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H860 Reading Difficulties Week 10 Spelling and Writing Difficulties

H860 Reading Difficulties Week 10 Spelling and Writing Difficulties

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H860 Reading Difficulties

Week 10Spelling and Writing Difficulties

Today’s session

1. Intervention presentation2. Spelling3. Break4. Writing

Writing Instruction

• Learn to write – write to learn

• Basic skills: spelling, grammar, handwriting• Higher order skills: composition, planning,

revising etc.

Writing Instruction

• Learn to write – write to learn

• Basic skills: spelling, grammar, handwriting• Higher order skills: composition, planning,

revising etc.

Spelling

• Write down 3 reasons why spelling is harder than reading?

Spelling

Write down 3 reasons why spelling is harder than reading?

1. Requires access to more detailed lexical representations

2. Phoneme-grapheme correspondences are more ambiguous e.g. /f/ can be written either “f” or “ph” but these both have the same sound

3. More reliant on phoneme-grapheme correspondences – semantics will not help fill in the gaps

• Focus expands from syllable to phoneme• Classification of sounds come to match

orthography (tr/chr and dr/jr)• Sensitivity to common letter patterns

emerges• Morphemes are spelled consistently (ex. -

ed)• Spelling rules are followed

Development of Spelling:Changes associated with spelling skill

Some types of spelling errors

• Unconventional but legal (modelling, cote/coat)• “Mishearing” sounds • Pronunciation influence (pahty, jrive)• Omission of phoneme/morpheme (bush teeth)• Homonym (there, their)• Retrieval of related but incorrect word (how for who)• Misordering of letters to form undecodable word

(dgo for dog)• Other?

• Emergent Stage– Scribbles– Letter-like symbols– Random letters

• Letter Name - Alphabetic– Initial and final consonants– Short vowel– Affricates– Blends and Digraphs

• Within Word Pattern– Long vowels– R-controlled vowels– Complex consonants– Abstract vowels

Stages of Spelling Development

• Syllables and Affixes (Syllable Juncture)– Doubling and e-drop with –ed and –ing– Other doubling– Vowel patterns in the stressed and unstressed syllables– Base words and simple prefixes and suffixes

• Derivational Relations (Derivational Constancy)– Silent consonants– Consonant changes (sign – signal; music – musician)– Vowel changes (compete – competition, legality – legal)– Latin- and Greek-derived suffixes and roots– Assimilated prefixes (in: immortal, irresponsible, illiterate)

Stages of Spelling Development

Think…

• If you have phonological processing difficulties, how will this impact your spelling?

• If, 8 years later, your phonological processing has improved, what might your spelling profile look like?

• How is spelling instruction typically carried out in schools?

Help for spelling difficulties

Break

Writing warm-up

Writing is hard

• Writing is a multi-dimensional, integrative process involving simultaneous coordination of a variety of skills and types of knowledge within a particular social and physical context (Berninger, 1999; Graham & Harris, 2002; Hooper et al., 1994)

• In other words, students can struggle with writing because:– They lack or struggle with specific skills– They lack or have holes in types of knowledge (inc.

knowledge of writing and reading strategies; cultural mores)

– They have difficulty coordinating skills, knowledge, and strategies in real time (writing fluency)

…and lonely

• Decontextualized nature of writing task (Cameron, Hunt, & Linton, 1996; Cummins, 1994; DeTemple, Wu, & Snow, 1991; Snow, 1989).

• Cannot use prosody, body language, or facial expression. No immediate access to helpful listener comments, facial expressions, etc.

• Cannot assume a shared physical context with reader because texts travel through time and space.

• Potentially little information about readers’ knowledge, opinions, and potential reactions.

Scardamalia & Bereiter

“Perhaps writing is so demanding because it is a complex task that is best addressed as a problem-solving endeavor (that is, with a well-regulated application of strategies, subskills and appropriate knowledge) but is, in essence, a task in which no problem is given”

Scardamalia & Bereiter

• Novice writers: “knowledge tellers”

• Proceed towards goal in forward-acting manner

• Strategy: reduce the problems of writing• Main activity: generating topic and genre-

appropriate content

Compositions of writers with Literacy-Based LD… Generally Speaking

• Shorter and/or incomplete texts, poorly organized, weaker in overall quality

• Big problems with spelling and written conventions• Difficulties executing and self-regulating the writing

process• Socio-cognitive challenges (pragmatic skills, audience

awareness, etc.)• Low self-efficacy and motivation

(Troia, 2006)

Scardamalia & Bereiter

• Expert writers: “knowledge transforming”

• Writing itself can be a tool for understanding• Dialectical interplay between “what to say”

and “how to say it”• Risky: “create” problems (and thus

apprehension)• No split between content and composition

From novice to expert

• Free writing to reduce focus on basic skills?• Technology?• Teaching students to become problem-solvers

– how?

• What are the challenges in this process?

Neuroscience and Education

• This is an exciting time, many advances in neuroscience help us understand the structure of the brain and the ways that learning happens in the brain

• The link between neuroscience and education is crucial, but indirect as yet (including fMRI images!)

The Seduction of Brain Research

“The current gulf between neuroscience and education is being filled by packages and programmes claiming to be based on brain science. The speed with which such packages have gained widespread currency in schools is astonishing.”

(Goswami, 2006)

What is Seductive & Why Be Cautious

• Status of science/status of BRAIN

• Romance/WOW factor (imaging technologies) of seeing what has been invisible to us until recently

• Educational scapegoat/novel explanation for a child’s learning difficulties

There is a Middle Ground...

• Link educational practice with research cautiously

• Perhaps neuroscience to educational practice is “a bridge too far” but what about neuroscience informing educational research, which then can inform educational practice without too much of a leap

• New demand for a skilled translator between neuroscientists and educators

• Hopefully the bridge that is built will be a two-way bridge of communication between educators and neuroscientists

Positive Findings From Brain Research

How can it help us understand learning and learning difficulties?

•Plasticity

•Helps us to understand critical ages and developmental growth

•Learning which areas are active when certain tasks are carried out Example: Hippocampus/frontal lobes continue to develop through adolescence