"Bremer Rechtschreibforscher*innen": Gesamtbericht über Intention, Ablauf und Ergebnisse der Erprobung 2017/2018

Abstract

Spelling conversations are a format of work in which students regularly reflect together on the spelling of complex words. In these conversations it should be clarified step by step why the word in question has to be written like this and not differently in orthography.
In the course of the current evaluation of these spelling conversations in our project in Bremen (cf. Brinkmann/Brügelmann 2018), almost 600 children in 34 third grade classes took part in one to three such conversations per week over half a school year. A poster with (thumb)rules for spelling was used to clarify and explain common spellings. Before and after the project phase, the children's spelling performance was measured with the Hamburg Writing Test for Third Grades (HSP3), whose standard sample served as a virtual comparison group.
A summary of the most important results:
- With a jump from an average of 160 to 171 of 191 correct graphemes between autumn 2017 and spring 2018, the classes improved far above average compared to the HSP3 standard sample:
- The average increase in correct graphemic of + 6 percentage points and an effect size of 1.1 means a twice as high learning gain of the experimental group compared to a group of the HSP3 standardization sample comparable in orthographic comptence at the beginning.
- Especially children in the lower performance ranges profited from the spelling conversations: Within six months, this group made progress that would normally only have been expected after more than one school year, given this low starting level.
Other more complex support programmes, which (a) were used in addition to class lessons, (b) with more time and (c) in smaller groups, generally do not achieve a higher increase.