelling. The results suggest teachers rely on a traditional model for instruction. They are aware of more recent research on developmentally appropriate practice but do not necessarily implement those ideas. Implications from this study include provision for professional development, examination of purchased materials in relation to theories of appropriate individual instruction, and support for teachers who want to change instruction to match their beliefs.
... Missing from these discussions of the unnatural nature of reading is research describing the connection between learning to read and the ways in which learners become involved in experiences with print and other symbolic representations prior to schooling (e.g., by engaging with representations, objects, gestures, and other forms of communication; see Perry, 2023;Siegel, 2006). By facilitating the development of print awareness and an appreciation of different contexts, print conventions, genres, and other elements, early meaning making cues advance learning to read and write, including decoding skills (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Chomsky, 1979;Yaden & Templeton, 1986;Yaden, Rowe, & MacGillivray, 2000). Even less apparent in this research is any consideration of the extensive, multidisciplinary discussions of these issues, dating back some 75 years, across linguistics, psychology, sociolinguistics and behaviorism. ...
Rob Tierney and P David Pearson explore the validity of claims associated with the Science of Reading as they have appeared in social media, the popular press, and academic works. The book offers a comprehensive review of these claims—analyzing the evidence, reasoning, assumptions, and consequences associated with each claim—and closes with ideas for moving beyond the debates to greater consensus or accommodation of differences. It is downloadable as an open access pdf, or it can be read as an online e-book at https://literacyresearchcommons.org
... Developmental spelling continua have been derived from research examining types of errors that children make when writing dictated words and when communicating messages about topics of interest to them (Bear et al., 2016;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1978;Read, 1971). Descriptors of children's spelling at each stage (e.g., emergent spelling, letter name-alphabetic, within word pattern spelling, syllables and affixes spelling, and derivational relations spelling) reflect children's orthographic knowledge (Bear et al., 2016). ...
In this study, we offer a unique perspective of time spent in kindergarten and young children’s writing by presenting a multi-dimensional analysis of the writing of 72 children (5-years-old) living in northern communities in two Canadian provinces. We administered the Drawing, Writing, Talking Task (DWTT), a research-based classroom tool, in the fall and spring to children attending kindergarten in seven (six rural and one First Nations) schools. We assessed their writing in terms of their use of letters to write words, their spelling stage, and their intended content. Although the fall writing samples of children in their first year of kindergarten were significantly less developed than those of similar-aged children beginning their second year of kindergarten, by spring, the children’s writing was comparable. Our research adds to the literature on children’s learning and time spent in kindergarten by focusing on characteristics of young children’s writing, rather than test scores. Key words: writing assessment; early literacy; junior and senior kindergarten; Indigenous children’s literacy; rural children’s literacy Dans cette étude, nous offrons une perspective unique du temps passé à la maternelle et de l'écriture des jeunes enfants en présentant une analyse multidimensionnelle de l'écriture de 72 enfants âgés de 5 ans vivant dans des communautés nordiques de deux provinces canadiennes. Nous avons administré le Drawing, Writing, Talking Task (DWTT), un outil de classe basé sur la recherche, à l'automne et au printemps à des enfants fréquentant la maternelle dans sept écoles (six écoles rurales et une école des Premières nations). Nous avons évalué leur écriture en fonction de leur utilisation des lettres pour écrire des mots, de leur stade d'orthographe et du contenu visé. Bien que les échantillons d'écriture de l'automne des enfants en première année de maternelle étaient significativement moins développés que ceux d'enfants d'âge similaire commençant leur deuxième année de maternelle, au printemps, l'écriture des enfants était comparable. Notre recherche s'ajoute à la littérature sur l'apprentissage des enfants et le temps passé en maternelle en se concentrant sur les caractéristiques de l'écriture des jeunes enfants plutôt que sur les résultats des tests. Mots clés: évaluation de l'écriture; littératie précoce; maternelle et jardin d'enfants; littératie des enfants autochtones; littératie des enfants en milieu rural
... Seminal studies by Read (1971), Beers and Henderson (1977), and Treiman (1993) have shown that phonology, the study of speech sounds of a language, is a major factor in teaching students to spell. Additionally, one spells based upon the sounds they can hear in a word. ...
Teachers’ knowledge of literacy has gained considerable interest over the last three.decades, largely with a focus on the basic language constructs of phonological. awareness and phonics. Fewer studies, however, have focused on spelling. Given the. close relationship between reading and spelling and the necessity of an explicit. understanding of the phonological, orthographic, and morphological patterns of English. spelling in the science of teaching reading, the current study examines educators’. knowledge of English spelling. Specifically, this pilot investigation focuses on those. who are teaching the teachers—teacher educators from multiple institutions throughout. the United States, who completed a survey assessing their knowledge and. understanding of the phonological, orthographic, and morphological aspects of English. spelling. Moreover, the survey assessed the 85 teacher educators’ self-efficacy in. teaching spelling and their philosophical stance on spelling instruction. Findings. indicate that the teacher educators feel they were not prepared to teach spelling, although they believed that some of the pivotal characteristics of spelling (i.e., morphological awareness and alphabetic principle) are important in teaching spelling. Additionally, while teacher educators were able to determine some of the correct. spelling patterns, many spelling patterns posed problems for them. Lastly, teacher. educators overall lacked knowledge concerning spelling for diverse learners. Research. and practice implications for teacher education and preparation are discussed.
... The Virginia work explored and refined developmental phases of orthographic knowledge that Henderson labeled preliterate, letter name or alphabetic, within-word pattern, syllable juncture, and derivational constancy (Barnes, 1982;Bear, 1982;C. Beers, 1978; J. Beers, 1974;Beers & Henderson;Gentry, 1977;C. Gill, 1980;J. ...
... Spelling development research has shown that a student's understanding of the orthographic system develops in a predictable pattern (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1982;Henderson & Templeton, 1986;Invernizzi & Hayes, 2011). Ehri (1998a) identifies developmental phases that identify a reader's involvement with the alphabetic system as they learn to recognize words by sight. ...
This cross-sectional study measures decoding and fluent reading skills of a random sample of 250, first- through third-grade students attending a high-SES district that generally discouraged phonics instruction. Growth was compared between proficient and struggling readers with results showing the latter group significantly behind their higher attaining peers on all measures. When student attainment was compared to national norms, results revealed that students entering first-grade as high-attaining had declined to low-average by the end of third-grade, while the struggling reader group achieved at percentile levels in the upper teens. These outcomes suggest that without adequate phonics and fluency instruction, students lose the advantage provided their SES background to become average readers.
... Read's study uncovered a systematic, phonetic logic to preschoolers' categorizations of English speech sounds. His insights inspired other researchers to look for similar logic in students' spellings across time and grade levels (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1981). This led to the conclusion that children have an innate ability to learn a language, and they construct and use knowledge about letter-sound relationships. ...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Word Study approach on the development of spelling performance of Grade Five female students in the Sultanate of Oman. The sample of the study consisted of 66 grade five female students from a Governmental Basic Education school in South Al Batinah Governorate. They were divided into two groups: an experimental group who studied spelling using Word Study approach and a control group who studied spelling using the traditional basal approach. The results showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. The study puts forward some recommendations for future research and for teaching.
... Therefore, the theoretical base of the main objective (of the present study) is grounded on the work of Brown and Payne's (1994) five-stage model. Because of the complexity of the vocabulary learning process, a number of different models for vocabulary learning stages have been proposed by different researchers (e.g., Beers & Henderson, 1977;Templeton, 1983). Of these proposals, Brown and Payne's (1994) five-stage model is considered to offer the clearest (Skehan, 1998, p. 268). ...
This study is dedicated to the research of vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) employed by a group of Saudi Arabian learners in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context. The rationale for the study is to clarify a pronounced lack of research on the EFL context in Saudi Schools Abroad (SSA), and a dearth of prior research into VLSs in this context. In particular, this research intends to explore how do students at Saudi School Malaysia (SSM) employ VLSs in their actual learning process. Therefore, this study is conducted on cognitive theory of learning studies, the mental processes involved in the learning process. Moreover, this study conducted an analysis of studies dedicated to VLSs through secondary students at Saudi school in Malaysia based on previous research problems of models and theories. In addition, this study applied quantitative approach, and the questionnaire was conducted using 105 students. The results of this study revealed the percentage and frequency have further underscored this role and the significance of vocabulary learning in both students and teachers. Also, the results show that students at SSM have employed the five categories of VLSs at a medium level and almost at a close range.
... Therefore, the theoretical base of the main objective (of the present study) is grounded on the work of Brown and Payne's (1994) five-stage model. Because of the complexity of the vocabulary learning process, a number of different models for vocabulary learning stages have been proposed by different researchers (e.g., Beers & Henderson, 1977;Templeton, 1983). Of these proposals, Brown and Payne's (1994) five-stage model is considered to offer the clearest (Skehan, 1998, p. 268). ...
This study is dedicated to the research of vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) employed by a group of Saudi Arabian learners in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context. The rationale for the study is to clarify a pronounced lack of research on the EFL context in Saudi Schools Abroad (SSA), and a dearth of prior research into VLSs in this context. In particular, this research intends to explore how do students at Saudi School Malaysia (SSM) employ VLSs in their actual learning process. Therefore, this study is conducted on cognitive theory of learning studies, the mental processes involved in the learning process. Moreover, this study conducted an analysis of studies dedicated to VLSs through secondary students at Saudi school in Malaysia based on previous research problems of models and theories. In addition, this study applied quantitative approach, and the questionnaire was conducted using 105 students. The results of this study revealed the percentage and frequency have further underscored this role and the significance of vocabulary learning in both students and teachers. Also, the results show that students at SSM have employed the five categories of VLSs at a medium level and almost at a close range.
... 30). The work of Beers and Henderson (1977), Gentry (1978), Paul, (1976), and Zutell (1976) resulted in the identification of the developmental nature of invented spelling and the notion that children move through stages in their understanding. In the first stage the child is highly reliant on letter names while in the second stage the awareness of vowels deepens. ...
While Lexile metrics differentiate texts on a quantitative level, what is less understood by school personnel are ramifications for the proper development of the reading sub-skills that drive the successful reading of increasingly complex texts. We see too often that school and district leaders put a misplaced emphasis on achievement of distal outcomes such as state assessments as the improvement target for reading. While these measures have become the currency of K-12 education in the U.S., ignoring improvement in reading root causes will ensure these accountability targets show little improvement. We propose a framework based for growth in reading sub-skills that tracks text complexity development across grades to ensure students meet the necessary reading competencies to be adequately prepared for post-secondary reading.
... 5 Vgl. vor allemBeers/ Henderson 1977; Frith (1980);Gentry (1982) und im deutschen SprachraumKochan (1981);Eichler (1984);Günther (1984). S. zu Relativierungen der zunächst recht strikten Stufenmodelle u. a.Dehn (1990);Treiman (1993);Keuning/ Verhoeven (2008). ...
Ein kurzes Fazit vorweg: Es gibt heute zu viele Kinder, Jugendliche und Erwachsene, die nicht gut genug lesen und schreiben können, um private, berufliche und öffentliche schriftsprachliche Aufgaben erfolgreich zu bewälti-gen. Dieses Problem zeigt sich aber auch schon vor 70, 50, 30 Jahren, und zwar in etwa gleicher Größenordnung - allerdings in einer Gesellschaft, deren Alltag weniger stark durch schriftsprachliche Anforderungen bestimmt war, so dass es nicht so auffällig war.
... Encoding oral language requires the integration of several linguistic skills (Apel, 2011;Apel, Wolter & Masterson, 2006;Arndt & Foorman, 2010;Bahr et al., 2012;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Garcia, Abbott, & Berninger, 2010). Various models consider the contributions of these three linguistic skills along different timelines; all agree that no one linguistic skill is responsible for spelling. ...
Spelling ability is not static; rather, as children age, learning how to encode morphophonologically complex words in conventional ways is motivated by the increasingly complex demands imposed by academic experiences with morphologically complex words. Success requires ongoing integration of phonological (P), orthographic (O) and morphological (M) knowledge. However, current research on the development and assessment of spelling has not sufficiently accounted for the way word features and participant characteristics interact with students' POM knowledge in the spelling of derived words. This study used a linear mixed effects regression approach to provide new insights about how both word characteristics and students' linguistic knowledge affected the application of POM from grades 3-7 in the spelling of derived forms.
Spelling data (WIAT-II) were taken from a larger longitudinal study focused on reading development (Garcia et. al., 2010). Eleven words from the WIAT-II with derivational morphology (which included one inflected form with a derived homophone possibility) were analyzed first with the Phonological Orthographic Morphological Analysis of Spelling (POMAS; an unconstrained scoring system) in order to identify linguistic feature errors within misspellings. Next, misspellings were quantified with the POMplexity metric to evaluate the individual and combined influences of phonology (P), orthography (O), and morphology (M) to derivational misspellings over time.
A linear mixed effects regression approach evaluated the impact of item-level characteristics (derivational frequency and shifts), participant characteristics (rime, spelling choice and morphological awareness task scores), and time (grade level) on POMplexity scores. Results indicated item-level characteristics, participant characteristics and time significantly predicted variation in P, O, M, and total POMplexity scores. Frequency had a significant impact on scores, with high frequency words resulting in lower POMplexity scores than low frequency words and these effects were most obvious in grades 3 and 4. Slope differences between words suggested that low frequency misspellings resolve more rapidly than high frequency words.
Derivational shift was shown to have a significant interaction with time for O, M and Total scores, but not P scores. In all cases, the slopes for derived words with no shift improved more quickly than shift categories. Finally, performance on measures on the measures of linguistic skill correlated to improved scores for the related POMplexity code.
These results strongly suggest that the developmental course of learning to spell derivations is not a linear accumulation of POM knowledge, but instead is a recursive process with both general and word-specific knowledge affecting how an individual student produces a derivational spelling at any given point in time. Contributions of word characteristics, such as frequency and number/type of derivational shift, suggest that morphemic features challenge encoding; that is, increased complexity taxes the system's ability to represent both sound and meaning orthographically. Educational and clinical implications will be described.
... The beginning speller, in contrast, has a limited spelling vocabulary and does not have access to a wide variety of spelling skills. Research suggests that students in the primary grades progress through several stages in the development of spelling strategies (Beers, 1974;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1977). First, students tend to omit essential sound features of the word ( e.g., vowels). ...
... The beginning speller, in contrast, has a limited spelling vocabulary and does not have access to a wide variety of spelling skills. Research suggests that students in the primary grades progress through several stages in the development of spelling strategies (Beers, 1974;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1977). First, students tend to omit essential sound features of the word ( e.g., vowels). ...
... For nearly 50 years, researchers have observed that children's spelling develops in a predictable and consistent manner. Beginning with the work of Charles Read (1971Read ( , 1975 and Carol Chomsky (1971), and later Edmund Henderson (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Henderson & Beers, 1980;Henderson, Estes, & Stonecash, 1972), researchers found that students use the three layers of written language (sound, pattern, and meaning) to help them spell unknown words. Their spelling develops sequentially, generally starting with letter-sound correspondences and short vowel patterns in single-syllable words (e.g., pat, ten, and fit), moving to long vowel and other vowel patterns (e.g., cape, throat, fight, and chew), then applying and extending these understandings to words with two or more syllables, including the addition of prefixes and suffixes to base words (e.g., bedrock, carrying, pirate, and rewrite), and later, understanding the influence of word parts, or morphemes, including Greek and Latin roots (e.g., visit, vision, revise, and advisory). ...
Assessments of developmental spelling, also called spelling inventories, are commonly used to understand students’ orthographic knowledge (i.e., knowledge of how written words work) and to determine their stages of spelling and reading development. The information generated by these assessments is used to inform teachers’ grouping practices and instructional priorities. While relatively easy to administer, developmental spelling assessments can be time-consuming to score and are susceptible to human error in both the scoring and the interpretation of results. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an online version of a commonly used spelling inventory, making the assessment more efficient and accessible and the results more reliable for teachers and scholars alike. Implications for practice and directions for further research are discussed.
... In fact, spelling is a good test of the quality of representation'. The developmental phases of orthographic knowledge that are salient orthographic features that learners engage in during encoding and decoding processes are preliterate, letter name or alphabetic, within-word pattern, syllable juncture and derivational constancy (Beers & Henderson 1997;Schlagel 2007;Morris 1983Morris , 1993, as cited in Templeton & Morris 2000). Therefore, Templeton (1992b), as quoted in Templeton & Morris 2000), explains that if the learner is unable to commit to memory the full conventional orthographic representation of a word, then the manner in which the reader chooses to spell that same word will demonstrate the type of orthographic knowledge that he or she is using to perceptually process the word. ...
There is growing evidence of systematic underachievement of South African primary school learners in reading in English as the first additional language. There is a small but growing literature that provides insights, that is, causes, patterns and prevalence, into this phenomenon. Through a secondary analysis of a spelling component of a literacy test that was administered as an end-line assessment for a randomised control trial, this article provides new evidence for and insight into the patterns and prevalence of English language spelling errors made by Grade 4 second-language learners. The study specifically coded errors on four monosyllabic three-letter words for 2500 Grade 4 learners tested individually at the end of the second term in 2014. Three distinct linguistic error patterns were identified. The most frequent error patterns involved the incorrect use of the vowel grapheme, for example bed was spelled 'bad'. The second pattern related to common errors associated with the transfer of linguistic, orthographic patterns from the first language (isiZulu). The final pattern suggests that between 6% and 8% of learners were struggling to make the basic phoneme-grapheme connection. This pattern, however, would need to be confirmed with oral interviews. The implications of these error patterns are discussed.
... Long-term developmental sequences are demonstrated while children move from their own spelling system to the standard system (Richgels, 2001). They move on their way to more a standard system by broad-Eun Jeong Mun, et al. • Effect of Robot-Assisted PAT for RD ening and deepening their invented system (Beers & Henderson, 1977). Invented spelling is systematic even though it does not follow the same path as conventional spelling (Richgels, 2001). ...
Objectives: In order to teach spelling effectively to children with reading disabilities, they need to be taught to understand the phonological system. Phonological awareness training has been conducted using various methods and media; following current technological trends, robots have been introduced to aid this training. This research looks at the effectiveness of using robots to train children with reading disabilities in order to identify the robots' potential for improving spelling. Methods: Fourteen 6- to 8-year-old children with reading disabilities were divided into three groups: traditional phonological awareness training, robot-assisted phonological awareness training, and control groups. Phonological awareness tests and spelling tests were used in this study. It was conducted through pre- and post-tests for the three groups with an additional test in the middle of training for the experimental group. A maximum of 23 sessions for phonological awareness training were conducted biweekly and each session took about 30 minutes. Results: First, the results showed significant differences in the total number of correct responses for spelling among the three groups. Second, children with reading disabilities who were taught phonological awareness training showed significant differences across the test periods for the number of correct responses for words with phonological rules of invented spelling. Conclusion: This result suggests that intervention using a robot could be an effective intervention method for children with reading disabilities. In addition, the results showed that the more children with reading disabilities received phonological awareness training, the more invented spelling skills on words with phonological rules are improved. © 2017 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.
... His ideas about the size and length of words change over time to reflect his experiences with the writing system. In an alphabetic language such as English, children's early writing unfolds in a predictable developmental trajectory, with their marks progressing from scribbles and letter-like forms to invented and conventional spelling (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Clay, 1975;Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982;Hildreth, 1936;Invernizzi & Worthy, 1989;Puranik & Lonigan, 2011;Read, 1971). At first, children's writing reflects only their print knowledge, but as children integrate print knowledge with phonological awareness, their early invented spellings reflect both of these areas of early literacy. ...
In this article, the authors outline how writing during the preschool years is connected with the development of literacy and briefly discuss research on early writing development in children with language impairments. Next, the authors describe ways in which early writing can be assessed and facilitated both in therapeutic contexts and early childhood classrooms, including the collaborative role speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can play in providing early writing support for preschoolers.
... Mais cette compétence est suffisamment importante pour que les enseignants s'en servent pour assoir des compétences plus larges. C'est ce qui explique que de nombreux chercheurs - Beers & Henderson (1977), Gentry (1978), Paul (1976), Zutell (1977), etc. -aient intégré les activités pré-orthographiques dans des modèles développementaux plus larges. ...
... Multiple possible invented spellings for all target words are provided with SAIS-PBC, each with a score based on the number of essential phonemes represented in correct sequence and consistent with documented invented spelling strategies (not necessarily conventionally; e.g., letter-name strategy, sounds-in-letter-name strategy, nearness-of-articulation strategy) (Burns & Richgels, 1989;Beers & Henderson, 1977;Gentry, 1978;Read, 1971;Zutell, 1978). ...
... Marchbanks and Levin (1965) found that kindergarteners and first graders showed a consistent visual preference for the first letter in nonsense trigrams. Developmental spelling researchers (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Paul, 1976;Read, 1971) have repeatedly shown that young children progress from representing only the beginning consonant in a word to representing the beginning and ending consonants and finally to including the vowel element in their spelling attempts. And Lewkowicz (1980), in her review of phoneme segmentation training studies, noted that the one constant finding was that children found it easier to deal with the first sound in a word than with the medial or final sounds. ...
... These models are the most common and many assume that it takes several years for children to be able to appreciate the role of morphology in spelling. It is suggested that it is not until the final stage of spelling development that children can begin to use morphological rules to aid spelling (see Beers & Henderson, 1977;Ehri, 1997;Frith, 1985;Gentry, 2005). The children in our study could be described, after intervention, as being at the orthographic stage because they were demonstrating strategies beyond the alphabetic stage. ...
A novel intervention was developed to teach reading and spelling literacy to 5 to 7 year-old students using explicit instruction of morphology, etymology, phonology, and form rules. We examined the effects of the intervention compared to a phonics-based condition using a cross-over design with a baseline measure. One hundred and twenty children attending an English state funded primary school were randomly allocated either to a traditional phonics condition followed by the novel intervention, or to the novel intervention followed by the phonics condition. The novel intervention significantly improved the literacy skills of the children including both word reading and spelling compared with the phonics condition. We conclude that early teaching of English literacy should include instruction in morphology, etymology and rules about form in addition to traditional phonics. We suggest that the results of the study could inform future policy on the teaching of English literacy skills.
... Research focusing on monolingual English and Spanish-speaking children's emergent writing has hypothesized a progressive evolution of conceptualization in writing development (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Bissex, 1980;Ferreiro, 1986;Gentry, 1978;Pontecorvo & Zucchermaglio, 1988). Children's overall conception of the nature, use, and value of writing before formal instruction in school has been widely addressed (e.g., Ferreiro & Teberoski, 1982;Pontecorvo & Zucchermaglio, 1988;Read, 1971;Teale & Sulzby, 1986). ...
This article reports the results of a preliminary study that applied a randomized posttest-only design to evaluate the effectiveness of a literacy curriculum that incorporated explicit opportunities for Spanish-speaking Head Start preschool children (N = 76) to develop writing abilities in English. The study also addressed English language acquisition by providing instruction in the child's first language (Spanish) for learning new concepts while incorporating new vocabulary in English. The curriculum addressed print concepts, storytelling, and writing through motivating and creative activities as a means to develop early reading and writing skills. Its primary objective was to evaluate children's English writing at the end of a 10-week intervention. In addition, the study measured a possible interaction between treatment and initial language skills for children who participated in the treatment condition. Analyses of variance demonstrated that the treatment group had statistically significant gains compared with the control group in English and Spanish writing. In addition, there was a statistically significant relationship between children's initial vocabulary skills and treatment on English writing. Implications for practice are discussed.
... Current research on spelling suggests a sequence to spelling development. Although there are varying numbers of and labels for the stages (Beers & Henderson, 1977; Ehri, 1986; Henderson, 1990 ), the order in which orthographic knowledge is acquired remains the same. For this study, the five stages suggested by Henderson (1990) were used, as they were more specific than other variations, and there is a strong body of research that underlies his stages (Bear, 1982,Morris, 1993 Templeton, 1979; Templeton & Bear, 1992; Templeton & Scarborough-Franks, 1985; Zutell, 1979). ...
This case study explored verbal reflections of a competent fifth-grade speller as he performed word sorts, spelling lists, and creative writing activities. The student was asked to “think aloud” as he completed the three literacy activities, which represented three levels of applying orthographic knowledge. Videotapes, transcriptions, field notes, written work, and teacher interviews suggested eight categories of responses. The responses revealed two conclusions: (a) the accuracy or inaccuracy of the participant's statements were related to his level of spelling development, and (b) each literacy task appeared to have a predominant category of responses. These findings support previous research regarding the developmental acquisition of spelling knowledge and instruction at appropriate developmental levels.
This chapter reviews the broad scope of research investigating spelling, or orthographic, development from the perspectives of stage or phase theory and alternative theories. The implications for spelling assessment and instruction that derive from these perspectives are explored, including the degree to which phonological, pattern, and morphological knowledge interact over the course of development. Five stages or phases of spelling development are suggested: emergent, beginning, transitional, intermediate, and proficient. The centrality of orthographic knowledge throughout development both to writing and to reading is described. Findings are based primarily on English orthography, though implications from work in other alphabetic and non-alphabetic orthographies are briefly considered.
This study described the features of writing instruction in widely used kindergarten English Language Arts programs and examined their alignment with evidence-based, best-practice guidelines. Three popular curricula were selected for analyses: Reading Wonders, Journeys, and Reading Street. Our coding of teacher manuals focused on instructional provisions for composing, spelling, and handwriting in key instructional sections within each curriculum: (1) genre writing, (2) grammar, and (3) reading instruction. Lessons for coding were sampled from the beginning, middle, and end of each program, comprising 12 weeks of instruction. Results indicated that, although variable across curricula, there were several features of writing instruction that aligned with evidence-based guidelines. All curricula included daily writing lessons and activities, along with provisions for teaching the writing process and basic writing skills (i.e., sentence construction, spelling, handwriting). However, instruction in basic writing skills were often isolated and support for these skills was rarely embedded within the context of children’s own written compositions. In addition, children had relatively less opportunities to independently write their own compositions in genre writing compared to teacher modeling writing or using shared writing. Results of this study could inform efforts to revise or develop curricula to better facilitate the writing development of kindergartners.
Competing theories are quite common in education. In spelling research, two general perspectives have emerged over the years: stage theory and repertoire/alternative theories. Exploring these perspectives is important because teachers need to understand how spelling knowledge is critical for learning to read words and to write them. Stage theory suggests that learners follow a developmental progression that reflects the increasing complexity of the spelling system itself. Alternative theorists suggest that learners do not follow a linear progression but are able to understand much more information about the spelling system throughout their development. The author explores the debate between these two conceptions, identifying not only important differences but also where there is common ground. Implications for spelling, word analysis, and vocabulary instruction are provided.
Orthographic knowledge is information about the writing system stored in memory that children draw upon to read and write. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which kindergarten teachers use verbal scaffolds to support children’s development of orthographic knowledge during writing instruction. This case study of four teachers over four weeks in a suburban school district included observations, semi-structured interviews, and surveys. Findings indicated that teachers regularly used a wide range of scaffolding strategies during writing instruction; however, teachers tended to use more high-support than low-support scaffolds. Teachers employed scaffolds more often in the independent writing context. This study represents a first step in closely observing the verbal scaffolds kindergarten teachers use to build children’s orthographic knowledge during writing instruction.
In regard to language learning, whether it be in listening, speaking, reading or writing, children appear to be genuinely interested In meaning in their world. When it comes to a knowledge of words to be used in any of the processes mentioned, children are interested in their use, their meaning and in connecting new words with old words or ideas.
Numerous studies have investigated the development of children’s word knowledge up to year 4 or approximately age 10 (e.g. Read, 1971; Beers and Henderson, 1977; Zutell, 1979; Gentry, 1981). There are, however, only a few studies involving upper primary and secondary students. This paper looks at literature on children’s word knowledge (including spelling) development up to year 4 and beyond, and includes a table of researched and hypothesized stages in children’s development in orthographic awareness and in word knowledge. An outline of the author’s theory of children’s development in word knowledge is given.
Bear and Templeton address two broad questions in this article: What is our understanding of spelling development and how does this understanding fit within a broader model of literacy development? And what are the implications of the developmental model for spelling instruction and word study?.
Modern primary teachers must adapt literacy programmes and ensure efficient learning for all. They must also support children with language and literacy difficulties, children learning English as an additional language and possibly teach a modern foreign language. To do this effectively, they need to understand the applied linguistics research that underpins so many different areas of the language and literacy curriculum. This book illustrates the impact of applied linguistics on curriculum frameworks and pedagogy. It captures the range of applied linguistics knowledge that teachers need, and illustrates how this is framed and is used by policy makers, researchers, teacher educators and the other professions who work with teachers in schools. It considers how to effect professional development that works. It is essential reading for primary teachers but also for speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, learning support teachers and all those doing language or literacy research in the primary classroom.
Consistent with a social-interactive view of literacy development, this report describes a method, Talk, Write, and Read (TWR), that unites the three important and related language processes in its title. In one-on-one, adult-and-child interactions, TWR involves children in talk about a picture book, spelling of target words in the book, and rereading of the book. Examples are shared of preschool and kindergarten performances with From Far Away and Up Close, a picture book in wordless and with-text versions specially written for TWR. TWR yields information about children's vocabularies, invented spelling, word awareness, and finger-point reading. Instructional implications are addressed. All necessary materials for using From Far Away and Up Close are provided.
The errors of 72 disabled and 90 normal spellers were compared on the first through fourth levels of achievement using a featural system based on developmental spelling research. The mean age of the disabled subjects was two to three years higher on all levels (the differences were significant) but, of 24 error features on the four levels, F-tests showed that the groups differed only on Front Vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/), particularly the combination of in as in chin, with the normal group making more errors. Discriminant function analysis showed that the error features which significantly discriminated between the two groups at Level 1 were Consonant Digraphs, Affricates, and Front Vowels. On Level 2, the dominant variables contributing to the significant discriminant function were Front Vowels, consonant doubling and "e-drop" errors, and suffix errors. The normal group made more errors on all but the last. There were no significant differences on Levels 3 and 4. Discriminant analysis among the four levels for the normal group showed that the incidence of lower-level spelling features declined steadily as spelling achievement level increased. A similar trend but less significant variability was found among the disabled group levels. These results suggest that the strict phonetics-based instruction used with the disabled group contributes to their relative proficiency on the lower level spelling features but that the meaning, orthographic, and derivational conventions of more advanced spelling should be emphasized when designing instruction at achievement Level 2 and above.
This document summarizes the biannual Hanford sample projections for fiscal year 1997-2001. Sample projections are based on inputs submitted to Analytical Services covering Environmental Restoration, Tank Wastes Remediation Systems, Solid Wastes, Liquid Effluents, Spent Nuclear Fuels, Transition Projects, Site Monitoring, Industrial Hygiene, Analytical Services and miscellaneous Hanford support activities. In addition to this revision, details on Laboratory scale technology (development), Sample management, and Data management activities were requested. This information will be used by the Hanford Analytical Services program and the Sample Management Working Group to assure that laboratories and resources are available and effectively utilized to meet these documented needs.
Traditional spelling theory and practice are contrasted with the instructional implications derived from recent research in developmental spelling. After a brief historical explication of previous views of spelling, the nature of the developmental spelling continuum is described. Then, the common instructional concerns of word selection, yearly and weekly routines, and organizing to meet the needs of poor spellers are considered against the developmental backdrop. This paper hinges on the premise that the last fifteen years of spelling research have irrevocably set us on a new path in our understanding of spelling development. Consequently new understandings about instruction are not only timely, but necessary.
Much current thinking on children's acquisition of orthography views the learning process as a complex interaction between the linguistically sensitive, hypothesis generating child and the abstract, hierarchically organized system of English spelling. This paper reviews briefly the principles of order in the orthographic system and then reports a study which traces patterns of constancy and change in spelling errors as children's word knowledge advances across the elementary years. The author elicited errors from children in grades 1 through 6 by means of a series of spelling inventories constructed from graded word pools; words from the word pools were selected for the inventories on the basis of their likelihood to yield errors as suggested by prior empirical work or by featural analysis. The findings support the conclusions of previous researchers who point to an orderly stage-like progression of word knowledge at the lower grades. Analysis of errors across the grades reveals clear patterns of coherent change and underscores the persistent difficulty of certain features (such as consonant doubling) characteristic of English orthography. Further, the findings appear to justify previous descriptions of advanced stages of word knowledge designed to account for error-types evident in the upper grades
This article provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of misspellings in the writing of fluent Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners enrolled in a university-level Spanish course. The corpus consisted of a total of 21,322 words and 2492 misspellings, which were divided into four main categories and several subcategories. This paper details the misspelling patterns found in the data and argues that they should guide a pedagogical intervention designed specifically for these learners. These students demonstrated a good command of one-to-one grapho-phonemic relationships in Spanish, but also a need to develop knowledge of inconsistent grapho-phonemic relationships and written accent marks. For both consonants and vowels, interference from English spelling also occurred. This study, as the first of its kind, aims to begin filling the gap in the literature on spelling research in the SHL context in particular and to contribute to our understanding of spelling development in general.
This study investigates possible developmental trends in children's invented spelling (or spelling errors) in Chinese elementary schools. The entire study consists of two substudies, Study A and Study B. Study A analyzes over 7000 invented spellings collected from the writing samples of 1200 children. Study B analyzes 3995 invented spellings that were collected from the spelling tests of 300 children. These invented spellings are sorted initially according to emerging patterns according to the way the invented spellings deviate from standard spellings; they are then further subsumed into three general categories according to the linguistic principles of Chinese characters - phonologically based spelling errors, graphemic spelling errors, and semantic spelling errors. Qualitative analysis of the invented spellings of these three categories indicates that children's spelling errors are not random; rather they reflect the development of children's orthographic knowledge. Regression analysis for linear trend shows that a developmental trend in the use of spelling strategies exists: at the lower elementary level, phonological strategies predominate; as grade level advances, the use of graphemic and semantic strategies increases.
A team of first-grade teachers began to question their literacy/phonics program, which used a whole-class format for instruction. The teachers felt that teaching the whole class did not allow them to meet the diverse needs of all their students. One of the teachers introduced the rest of the team to developmental-spelling research (i.e., research on the development of spelling proficiency that builds on linguistic interpretations of students' unconventional spellings as they change over time) and, specifically, to an approach to phonics and spelling instruction called word study. By using developmental-spelling assessments, the teachers believed they could better meet their students' needs through differentiated word study in small groups. The new school year began with qualitative spelling assessments and subsequent grouping plans. Many issues arose quickly. When teachers placed their students along a developmental continuum of spelling features, they saw that many students could bypass earlier features that, according to assessment results, they had already learned. The idea of having a group of students skip over easier features made them anxious about meeting the Reading First criteria for systematic phonics instruction. In their previous whole-class teaching, everyone started in the same place and proceeded systematically through the curriculum. Now the teachers were uncertain about choosing different spelling features for different groups. They found themselves spending more time preparing when they were used to depending upon an already prepared program. Management issues associated with differentiated groupings proved to be challenging. They wondered how teachers could take developmental-spelling research and make it practical for the classroom.
This paper synthesizes the results of research from the fields of psycholinguistics and education into the nature of the process of acquisition of spelling skills, and provides insights into some cases of dysorthographia. The spelling problems of some children appear to have resulted from the early adoption of an unusual reading strategy. This strategy, and its attendant spelling disability, may have resulted when these children began the reading process in a state of phonological unreadiness. Specific suggestions for classroom instruction in reading and spelling are derived from the research. These techniques, if adopted, would prevent or alleviate the spelling disability of children who exhibit the symptoms described.
This study compared the writing products of first grade children who were taught to write using a structured writing approach with the writing products of first grade children taught to write using a holistic approach. The children in the structured writing program were given phonemic awareness and phonics training so they could spell words by sounds before involving them in holistic writing experiences. The children in the holistic program were involved in holistic writing from the start so they could discover the important elements of written language through their writing experiences. An analysis of children's writing revealed that children in the structured program (a) wrote more words, different words, difficult words, and composition units, (b) spelled more words and different words correctly, and (c) wrote better overall compositions than did their counterparts in the holistic program. It was concluded that these differences in writing were probably due to differences in students’ knowledge of the “alphabetic principle.”
The claim has been made that the approach to literacy teaching implicit within the National Literacy Strategy is based on evidence about good literacy teaching. A full and critical account of just what this evidence consists of is urgently needed. In this article I attempt a review (admittedly not comprehensive) of research into effective literacy teaching and highlight some areas of concern in what is currently being attempted.
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