Title: Analysis - Arts & Sciences | Arts & Sciences J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2006). Spelling Evaluation for Language and Literacy- 2 (SPELL-2) [computer software]. Evanston, IL:

Title: Spelling Error Analysis

What Do Spelling Errors Tell Us About Language Knowledge

References & Related Readings:

Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Hart, P. (2004). Integration of language components in

spelling: Instruction that maximizes students’ learning. In E. R. Silliman and L. C.

Wilkinson (Eds.), Language and literacy learning in schools (pp. 292-315). New York:

Guilford Press.

Apel, K., & Masterson, J. J. (2001). Theory-guided spelling assessment and intervention.

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 32(3), 182-195.

Brambati SM, Termine C, Ruffino M, Stella G, Fazio F, Cappa SF, Perani D. (2004). Regional

reductions of gray matter volume in familial dyslexia. Neurology, 63:742–745.

Berninger, V., Abbott, R., Thomson, J., Wagner, R., Swanson, H. L., & Wijsman, E. (2006).

Modeling developmental phonological core deficits within a working-memory architecture

in children and adults with developmental dyslexia. Scientific

Studies in Reading, 10, 165–198.

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Zook, D., Ogier, S., Lemos-Britton, Z., Brooksher, R.

(1999). Early intervention for reading disailities: Teaching the alphabetic principle in a

connectionist framework. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32(6), 491-503.

Conrad, N. J. (2008). From reading to spelling and spelling to reading: Transfer goes both

ways. Journal of Educational Psychology, 4, 869–878.

Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read. New York,

NY: Penguin Books.

Ehri, L. (2000). Learning to Read and Learning To Spell: Two Sides of a Coin. Topics in

Language Disorders.

Ehri, L. (2014). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling

Memory, and Vocabulary Learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18:5–21.

Finn, E., Shen, X., Holahan, J., Scheinost, D., Lacadie, C., Papademetris, X., Shaywitz, S.,

Shaywitz, B. and Constable , R. (2014). Disruption of Functional Networks in Dyslexia: A

Whole-Brain, Data-Driven Analysis of Connectivity. Biological Psychiatry, Volume 76,

Issue 5.

Kelman, M., & Apel, K. (2004). The effects of a multiple linguistic, prescriptive approach to

spelling instruction: A case study. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 25(2), 56-66.

Masterson, J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2006). Spelling Evaluation for Language and

Literacy- 2 (SPELL-2) [computer software]. Evanston, IL: Learning by Design

Masterson, J. & Apel, K. (2000). Spelling assessment: Charting a path to optimal

instruction. Topics in Language Disorders, 20(3), 50-65.

Roberts, T., & Meiring, A. (2006). Teaching phonics in the context of children’s literature or

spelling: Influences on first-grade reading, spelling, and writing and fifth-grade

comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(4), 690-713.

Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming dyslexia: A new and complete science-based program for

reading problems at any level. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Shaywitz, S., Shaywitz, B., Fulbright, R., Skudlarski, P., Mencl, W., Constable, R., et al.

(2003). Neural systems for compensation and persistence: Young adult outcome of

childhood reading disability. Biological Psychiatry, 54, 25–33.

Stein, J. (2001) The magnocellular theory of developmental dyslexia. Dyslexia. 2001 Jan-

Mar;7(1):12-36.

Wasowicz, J., Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Whitney, A. (2004). SPELL-Links to Reading &

Writing. Evanston, IL: Learning By Design. www.learningbydesign.com

Wolf, M., (2008). Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New

York, NY: Harper Collins.

Wolter, J.A. (2009). Teaching literacy using a multiple-linguistic word-study spelling

approach: A systematic review. EBP (evidence-based practice) briefs (Vol. 3).

Minneapolis, MN: NCS Pearson.

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50

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Spelling Assessment: Charting a Pathto Optimal Intervention

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Spelling assessment includes identifying whether an impairment exists and determining the course of interven-tion. In this article, different procedures to sample and evaluate a student’s spelling skills are reviewed. Sugges-tions for further analysis of error patterns in spelling to determine possible causal or maintaining factors arediscussed, guided by the use of the Spelling Analysis Flowchart. By utilizing this hypothesis-driven process,appropriate and effective instructional goals and methods can be formulated. Key words: assessment, literacy,spelling

S THE STUDY of language develop-ment has broadened over the years to

include the recognition of reading and spell-ing as language skills (e.g., Catts & Kamhi,1999; Wallach & Butler, 1994), so, too, hasthe need to develop systematic and informa-tive procedures for determining deficienciesin literate language development. Unfortu-nately, unlike the readily available literatureon the assessment of early language skills(e.g., Lahey, 1988; Nelson, 1998), few specificguides for comprehensive literacy skills as-sessment are available. This lack of resourcesis most notably apparent for spelling assess-ment. Without a well-designed method fordetermining the presence of a disability andthe possible factor(s) that may be causingthe disability, language specialists may beless effective in their spelling intervention.In this article, we first will cover options fordetermining whether an individual’s spell-ing abilities are below expectations basedon age or grade level. Next we will describea process that can be used to identify spe-cific areas of weakness and hypothesesabout causal or maintaining factors. Use of

this process should lead to treatment goalsand methods that are optimally suited for aspecific individual.

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There are three basic methods used to de-termine the status of a student’s spellingskills. In the first, dictation, the examinerreads aloud a list of words and the student isinstructed to write the spelling for each. Inthe second, connected writing, the student isasked to generate text in response to a pic-ture or as a story retell. In the third, recogni-tion, the student is given a group of wordsthat contain the correct spelling along with afew misspellings, or foils. The student isasked to indicate which spelling is correct.

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There are several standardized tests orsubtests that contain dictated word lists, in-cluding The Test of Written Spelling-3(Larson & Hammill, 1994), Test of WrittenLanguage-3 (Hammill & Larson, 1996),and the Wide Range Achievement Test-3(Wilkinson, 1995). A raw score is calcu-lated from each test or subtest and then con-verted to derived scores, such as a standardscore/quotient, percentile, age equivalency,and grade equivalency. Descriptions ofthese tests can be found in Bain, Bailet, andMoats (1991) and Salvia and Ysseldyke(1995). Moats (1994) reviewed these testsand concluded that they met the minimalstandards of the American PsychologicalAssociation for technical adequacy. Conse-quently, clinicians or teachers who musthave a standard score for justification ofplacement in special education services may

benefit from administration and scoring ofone of these tests or subtests. However,Moats judged the tests inadequate for suffi-ciently sampling the domain of spelling orthe child’s knowledge of English ortho-graphic patterns.

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The use of word lists to evaluate spellingskills has been in practice for decades.Many spelling textbooks have short test liststhat precede each instructional unit. Ap-proaches that are based on typical spellingdevelopment often employ word lists toelicit data for examination (e.g., Bear,Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2000;Henderson, 1990; Mann, Tobin, & Wilson,1987). Words included in the list vary fromsimple structures containing initial and finalsingleton consonants (e.g., “pet”), to thosecontaining digraphs and diphthongs (e.g.,“choice”), to those containing blends andinflections (e.g., “slipped,” “bended”) tocomplex derivations (e.g., “confusion”).These lists are valuable because they are de-signed to elicit words that represent specifictypes of spelling knowledge that occur atvarious points in the developmental pro-cess.

Inventory lists are scored by a variety ofmethods, including calculation of the num-ber correct; identifying levels of mastery,instruction, and frustration; and analysis ofthe types or features of the spellings that areused. Most of these methods yield sometype of developmental level that can be usedto determine whether a student is at the ex-pected level of spelling proficiency.

Moats points out that the domain of spell-ing is large, incorporating knowledge oforthographic patterns, sound-symbol corre-spondences, homophones, compounds, andmorphological constructions (e.g., contrac-

Spelling Assessment 51

52 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/MAY 2000

tions, Latin plurals, and assimilated pre-fixes). To our knowledge there is no single,comprehensive list that can be used togather all pertinent data. Furthermore, thenature of data that would be desired would,of course, depend on the developmentallevel of the student being evaluated. Re-gardless of which list is chosen, the wiselanguage specialist will realize that it likelyrepresents a starting point for data collec-tion and, depending on the profile of correctand error spellings used by the child, addi-tional data will likely be necessary.

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Some language specialists may be con-cerned about using only word lists in spell-ing assessment because lists aredecontextualized and have no communica-tive value. Furthermore, performance onword lists often does not mirror spellingduring actual classroom writing tasks(Moats, 1995). Parents and professionals of-ten lament the fact that children will scorehigh on weekly spelling tests, yet continueto misspell numerous words in connectedwriting. Moats indicates that spelling accu-racy may be influenced by the writing topic,motivation to write accurately, attention totask, and response mode (e.g., computerversus handwriting).

There are a few standardized tests withsubtests designed to measure spelling skillsin connected writing. For example, on theSpontaneous Writing subtest from the Testof Written Language (Hammill & Larson,1996), the student is asked to generate awritten story in response to a stimulus pic-ture. Data are scored by subtracting thenumber of different misspelled words in thestory from the total number of differentwords in the story. The raw scores may beconverted to a percentile or standard score.

Unfortunately, such subtests simply do notcontain a sufficient number of words repre-senting the necessary orthographic patternsto make the scores meaningful or helpful.

We have recently been experimentingwith the use of retellings (Buchannan, 1989;Routman, 1991) to gather additional data onerror patterns initially identified throughsingle-word dictation tasks. We selectwords representing three or four error pat-terns of interest and construct a story thatcontains those words. The child writes thestory as it is told by the examiner. The ex-aminer tells the story in narrative fashion,pausing between story elements so that thestudent has time to write each portion. Thestudent’s completed version of the story isthen dictated in subsequent administrationsfor the purposes of charting response totreatment. This approach seems to havepromise, as long as a sufficient number ofexemplars representing each targeted pat-tern are included. Limiting the number oftargeted patterns to four or five makes itpossible to construct a story of reasonablelength. Coupled with the data gathered frominventories, the opportunities for target pat-tern use in connected writing hold promisefor valid measurement of spelling skills.

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Although recognition is commonly usedin formal assessment of spelling, its valuehas, at the least, been questioned (Ehri, thisissue) and, at the most, been dismissed alto-gether (for example, Moats, 1995). Thespelling subtest of the Peabody Individual-ized Achievement Test—Revised (Mark-wardt, 1989) is typical of recognition tasks.It consists of 100 items, which, according tothe authors, address basic visual discrimina-tion, phonological awareness, and sound-symbol association. Each of the spelling


items contains a correct spelling of the tar-get word along with three misspellings. Foreach item, the examiner reads the targetword and uses it in a sentence. The studentis instructed to mark the correct spelling,and each item marked correctly increasesthe raw score by one point. Raw scores areconverted into typical derived scores, suchas a standard score/quotient, percentile, ageequivalency, and grade equivalency. Cer-tainly the task of identifying misspelledwords is different from formulating spell-ings. However, proofing is an importantcomponent of spelling skills and, whetherthrough standardized identification tests orindividualized tasks, the language specialistwill likely want to see how the student re-sponds to correct and incorrect spellings oftarget forms.

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Determining that a student’s spellingskills are below expected levels is only thefirst step of the assessment process. Thedata will need to be further analyzed to opti-mally formulate goals for instruction ortreatment and establish appropriate baselineinformation for measuring the effectivenessof intervention. Consequently, the next stepin the assessment process is to describe thechild’s specific spelling skills.

A variety of taxonomies have been usedto describe children’s spelling. Some ofthese are more general and based primarilyon the linguistic category of the intendedform. For example, Laframboise (1996)designated errors as occurring on homo-phones, consonants, vowel errors, inflectedwords, and reversals. Although this is help-ful in quantifying misspellings, this type ofanalysis may not be as helpful in identifyinggoals for instruction.

Other systems focus on the forms used bythe student, often referred to as “inventedspellings,” to gain insight regarding thestudent’s knowledge of the spelling system.The inventories used by Bear et al. (2000)(see Tables 1 and 2) include lists of wordsthat are arranged in order of increasing com-plexity. Bear and his colleagues provide acheck sheet and error guide that are used toassign each spelling (whether correct or inerror) to a specific stage (preliterate, earlyletter name, letter name, within word pat-tern, syllable juncture, derivational con-stancy). For example, for the target word“train,” the spellings “j,” “t,” and “trn” indi-cate early letter name performance; “jran,”“chran,” “tan,” and “tran” indicate lettername performance; and “teran,” “traen,”“trane,” and “train” indicate performance atthe within-word pattern stage (Bear et al.,2000).

Bear et al. (2000) describe feature analy-sis. Orthographic features that are importantfor the spelling level of interest (i.e., pri-mary or elementary) are identified and thenpoints are assigned for the inclusion of adesignated feature in a given word. A totalscore for each feature is calculated. If achild uses the feature correctly in all of thetargets or misses only once, the child is con-sidered to have mastered the feature. If thechild uses the feature correctly in somewords, yet misses it in two or more otherwords, that feature is considered an appro-priate instructional target. If the childmisses the feature in all of the target words,it is considered beyond his or her instruc-tional level.

The approaches described by Bear et al.(2000) are particularly good because theyhave the advantage of encouraging the lan-guage specialist to look systematically at thetypes of spellings the student is using and


make a hypothesis as to developmental levelon the basis of these spellings. A potentialshortcoming of these approaches, however,is the assignment of a student to a singlestage or, at least, the transition between twostages. This is sometimes difficult becausethe data may not fit clearly within one stage.As Treiman and Bourasso (this issue) argue,stage theories may not fully account for thenotion that children use multiple strategiesand different kinds of knowledge (phono-logic, orthographic, morphologic) through-out the course of spelling development. Fur-thermore, it is possible that a skill thatappears to be mastered at a lower stage willbecome problematic again when word com-plexity or linguistic context increases. Forexample, representation of each sound witha letter is considered a basic skill and isthought to be mastered during the letter-name stage of development, which is cer-tainly appropriate when considering mono-syllabic words. However, as structuralcomplexity increases and the student at-tempts to spell three- and four-syllablewords, he or she may “revert” to a failure torepresent every sound with a letter.

Instead of using the student’s spellings todetermine a single stage assignment, weprefer to focus on the description of patternsof errors that are present in the spellings. Aswith most methods of language assessment,the identification of patterns of either cor-rect or incorrect spellings depends on thecollection of adequate data. Most standard-ized and criterion-referenced measures use25 to 50 words to assess students’ spellingskills. Although there are no data to suggestthe optimal sample size, a corpus of 50 to100 words would appear to be an appropri-ate amount to capture patterns of spelling.Thus, an administration of a standardizedtest of spelling and one or more of the quali-

tative inventories previously describedshould provide a sufficient beginning.Samples of the student’s classroom writingalso should be collected and added to thedatabase. All of the student’s spellings—correct as well as incorrect—should bedocumented. As these words are analyzed,care should be given to the linguistic andsituational contexts (e.g., dictation, con-nected writing within narratives) fromwhich they are derived. These contexts mayaffect accuracy and performance.

The next step will be to identify patternsof spelling errors (i.e., mistakes that charac-terize more than one misspelling) that arepresent in the student’s sample. Familiaritywith the components of the English spellingdomain as well as common error patternshelps with initial descriptions. The errorsencountered can be characterized by de-scriptive statements developed by the lan-guage specialist. Because the occurrence ofmany errors can be influenced by wordcomplexity, pattern statements may need tobe refined to reflect considerations such assyllabic structure.

The language specialist should identifythree or four patterns that will ultimatelybecome the initial focus of intervention. Se-lection of these patterns should be based onseveral factors. First, error patterns that op-erate with a reasonable degree of frequencyshould be selected. Decisions regarding thisreasonable degree are not always straight-forward. Certainly, an error that occurs ononly a few of the possible opportunitieswould not be a priority for interventionbased on the premise that the pattern willcontinue to be gradually mastered. On theother hand, when errors operate morefrequently, the likelihood of eventual acqui-sition is decreased. We know of no set crite-rion (i.e., percentage occurrence) for indi-


vidual error patterns that has been used todefine the point at which instruction is nec-essary. Second, less complex patterns (i.e.,those that typically develop earlier) shouldbe chosen over more complex ones. De-scriptions of patterns by developmentallevel can be found in Bear et al. andHenderson (1990). Third, target patternsthat represent the potential to have a markedeffect on the student’s writing should re-ceive some priority.

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Spelling skills have been linked to a num-ber of other literacy and literacy-relatedskills, including reading, phonologicalawareness, and morphological knowledge(Bear, Templeton, & Warner, 1991; Ehri,this issue). Researchers have found strongcorrelations among spelling and reading(e.g., Bear et al., 1991; Worthy & Viise,1996), phonemic awareness, and morpho-logical knowledge (Bear et al., 1991). Thus,it is wise to obtain data regarding the statusof a student’s skills in these areas. Thesedata may be readily available via teacher re-ports, student curriculum files, and studentportfolios. Additionally, it may be neces-sary for the specialist to conduct individualtesting in these areas. Regardless of thesource of information, such additional as-sessment of these skills not only providesinsight into the student’s overall pattern ofstrengths and weaknesses, but it also can beused later to formulate hypotheses regard-ing the nature of the specific spelling errorsmade by the student.

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The ties between reading and spellinghave been recognized for some time (Bear,

Templeton, & Warner 1991; Ehri, this is-sue). As children read, they become ex-posed to the orthographic patterns and mor-phological markers that they must replicatein their spellings. Ehri (this issue) reports onstudies that have demonstrated the direct in-fluence reading has on spellings of newwords. An assessment of a student’s readingabilities, then, will allow the language spe-cialist to determine a possible co-occurringreading deficit as well as to identify a pos-sible causative or maintaining factor for thespelling deficit.

Reading assessment typically takes theform of both standardized and non-stan-dardized measures. Several standardizedreading tests are available, including testssuch as the Woodcock Reading MasteryTest-Revised (Woodcock, 1987), the WideRange Achievement Test-3 (Wilkinson,1995), and the Gray Oral Reading Test(Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992). Tests such asthese most often assess a student’s ability toidentify or recognize familiar words (i.e.,sight-word reading); decode or sound outunfamiliar or nonsense words (i.e., phoneticdecoding); and comprehend passages oftext, either through cloze procedures, or byanswering factual or inferential questionsregarding the text. These tests offer the ex-aminer the ability to determine whether astudent is within normal limits, but, like thestandardized spelling tests discussed previ-ously, these measures provide little insightinto the causes for reading difficulty or sug-gestions for intervention.

Miscue analysis, a non-standardizedmeans to assess reading abilities, requiresthe language specialist to record all errors,or miscues, as a student reads aloud from atext (Nelson, 1994). Patterns of errors areidentified, such as errors of reversals, seman-tic substitutions, and insertions or deletions


of sounds. By examining the types of errorspresent during reading, the language spe-cialist may develop a better understandingof other literacy-related skills known to befoundational to both spelling and readingthat are deficient, including phonemic andmorphological awareness (Nelson, 1994).

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Phonological awareness is the ability tothink about and manipulate the speechsound segments of a language (Blachman,1994; Swank & Catts, 1994). For sometime, phonological awareness, along with aknowledge of letter-sound correspondence,has been shown to be a strong predictor forspelling development (Nation & Hulme,1997; Treiman & Bourasso, this issue). De-velopment of phonological awarenessprogresses from early awareness of rhymes,alliteration, and sound play in the preschoolyears to later awareness of the individualsound segments that make up words(Adams, 1990). It is this latter skill, the abil-ity to segment words into individual pho-nemes, that seems to best predict spellingabilities in children in the early elementarygrades (Nation & Hulme, 1997). Althoughthe relationship between phonologicalawareness and spelling appears to be recip-rocal (i.e., practice with each helps theother), students need some phonologicalawareness skills to begin to decode wordsand translate phonemes into graphemes(Muter, 1998). Thus, segmentation taskscan be used to identify early possible causalor maintaining factors for spelling impair-ments.

There are several standardized measuresof phonological awareness available to thelanguage specialist to assess phonemicawareness skills (see Torgesen, 1999, for areview). Some of these tests focus exclu-

sively on phonemic segmentation skills(e.g., Yopp, 1995). Others include a numberof different phonological awareness tasks inaddition to segmentation tasks, such as pho-nemic blending and generating words fromphonemes. These tests include The Phono-logical Awareness Test (Robertson &Salter, 1997), The Comprehensive Test ofPhonological Processes in Reading(Wagner & Torgesen, 1997), and the Analy-sis of the Language of Learning (Blodgett &Cooper, 1987). Although these tests vary inthe ages on which they are normed and theirpsychometric strength, they neverthelessare means to determine how explicitly a stu-dent is able to think about the sound seg-ments of the language.

For students who demonstrate difficultiesin segmenting words into phonemes, lan-guage specialists can predict that spellingwill be affected. However, phonologicalawareness is not the only literacy-relatedskill that affects spelling abilities. Morpho-logical awareness, which relies on astudent’s phonological, semantic, and syn-tactic knowledge, also plays a critical role inspelling development.

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Morphological awareness involves theability to be conscious of and manipulatethe morphological units of a language(Carlisle, 1995). It involves the ability toidentify base words and their inflected orderived forms. Awareness of morphologicalstructure plays an important role in spelling(Carlisle, 1995). Because many word spell-ings cannot be explained or written usingphonological knowledge, the explicit use ofmorphological knowledge becomes an in-creasingly important spelling strategy asstudents mature (Fowler & Lieberman,1995).


A strong relationship between morpho-logical knowledge and spelling has been es-tablished (Derwing, Smith, & Wiebe, 1995;Fowler & Lieberman, 1995; Treiman,Cassar, & Zukowski, 1994). Performance onmorphological judgment tasks correlate sig-nificantly with general measures of spelling(Derwing et al., 1995; Fowler & Lieberman,1995). Like phonological awareness, mor-phological awareness has a reciprocal rela-tionship with spelling (Trieman & Bourassa,this issue). Experiences with spelling lead togreater understanding of the use of certainmorphological forms, whereas an under-standing of grammatical morphology leadsto better or more accurate spelling.

Although there are standardized tests thatcan be administered to assess phonologicalawareness, the language specialist must relyon the spelling literature to construct non-standardized measures of morphologicalawareness (e.g., Carlisle, 1987, 1988, 1995;Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Kamhi &Hinton, this issue; Treiman & Bourasso, thisissue). Several techniques have been used toassess student’s’ morphological knowledgeincluding spelling lists, cloze procedures,word judgment tasks, and suffix additiontasks. For example, researchers have askedyoung students to spell words that are pho-netically similar on some aspect yet morpho-logically different on another (e.g., wordscontaining two morphemes ending in a con-sonant cluster, such as “tuned,” versus wordscontaining one morpheme ending in a conso-nant cluster, such as “brand”) (see Treiman& Bourasso, this issue, for a review). Incloze procedure tasks, students hear a wordfollowed by a sentence and then are asked tocomplete the sentence with either the de-rived form or base form of the word initiallypresented (e.g., “magic,” David Copperfieldis a _________). Students show most suc-

cess on these tasks when they are given aderived form and are asked to provide thebase word (Carlisle, 1987). Word judgmenttasks require students to determine whethera pair of words represents a base word andeither a false (table-vegetable) or real(teach-teacher) derived form (Carlisle &Nomanbhoy, 1993; Derwing et al., 1995). Insuffix addition tasks, students must applytheir knowledge of suffixes to nonsensewords (Carlisle, 1987; Nunes, Bryant, &Bindman, 1997a). These tasks are similar tothe familiar wug/wugs task of Berko (1958);however, students provide written ratherthan oral responses.

Poor morphological awareness skills maybe caused by poor reading skills. With de-creased or inadequate reading skills, thereare fewer opportunities to benefit from re-petitive exposures to inflectional and deriva-tional morphology in spelling. In addition,poor morphological awareness skills mayresult from an overall deficit in generalmetalinguistic skills (Fowler & Lieberman,1995). Thus, it is appropriate to assess othermetalinguistic skills, including semantic andsyntactic awareness, as well as additionallanguage skills that may impact on students’spelling abilities.

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Because spelling may be indicative of amore general, although subtle, languageproblem, it is important to assess other areasof language. Semantic and syntactic aware-ness may be measured using a number ofstandardized tests. For example, the Test ofLanguage Development: 3, Intermediate(Hammill & Newcomer, 1997) requires stu-dents to actively think about word order(Sentence Combining and Word Orderingsubtests) and the semantic similaritiesamong groups of words (Vocabulary and


Generals subtests). Similarly, The ClinicalEvaluation of Language Function-3 (Semel,Wiig, & Secord, 1995) contains subtests thatassess syntactic and semantic awarenessskills (e.g., Word Classes and Sentence As-sembly subtests). Findings from these testsmay explain deficits in morphologicalawareness as well as prove to be importantwhen designing intervention stimuli and ac-tivities.

Other areas of language, including oraland written narrative skills and the under-standing and use of complex syntactic struc-tures in oral and written language, should beassessed to determine possible factors thatmay increase the demands needed to com-plete a writing task. If narrative or syntacticskills are delayed or deficient, then the work-ing memory demands they place on a writerconstructing a text may be great, resulting ina less than optimal level of resources de-voted to the task of spelling. Findings such asthis will influence the manner in which spell-ing is facilitated during intervention.

Finally, other factors may influence spell-ing development, such as cognitive develop-ment and the type of formal spelling instruc-tion received in a school setting (Masterson& Crede, 1999). Although these factors mayhave important ramifications, we do not be-lieve that their current status will have a di-rect bearing on the method the language spe-cialist uses for spelling assessment.Consequently, the reader is directed else-where for pertinent literature (Masterson &Crede, 1999; Scott, this issue; Zutell, 1980).

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Once the language specialist has identi-fied the error patterns of concern, the nextphase of assessment involves developing

hypotheses for the nature or cause of eacherror pattern. In addition to the factors thatmay contribute to spelling development re-viewed earlier (i.e., phonological aware-ness, morphological knowledge), the lan-guage specialist also must gatherinformation regarding the student’s ortho-graphic knowledge and visual storage ofspellings (Masterson and Crede, 1999). Or-thographic knowledge involves the set ofskills necessary to translate language fromspoken to written form (i.e, the use of spell-ing strategies). Abilities in this area rangefrom early selection of the appropriate let-ters to represent consonant sounds to an un-derstanding of sophisticated orthotacticprinciples. Orthotactic principles refer topositional constraints on the use of graph-emes to represent phonemes. Treiman &Bourasso (this issue) discuss several ex-amples of orthotactic knowledge, includingan appreciation for the principle that /k/ isspelled with a “ck” only in the medial or fi-nal position of words, never at the begin-ning. Similarly /&/ is spelled with ch in theinitial word position and either tch or ch inthe final position, depending on voweltenseness.

Visual storage refers to the representationof images or templates for words, mor-phemes, and syllables in memory (Ehri &Wilce, 1982; Glenn & Hurley, 1993). Thesetemplates are called visual orthographic im-ages (VOIs), and they are primarily devel-oped through adequate exposure to print. It ispossible that inadequate VOIs are related tothe use of a partial-cues reading strategy bychildren (Glenn & Hurley, 1993). A partialcues reading strategy occurs when a childreads by selectively sampling parts of theword, usually the beginnings and endingsand relies heavily on context to derive a rea-sonable guess (Frith, 1980). Use of this strat-


egy may limit the formation of visual imagesnecessary for accurate spelling. Glenn andHurley also mentioned that handwriting mayaffect the storage of visual orthographic im-ages. Poor handwriting may inhibit the es-tablishment of an adequate lexical represen-tation in memory, which can, in turn, lead tocompromised spelling skills. Glenn andHurley cautioned that the early use of cursivewriting might also make a child vulnerable tospelling problems because of the mismatchbetween the appearance of cursive andprinted text. Given the potential negativecontribution of cursive writing, languagespecialists may consider collecting data thatare printed by the student.

When developing hypotheses about thenature of a student’s spelling difficulties,the language specialist will need to assessthe student’s phonological and morphologi-cal awareness skills, as well as the student’sorthographic knowledge and visual storage.By determining which factor(s) may becausing or maintaining the spelling difficul-ties, the language specialist can developspecific strategies for spelling instruction orintervention.

The Spelling Analysis Flowchart (SAF,Figure 1) depicts a series of steps the lan-guage specialist may use to determine thecause(s) of a student’s spelling errors. Thefirst four steps (i.e., collect a sample, iden-tify misspelled words, describe patterns oferrors, and select potential treatment tar-gets) have been discussed previously. Theremaining sections focus the specialist ondetermining the cause of the spelling errors.Error patterns dealing with base words (i.e.,words that represent a single morpheme, in-cluding compound words) are analyzedseparately from inflected or derived words(i.e., words that contain or reflect inflec-tional or derivational morphology). Ex-

amples of inflected words include“jumped,” “swims,” and “hitting”; ex-amples of derived words include “recycle,”“health,” and “magician.”

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The first step in making a hypothesisabout causal or maintaining factors for eachspelling error pattern in base words is tocheck phonological awareness (PA). Thelanguage specialist initially identifieswhether a phonological awareness skill isneeded for that particular spelling pattern.For example, if a student omits one of theconsonants in consonant clusters with a rea-sonable degree of frequency (e.g., “fat” for“fast”), then the language specialist shoulddetermine whether the student is aware ofthe difference between singletons and clus-ters. The language specialist can examinethe results of the standardized test of phono-logical awareness or develop specific, non-standardized tasks (segmenting, sorting, oridentification tasks) that measure the pho-nological awareness skill in question. If thestudent performs poorly on these tasks, thenit is likely that he or she does not have thenecessary phonological awareness skill or atthe least the skill is poorly developed. Inter-vention should focus on improving thatskill. If no phonological awareness skill isrequired to spell the pattern correctly, or thestudent demonstrates the phonologicalawareness skill in question, then the special-ist can begin assessing orthographic knowl-edge.

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awareness skills, then the language special-ist must determine whether the error patternrepresents an allowable spelling in the En-glish language (Bruck & Waters, 1988;Kamhi & Hinton, this issue; Lennox &Siegel, 1996). Judgments about allowablespellings must take into account orthotactic,or positional, constraints (see Kamhi &Hinton, this issue). For example, although“mach” may appear to be an allowablespelling for “match,” positional constraintsof English dictate that the “tch” is typicallyused in the final position following a shortvowel. Thus, to fully determine which mis-spelled words are allowable spellings, thelanguage specialist must be well informedof orthographic rules that include positionalconstraints (Mersand, Griffith, & Griffith,1996; Seiger, 1985).

When the language specialist determinesthat the error pattern represents an allowablespelling (e.g., “peech” for “peach” because/i/ is often spelled with the digraph “ee”),then the goal of intervention will be to in-crease visual storage for words containingthis pattern. However, when the error vio-lates an allowable spelling (e.g., “ckat” for“cat” or “cap” for “cape”), then interventionwill focus on developing orthographicknowledge for the specific spelling patterns,including information about positional con-straints. In some cases, allowable or non-al-lowable error patterns may be the result ofan overgeneralization of an inflectionalmorphological rule. For example, Nunes,Bryant, and Bindman (1997a, 1997b) sug-gest that students will overgeneralize theuse of inflected markers to words that are ir-regular in the use of that rule (e.g., “raned”for “ran”) or to words that contain the samefinal phoneme as the inflected form (e.g.,spelling “soft” as “sofed,” because of itsphonological similarity to “coughed”). In

these cases, the language specialist may de-cide to increase a student’s awareness of thegeneral inflectional system in intervention,rather than target orthographic knowledgeor visual storage.

Thus far, error patterns involving basewords are analyzed to determine the appro-priate course(s) of intervention. Additionalerrors patterns may involve words that arederivations of base words or contain inflec-tional markers. For these error patterns, adifferent set of steps to determine possiblecause(s) for the error patterns is followed.

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Inflectional morphemes provide addi-tional information about time (e.g., “-ed,”“-ing”) or quantity (e.g., plural “-s”) withoutchanging the meaning or class of the word(Lund & Duchan, 1993). Derivational mor-phemes, which can be prefixes (e.g., “un-,”“re-”) or suffixes (e.g., “-tion,” “-er”),change the meaning or the word class (e.g.,teach-teacher, friend-friendly, admire-ad-miration). In some cases, these derivationalforms do not affect the base word (e.g.,teach-teacher); in others, they alter the baseword orthographically (e.g., happy-happi-ness) or phonologically (e.g., magic-magi-cian) (Carlisle, 1987). Typically, with thesemodifications, the semantic link betweenthe base word and the derived word is clear,or transparent (Carlisle & Nomanbhoy,1993). However, derivations also can alterboth the phonological and orthographicproperties of the base word (e.g., heal-health, sign-signal). These opaque formsmay offer less clear semantic connectionsbetween the base and derived forms(Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993) and, conse-quently, be more difficult to spell.

Because the error patterns for the inflec-tional and derivational aspects of morphol-


ogy differ, separate steps are used to analyzethe respective error patterns. When an errorpattern involves both inflections and deriva-tions (e.g., “recycled”), the language spe-cialist will need to decide whether one orboth series of steps should be followed. Inaddition, if the errors that occur in inflectedor derived words only involve the base word(e.g., “frendly” for “friendly”), then the lan-guage specialist should treat these errors asdifficulties with the base words when deter-mining the cause of these misspellings.

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When an error pattern is noted on wordscontaining morphological inflections, thelanguage specialist must determine whetherthe error is a misspelling of the inflectedform itself or whether the error involves therule governing the modification of the baseword. For example, some students may rep-resent the past tense marker solely by spell-ing the associated sound /d/ or /t/ (e.g.,“jumpt” for “jumped”). In this case, inter-vention will need to target correct spellingof the inflection. If the error pattern involvesa mistake in modifying the base word (e.g.,“hoping” for “hopping”), then the languagespecialist will want to target the rules formodifying base words. In this example, theerror pattern involved a lack of doublingconsonants when adding a suffix to conso-nant-vowel-consonant base words, so thelanguage specialist would establish a goal tofacilitate the use of the doubling rule.

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When a series of misspelled words repre-senting derived forms is identified, the lan-guage specialist will need to determine astudent’s awareness of the relationship be-tween these base words and their deriva-tions. This determination is accomplished in

two ways. First, a search of the spellingsample may yield examples of the specificor similar base words and their derivations.Comparison of the student’s ability to cor-rectly spell the base words versus the de-rived forms provides insight as to whetherthe student is using the knowledge of thebase to spell the derivative form. If thesample does not contain examples of thebase words and derivations, a cloze proce-dure can be used to determine the student’smorphological awareness for derived forms(Carlisle 1987, 1988). Failure to recognizeand use the relationship between the baseand derived form to spell such words mayindicate a need to target morphologicalawareness skills in intervention. However,the ability to use morphological knowledgeto spell derivatives only in structured tasksmay indicate that there are tasks occurringduring spontaneous writing that are compet-ing for the student’s memory resources (e.g.,demands of handwriting, complex syntacticstructures) (Carlisle, 1987, 1995; Kamhi &Hinton, this issue). In this case, the goal ofintervention will be to strengthen thestudent’s spelling of the derivational pattern.

Certain derivational error patterns may bemore easily identified than others and applyacross a variety of words and word classes.These error patterns typically involve deri-vations that either do not alter the base wordor alter it minimally (i.e., phonological ororthographic changes). These changes aremore transparent and allow the languagespecialist to identify and assess knowledgeof derivational morphology using a varietyof words and word classes that involve theapplication of the derivational pattern. Ex-amples of these derived forms includewords containing prefixes such as “un-,”“re-,” and “in-” and suffixes such as “-ly,”“-tion,” and “-ness”. However, opaque


derived forms (those that involve phono-logical and orthographic changes to the baseword) may be less likely to be identified aspatterns, simply because these errors applyto a smaller corpus of words. A good ex-ample is the relationship between “health”and “heal.” Spelling the word “health” as“helth” seems quite reasonable without therecognition of the relationship between thetwo words. Thus, what may seem like a ran-dom number of misspelled words may infact be a series of words that are opaque de-rived forms. In this case, the language spe-cialist may use morphological awarenesstasks to assess and subsequently increasethe student’s knowledge of bases and theirderived forms.

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Armed with the knowledge of spellingdevelopment, orthographic rules, and the

factors that influence spelling, languagespecialists have all the necessary tools toconduct a thorough and informative spellingassessment. As language specialists conductspelling assessments, they must keep inmind that their goal should be to identifywhether a spelling impairment exists and, ifso, to develop appropriate goals and meth-ods of intervention. Analysis of spelling er-rors based on error patterns enables special-ists to form hypotheses for possiblecausative or maintaining factors, test thosehypotheses, and develop a systematic planfor intervention. Because appropriate andeffective intervention hinges on well-de-signed assessment procedures, it is impera-tive that language specialists use a logicaland theoretically grounded approach to as-sessment. It is through such a methodicaland data-driven process that language spe-cialists can identify how best to help stu-dents with spelling impairments.

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Bear, D.R., Templeton, S., & Warner, M. (1991). The devel-opment of a qualitative inventory of higher levels of or-thographic knowledge. In J. Zutell & S. McCormick(Eds.), Learner factors/teacher factors: Issues in literacyresearch and instruction. Chicago: The National ReadingConference.

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Bruck, M., & Waters, G. (1988). An analysis of the spellingerrors of children who differ in their reading and spellingskills. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 77–92.

Buchannan, E. (1989). Spelling for whole language class-rooms. Winnipeg, Canada: Whole Language Consultants.

Carlisle, J. F. (1987). The use of morphological knowledgein spelling derived forms by learning-disabled and normalstudents. Annals of Dyslexia, 9, 247–266.

Carlisle, J. F. (1988). Knowledge of derivational morphol-ogy and spelling ability in fourth, sixth, and eighth grad-ers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 247–266.

Carlisle, J. F. (1995). Morphological awareness and earlyreading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morpho-logical aspects of language processing (pp. 189–209).Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Carlisle, J. F., & Nomanbhoy, D. M. (1993). Phonologicaland morphological awareness in first graders. AppliedPsycholinguistics, 14, 177–195.


Catts, H. W., & Kamhi, A. G. (Eds.). (1999). Language andreading disabilities. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Ba-con.

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Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1982). Recognition of spellingsprinted in lower and mixed case: Evidence for ortho-graphic images. Journal of Reading Behavior, 14, 219–230.

Fowler, A. E., & Lieberman, I. Y. (1995). The role of pho-nology and orthography in morphological awareness. InL. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of languageprocessing (pp. 189–209). Hillsdale, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum Associates.

Frith, U. (1980). Unexpected spelling problems. In U. Frith(Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling (pp.495–515). Lon-don: Academic Press.

Glenn, P. & Hurley, S. (1993). Preventing spelling disabili-ties. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 9, 1–12.

Hammill, D. & Larson, S. (1996). Test of Written Language– 3. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Hammill, D. & Newcomer, P. (1997). Test of Language De-velopment: 3. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Henderson, E. (1990). Teaching spelling. Boston, MA:Houghton Mifflin.

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Lahey, M. (1988). Language disorders and language devel-opment. Newark, NJ: Macmillan.

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Lund, N. J., & Duchan, J. F. (1993). Assessing children’slanguage in naturalistic contexts. Englewood Cliffs. NJ:Prentice Hall.

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Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Bindman, M. (1997b). Learning tospell regular and irregular verbs. Reading and Writing: AnInterdisciplinary Journal, 9, 427–449.

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Copyright © 2007 Learning By Design, Inc. All rights reserved. www.learningbydesign.com

What Do Spelling Errors Tell Us about Language Knowledge?

Jan Wasowicz, Ph.D.

Evanston, IL Like reading, spelling is a written language skill that draws upon an individual’s repertoire of linguistic knowledge, including phonological awareness, and knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, morphological and semantic relationships; and mental orthographic images (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Apel, Masterson, & Niessen, 2004). Each of these areas of linguistic or “word study” knowledge contributes to spelling success (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000) and a deficit in any one of these areas of word study knowledge will manifest as a specific pattern of misspelling. Accordingly, the analysis of an individual’s spelling errors can be used to identify underlying linguistic deficits. The Language of Spelling Phonological Awareness Individuals rely upon the phonological awareness skills of phoneme segmentation, sequencing, discrimination, and identification during the spelling or “encoding” process. They use phonological segmentation skills when spelling by breaking down words into smaller units-such as syllables and phonemes-then linking these smaller units to their written forms. They use sound sequencing skills to map the letters to sounds in the correct order. They use phoneme discrimination and identification skills to perceive differences between speech sounds (e.g., between the short vowel e and short vowel i sounds) and to recognize that a difference in sound signals a difference in meaning. Orthographic Knowledge Individuals also draw upon their orthographic knowledge during the encoding process. Specifically, individuals draw upon their knowledge of sound- letter relationships and knowledge of letter patterns and conventional spelling rules to convert spoken language to written form (Ehri, 2000; Treiman & Bourassa, 2000). Orthographic knowledge includes knowledge of specific letter-sound relationships (e.g., the / k /sound can be represented by the letters c, k, ck, cc, lk, ch, que); knowing which letter patterns are acceptable (e.g., the / k /sound is almost always spelled with the letter k at the end of a word after a long vowel sound); and understanding sound, syllable, and word position constraints on spelling patterns (e.g., the / k /sound at the beginning of a word is never spelled with the letters ck, cc, lk).


Vocabulary Individuals use vocabulary knowledge to accurately store and retrieve the correct spelling of words. The knowledge of word meaning is particularly important for the correct spelling of homophone words (e.g., bare and bear). Vocabulary knowledge is also helpful to correctly spell the wh consonant digraph because the / w / sound at the beginning of question words (what, where, when, why, which) is always spelled with the letters wh. Morphological Knowledge & Semantic Relationships Individuals also rely upon their morphological knowledge and knowledge of semantic relationships when spelling inflected or derived forms of words (Carlisle, 1995). Specifically, individuals rely upon their knowledge of letter-meaning relationships of individual morphemes (i.e., suffixes, prefixes, base words, and word roots), their understanding of semantic relationships between a base word and related words, and their knowledge of modification rules when adding prefixes and suffixes.

Inflected words contain suffixes that provide information about time or quantity without changing the meaning or class of the words (e.g., walk-walked; cat-cats).Derived words contain affixes (prefixes or suffixes) that change the meaning and sometimes the class of words (e.g., cycle–recycle; friend–friendly).When an individual is required to spell an unfamiliar word (e.g., exception), knowledge of the base word (i.e., except) and certain word endings (e.g.,-ion) can help the student spell the unfamiliar word correctly. An individual draws upon knowledge of rules for modifying base words to correctly spell inflected and derived forms of words. Individuals also draw upon knowledge of semantic relationships and rules for modifying words to spell irregular plural nouns, irregular past-tense verbs, contractions, and possessive nouns. The use of knowledge of word parts and related words to spell words becomes increasingly important as individuals begin to spell words of greater length and complexity. Mental Orthographic Images Individuals need to develop clear and complete mental representations of previously read words. These mental images of words, also known as mental orthographic images (MOIs), are stored in an individual’s long-term memory after repeated exposure to them in print (Ehri & Wilce, 1982; Glenn & Hurley, 1993). Inadequate MOIs are often formed when individuals use inappropriate reading strategies such as partial cue analysis, a process whereby the student guesses the identity of a word after decoding only the first letter(s) of the word. Clearly and completely developed MOIs allow individuals to quickly recall and correctly spell words and word parts. Individuals must rely upon the mental image of a word when phonological awareness and knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, word parts, and related words are not sufficient to correctly spell a spelling pattern within a word (e.g., rope not roap, bucket not buckit, actor not acter).


Both children and adults use these different types of language knowledge

throughout spelling development (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000). The amount that each area contributes to spelling development differs depending on an individual’s literacy experiences and the complexity of the words needing to be spelled. Initially, phonological awareness skills play a large role in early spelling development, yet other linguistic knowledge, such as orthographic knowledge and rudimentary morphological knowledge, may also be contributing factors (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000). With additional experiences and learning, spelling development may be positively affected through a deeper understanding and increased use of orthographic, morphological, and semantic knowledge and a larger number of clear mental orthographic images. At any point in spelling development, an individual’s spelling reflects his or her linguistic knowledge and literary capabilities at that moment in time. Accordingly, an individual’s misspellings are the “window” to underlying linguistic deficits. Spelling Errors Reveal Linguistic Deficits It is possible to identify an individual’s linguistic deficits through spelling error analysis because a specific pattern of misspelling is associated with each specific type of linguistic deficit. Analysis of an individual’s spelling errors reveals underlying deficits in phonological awareness, and in knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, morphological and semantic relationships, and mental orthographic images. Phonological Awareness When phonological awareness skills are weak or underdeveloped, spelling is negatively affected in very predictable ways. Typically, individuals with poor phonological segmentation skills will delete letters and syllables, usually omitting letters for less salient phonemes, especially those that occur in internal locations and in unstressed syllables, (e.g., pat for past, relize for realize). Individuals with poor sound sequencing skills commonly reverse the sequence of letters when spelling. Letters reversals most commonly occur for liquids and nasals in a word or syllable sequence (e.g., flod for fold, bets for best). Individuals with poor phoneme discrimination and identification skills are likely to spell distinct vowel sounds with the same letter (e.g., bet and bit both spelled bet), and add letters for phonemes that do not occur in a word (e.g., ment for met). Orthographic Knowledge

Individuals whose orthographic knowledge is deficient often spell words incorrectly because they fail to recognize accepted spelling conventions. As such, the misspellings of individuals with orthographic knowledge deficits are predictably characterized by “illegal” substitutions (e.g., cas for catch), non-allowable letter sequences (e.g., jrum for drum; kween for queen), phonetically possible spellings that violate “rules” (e.g., ran for rain; coatch for coach), and violation of word position constraints (e.g., fuj for fudge).


Vocabulary Individuals who have trouble applying vocabulary knowledge will confuse the spelling of homophone words (e.g., bear for bare) and parts of other words in which the correct spelling is determined by word meaning (e.g., the / w / sound at the beginning of question words what, where, when, why, which is misspelled as w). Morphological Knowledge & Semantic Relationships Deficits in morphological knowledge and knowledge of semantic relationships present their own predictable patterns of misspellings. The misspellings of individuals with these types of deficits are characterized by omission of morphemes (e.g., walk for walked), phonetic spelling of morphemes (e.g., walkt for walked, musishun for musician), failure to use spelling of the semantically related base word to correctly spell the inflected or derived form (e.g., ascend but assension for ascension), and misspelling of modifications when spelling inflected and derived forms of words (e.g., calfes for calves, crazyness for craziness). Mental Orthographic Images When mental orthographic images are weak or not fully developed, spelling is negatively affected in very predictable ways. The misspellings of individuals with weak or “fuzzy” mental images of words are characterized by “legal” substitutions (e.g., hed for head, roap for rope, lagh for laugh), misspelling of unstressed vowel sounds (e.g., buckit for bucket, acter for actor, bottle for bottle), and homophone confusions (e.g., bear vs. bare, won vs. one, which vs. witch). Figure 1

The writing sample in Figure 1 was collected from Marissa, a seventh-grade student. It reveals a variety of linguistic deficits, including deficits in phonological awareness (e.g., repluic for republic, indivial for individual, Amarican for America), vocabulary


knowledge (e.g., two for to and wich for which), morphological knowledge (e.g., justos for justice), and mental orthographic images (e.g., pleage for pledge). Conducting an Error Analysis of Misspelled Words

Using carefully constructed word lists that represent specific types of spelling knowledge used throughout the spelling-acquisition process and a theoretically grounded error analysis methodology, it is possible to collect and analyze an individual’s spelling for patterns of errors and to determine the linguistic deficits that are interfering with that individual’s spelling and reading. Once the linguistic deficits are identified, the professional has a clear roadmap for systematic instruction or remediation of spelling and related linguistic skills. This prescriptive method of assessment--also called a “multiple linguistic repertoire analysis--is very different from standardized spelling tests such as The Test of Written Spelling-4 (TWS-4; Larsen, Hammill, & Moats, 1999) or the Wide Range Achievement Test-4 (WRAT-4; Glutting & Wilkinson, 2005), which quantify spelling performance relative to peers. It is also very different from Stage Theory and spelling inventories (e.g., Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2000) that describe what letter patterns a student can and cannot spell. A prescriptive assessment goes beyond these other measures by using error analysis to determine why a student misspells words (i.e., what are the underlying linguistic deficits) and precisely what type of word study instruction is needed. The multiple linguistic repertoire analysis method described here was first published by Masterson and Apel (2000). The method was further developed and subsequently republished by Apel, Masterson, and Niessen (2004). This method of assessment is implemented in the SPELL and SPELL-2 software assessment programs (Masterson, Apel, & Wasowicz, 2002; Masterson, Apel, & Wasowicz, 2006). Software programs save valuable time and enormously simplify the tedious task of conducting a prescriptive assessment. A criterion validity study (Masterson & Mooney, 2006) conducted with 135 students in grades 1-6 compared participants’ performance on SPELL to their performance on two subtests of the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery (Woodcock, 1997) and the Test of Written Spelling-4 (TWS-4; Larsen, Hammill, & Moats, 1999). Pearson-r correlations and multiple regression analysis indicate SPELL validly measures students’ spelling abilities, decoding skills, and identification of sight words and that SPELL can be used to identify word study goals in a variety of grades and settings. However, a software program is not required to conduct a prescriptive spelling assessment. The principles and methods of the prescriptive assessment described in Steps 1-4 below can be applied by hand to identify an individual’s specific language deficits and to create an individualized intervention plan. There are four basic procedural steps for completing the prescriptive assessment.

Step 1: As with any other measure of assessment, it is imperative that you begin with an adequate sample of the individual’s spelling errors so that the error analysis yields valid results. To do so, you must collect an adequate sample of


spelling for each spelling pattern (e.g., short vowel a, s-clusters, silent consonants, unstressed vowels, inflected words) within the individual student’s developmental spelling level. The domain of spelling patterns in the English language is quite large and several exemplars of each pattern must be collected to obtain a representative sample of the student’s spelling ability. A minimum of three exemplars for each spelling pattern is recommended. Depending on the developmental spelling level of the student, this may require a spelling sample of 80-185 words. Step 2: Examine the student’s spelling of each spelling pattern to identify which spelling patterns are most frequently misspelled. These are the spelling patterns that will be targeted with explicit word- level instruction to remediate specific language deficits. Spelling patterns that are infrequently misspelled (greater than 60% accuracy) are more appropriately addressed by facilitating and reinforcing the student’s consistent application of language knowledge when writing, and by developing the student’s self-monitoring and proofing of his or her own written work in authentic writing tasks. Step 3: For each spelling pattern identified and selected in Step 2, carefully analyze the nature of the individual student’s spelling errors. This detailed error analysis determines if the misspelling of a particular spelling pattern is caused by a deficit in phonological awareness, and/or in knowledge of orthography, vocabulary, morphological and semantic relationships, or mental images of words. A step-by-step flowchart is publicly available on the internet (www.learmingbydesign.com) to assist the clinician in conducting this detailed error analysis by hand and a detailed, case-study example of how to complete the SPELL prescriptive assessment is presented in Wasowicz, Apel, and Masterson (2003). Step 4: Write an instructional goal for each selected spelling pattern, indicating the most appropriate instructional method for the individual student for each spelling pattern. For example, “Student will improve spelling of the short vowel a sound by developing the skills to discriminate among vowel sounds and to map letters to sounds in words containing this spelling pattern. Student will improve spelling of derived words by developing knowledge of letter-meaning relationships for derivational suffixes and rules for modifying words when adding suffixes.”

This method of assessment has been successfully performed using the SPELL

software with individuals as young as seven years of age, and with a variety of clinical populations including individuals with language impairments, severe speech and physical impairments, and hearing impairments; as well as with students who are in general education (Apel, Masterson, & Hart, 2004; Hart, Scherz, Apel, & Hodson, 2006; Kelman & Apel, 2004; Yakey, Wilkerson, & Throneburg, 2006). When done properly, this type of analysis may even be more sensitive than standardized measures of linguistic competencies. In other words, a student may score within normal limits on the more


general measure associated with the standardized test, yet linguistic deficits can be uncovered through spelling error analysis.

Once the linguistic deficits are identified, the clinician has a clear roadmap for systematic instruction or remediation of spelling and related linguistic skills. Research indicates that a multiple- linguistic approach to spelling instruction, as prescribed by SPELL and SPELL–2, leads to significant improvement in spelling performance and word- level reading ability (Kelman & Apel, 2004). When compared with traditional spelling instruction, the multiple- linguistic approach to spelling instruction, as prescribed by SPELL and SPELL–2, is significantly more effective (Apel, Masterson, & Hart, 2004). Figure 2

The writing sample in Figure 2 was collected from Marissa after one year of

multiple- linguistic spelling instruction prescribed by the SPELL method of assessment. In comparison to her previous writing sample, a smaller number of spelling errors occurred and the misspellings are qualitatively different. This writing sample reflects Marissa’s phonological competency coupled with more robust mental orthographic images of words after receiving multiple- linguistic spelling instruction. Dr. Jan Wasowicz is president of Learning By Design Inc. and a private SLP practitioner in Evanston, IL. She is a coauthor of SPELL Spelling Performance Evaluation for Language & Literacy and SPELL-Links to Reading & Writing.


References Apel, K., & Masterson, J. J. (2001). Theory-guided spelling assessment and intervention.

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 32, 182-195.

Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Niessen, N. L. (2004). Spelling assessment frameworks. In A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. Ehren, & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Literacy: Development and Disorder (pp. 644-660). New York: Guilford Press.

Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Hart, P. (2004). Integration of language components in spelling: Instruction that maximizes students’ learning. In E. R. Silliman and L. C. Wilkinson (Eds.), Language and literacy learning in schools (pp. 292-315). New York: Guilford Press.

Bear, D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2000). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Carlisle, J. F. (1995). Morphological awareness and e arly reading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189-209). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ehri, L. C. (2000). Learning to read and learning to spell: Two sides of a coin. Topics in Language Disorders, 20(3), 19-36.

Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. (1982). Recognition of spellings printed in lower and mixed case: Evidence for orthographic images. Journal of Reading Behavior, 14, 219-230.

Glenn, P., & Hurley, S. (1993). Preventing spelling disabilities. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 9, 1-12.

Glutting, J., & Wilkinson, G. (2005). Wide Range Achievement Test (4th ed.;WRAT-4). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Hart, P., Scherz, J, Apel, K., & Hodson, B. (July 8, 2006). Analysis of spelling error patterns of individuals with complex communication needs and physical impairments. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 1–14.

Kelman, M., & Apel, K. (2004). The effects of a multiple linguistic, prescriptive approach to spelling instruction: A case study. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 25(2), 56-66.

Larsen, S., Hammill, D., & Moats, L. (1999). Test of Written Spelling (4th ed.; TWS-4). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Masterson, J. J., & Apel, K., (2000). Spelling assessment: Charting a path to optimal intervention. Topics in Language Disorders, 20(3), 50-65.

Masterson, J. J., & Mooney, R. (2006, February). Criterion validity of the spelling performance evaluation for language and literacy (SPELL). Poster presented at the Annual Pathways to Communication Conference, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO.

Masterson, J. J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2002). SPELL Spelling Performance Evaluation for Language and Literacy [Computer software]. Evanston, IL: Learning By Design. www.learningbydesign.com


Masterson, J. J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2006). SPELL-2 Spelling Performance Evaluation for Language and Literacy (2nd ed.) [Computer software]. Evanston, IL: Learning By Design. www.learningbydesign

Treiman, R., & Bourassa, D. C. (2000). The development of spelling skills. Topics in Language Disorders, 20(3), 1-18.

Wasowicz, J., Apel, K., & Masterson, J. J. (2003). Spelling assessment: Applying research in school-based practice. Perspectives on School-Based Issues Newsletter, 4(1), 3-7.

Woodcock, R. (1997). Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery. Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing.

Yakey, B., Wilkerson, L., & Throneburg, R. (2006, November). Language-based spelling instruction for children who are hard of hearing. Poster presented at the annual conference of the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association, Miami, FL.

Tim is a 10-year-old, fourth-grade boy who has completed a language and literacy assessment with his school’s multi-disciplinary team. Since first grade, Tim has received speech and language services for oral syntax and semantics, and special education services for reading. Tim’s most recent assessment revealed that he has deficits in semantics, reading decoding, reading comprehension, writing, and spelling. The speech-language pathologist (SLP) found that Tim’s phonological awareness skills and morphological awareness skills were below what is expected of a child his age. Specifically, Tim had difficulty segmenting phonemes. When he was administered a morpheme generation task in which he was given a base word (e.g., explode) and was asked to use this word to fill in a sentence (e.g., The loud sound was caused by the _____. explosion), he was not able to generate an appropriate word derivative (e.g., explode – explosion).

Given this assessment picture, the SLP is faced with the task of determining appropriate treatment that will make the biggest impact on Tim’s academic success and of coordinating these services with the other members on the multi-disciplinary team. She recently heard of using multiple-linguistic word study as a way to facilitate the language components of morphological awareness and phonological awareness, and is interested in determining whether such an approach may help Tim in his phonological, morphological, semantic, and literacy success.

Before we address Tim’s specific case, let’s take a brief look at what is meant by a multiple-linguistic word-study approach, define the underlying language principles of such an approach, and briefly summarize the research of each linguistic principle in relationship to language and literacy achievement.

Multiple-Linguistic Word Study DefinedWord study, specifically the linguistic analysis and

focus on spelling, may provide a valuable language-based tool for the SLP when assessing and treating children with language-literacy deficits (LLD). Spelling is a language-based

skill (Bailet, 2004) and the awareness of sounds in words (phonological awareness), knowledge of the spelling patterns in words (orthographic knowledge), and understanding of relationships among base words and their inflectional and derivational forms (morphological awareness) all influence spelling acquisition, vocabulary, reading decoding, reading comprehension, and writing development (Apel, Masterson, & Neissen, 2004; Bourassa & Treiman, 2001). A developmental treatment approach that incorporates spelling and nurtures these multiple linguistic factors may be an effective way to facilitate language and literacy success for children with LLD.

Because word study involves the practice of analyzing and facilitating spelling, SLPs often view this as a skill outside their scope of practice. However, it can be argued that when spelling-based word study is used as a tool to assess and facilitate language-specific goals, it can provide an assessment window to determine where linguistic breakdowns occur and a tool to prescriptively facilitate the linguistic underpinnings of phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, and/or orthographic knowledge. Given the SLPs’ expanding scope of practice, which includes written language (ASHA, 2001), assessment, and treatment approaches such as spelling that may facilitate language development in multiple areas of vocabulary, reading, and writing are appropriate and a welcome interpretation and therapy tool.

Phonological AwarenessPhonological awareness is the ability to recognize

and store linguistic codes or phonemes and later retrieve and produce them in an appropriate manner. Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness that is specific to manipulation, blending, and segmenting of phonemes. For example, the word cat phonemically

Phonemic awareness is an integral part of literacy development because it best predicts reading and spelling achievement.

Teaching Literacy Using a Multiple-Linguistic Word-Study Spelling Approach: A Systematic Review

Julie Wolter Utah State University

44 EBP Briefs

segmented is /k/-/æ/-/t/. Phonemic awareness is an important and integral part of literacy development because it best predicts reading and spelling achievement (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001). A reciprocal relationship exists between phonemic awareness and literacy development: phonemic awareness strengthens literacy skills while reading and spelling strengthen skills in phonemic awareness. An impressive body of research documents the crucial role of phonemic awareness in reading and spelling (e.g., Bird, Bishop, & Freeman, 1995; Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002).

Orthographic KnowledgeOrthographic knowledge involves the translation

of sounds to letter(s), or phonemes to graphemes, which requires the knowledge and use of general spelling rules and patterns (e.g., long- and short-vowel rules). For example, the vowel in the word cat is pronounced as a short vowel and spelled with the single consonant of a, which is consistent with the short-vowel-a spelling rule. Additional factors involved in orthographic processing may include the implicit appreciation for orthotactic, or positional, constraints on the sequences of graphemes that are used in words (e.g., ck cannot occur at the beginning of an English word). Researchers believe that children use their orthographic knowledge of individual letters, letter sequences, and spelling patterns to recognize words visually while reading and spelling (Ehri, 1992; Share, 2004).

Apel and Masterson (2001) have presented a model in which phonological knowledge is connected to orthographic knowledge (i.e., sound-letter correspondence) to form images of words referred to as Mental Orthographic Representations (MORs). This is based on the work of Ehri (1980), who hypothesized that children develop MORs by making connections between graphemes and corresponding phonemes as they sound out novel words. The establishment of these phoneme–grapheme relations results in the ability of children to bond spelling (orthography) to pronunciation of words (phonology). According to Ehri, these orthographic images develop gradually as the child develops a more complete awareness of the alphabetic system, phoneme–grapheme correspondences, and consistent identification of across-word patterns.

Researchers have documented the importance of orthographic knowledge in literacy development (e.g., Apel, Wolter, & Masterson, 2006; Cunningham, 2006; Evans, Williamson, & Pursoo, 2008). Additionally, this

skill has been associated with children’s development of reading-word recognition and spelling (Ehri & Saltmarsh, 1995; Share, 2004).

Morphological AwarenessMorphological awareness can be defined as the

awareness of the morphemic structure and the ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure. Morphemes are the smallest units of words that carry meaning. For example, the word cats is composed of two morphemes, the base word cat and the plural –s morpheme. Morphological knowledge includes a knowledge of inflections (i.e., affixes to root words that indicate grammatical information such as tense or number, such as help plus –ed) and derivational forms (i.e., changes to the base word to create a new word, which generally change the grammatical category, such as sad to sadness).

Morphological awareness is correlated with a well-developed grammar system, increased vocabulary development, and high reading achievement (e.g., Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006). Specifically, knowledge of morphology helps children to spell, decode, and comprehend new words (e.g., Carlisle, 1996, 2000; Elbro & Arnback, 1996; Windsor, 2000). This is not surprising given that approximately 60% of new words acquired by school-age children are morphologically complex (Anglin, 1993).

Multiple-Linguistic Word-Study Spelling

Researchers have recognized the importance of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness in children’s language and literacy development. As a result, these factors have been integrated into word-study spelling instructional programs and practices (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnson, 2004; Wasowicz, Apel, Masterson, & Whitney, 2004).

These types of instructional approaches focus on applying multiple-linguistic strategies (phonologically segmenting, referring to an orthographic spelling rule, or utilizing the morphological knowledge of a base word) during the spelling process. For example, in an orthographic knowledge lesson, children may be asked to differentiate between spellings of the long-vowel-o pronunciation, spelled with the two-vowel orthographic

The Use of a Multiple-Linguistic Word Study 45

pattern of oa (e.g., words such as boat, goat, float) and the short-vowel-o pronunciation spelled with the single-vowel orthographic pattern of o (e.g., words such as hot, lot, pot). By sorting the words according to the orthographic pattern, children create their own meaning and ultimately learn the orthographic rule.

Given the nature, scope, and relationship between phonological, orthographic, and morphological dimensions of language literacy, the oft-heard criticism that “written language interventions are not in the SLP’s scope of practice” is at the very least questionable.

PurposeAlthough a multiple-linguistic word-study spelling

approach is grounded in theory and research (Hall, Cunningham, & Cunningham, 1995), limited research has been conducted to examine the effectiveness of such an approach on the language and literacy success of children with LLD. A small number of recently published studies have specifically examined the effectiveness of multiple-linguistic spelling word-study treatment. Although findings appear positive for the use of such an approach, the value of these studies is limited because they either offer only qualitative evidence without any statistical supporting evidence (Darch, Kim, Johnson, & James, 2000; Williams & Hufnagel, 2005; Williams & Philips-Birdsong, 2006) or they are published in edited publications, such as books (Apel, Masterson, & Hart, 2004; Berninger et al., 2003; Wolter, 2005). The purpose of this brief is to provide a systematic review of the recent peer-reviewed quantitative research that focuses on language and literacy outcomes in school-age children using a multiple-linguistic spelling instructional approach. Following this review is a discussion of how these review results would be applied to an evidence-based practice (EBP) decision-making process by the school SLP who is providing Tim’s intervention program.

MethodFormulating the Clinical Question

The first step in the systematic review process is to formulate a clinical question focusing on a multiple-linguistic word-study treatment approach. The research question for the present brief is: Does a multiple-linguistic word-study

spelling intervention approach improve written language success for school-age children with and without LLD?

Inclusion CriteriaAn initial general search in an electronic database of

the research on a multiple-linguistic word-study instruction revealed limited treatment research with a focus on all linguistic areas (phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness), and thus the following inclusionary criteria were used as a way to include an adequate amount of research with a focus on the specified research question:

• Studies were included if word-study spelling instruction was focused on one or more linguistic variables (phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, or morphological awareness).

• Given the limited available research, a decision was made to include children with LLD, as well as typical children.

• Case studies, single-group, or single-subject designs in addition to the preferred quasi-experimental or experimental randomized control trials were included.

• Only quantitative research was chosen as a way to discuss statistically related findings (practical signifi-cance and/or statistical significance) across all research.

• Study outcomes needed to extend beyond spelling achievement and include those of other language literacy factors such as reading decoding, reading comprehen-sion, reading-word recognition, and/or writing.

• Only research was chosen that included school-aged participants whose first language was English.

• All research needed to be published in a peer-reviewed journal within the last 10 years.

Article SearchAn initial search was conducted using the Educational

Resources Information Center (ERIC), Professional Development Collection, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Social Sciences, Teacher Reference Center, and PsycInfo. The search terms included the keywords “spelling instruction” or “word study” combined with the keywords

The oft-heard criticism that “written language

interventions are not in the SLP’s scope of

practice” is, at the very least, questionable.

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of “language,” “phonological awareness,” “orthographic knowledge,” or “morphological awareness.” This search was followed by a similar search on the American Speech Language Hearing (http://www.asha.org) website, as well as the What Works Clearinghouse (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/). The search of all databases resulted in identification of 2,026 citations. A hand search also was conducted in which the reference lists were reviewed in relevant articles, research, and systematic reviews on spelling (Reed, 2008; Wanzek, Vaughn, Wexler, Swanson, Edmonds, & Kim, 2006). Articles were excluded from the review if their abstracts and/or titles indicated that they did not meet all of the inclusionary criteria.

Following the complete search, 56 full-text articles were retrieved and reviewed. The content of each of these articles was skimmed and it was determined that 43 of the 56 articles failed to meet one or more of the inclusionary criteria. The 13 remaining studies were included for the present review (see Table 1). Listed studies are organized according to the levels of evidence from the American Speech Language Hearing Association’s (2006) standards, with randomized controlled trials being the highest level of evidence.

Research QualityThe methodological quality of the included studies

was assessed and systematically appraised according to eight attributes that are associated with high-quality research (Gillam & Gillam, 2006). (See Table 2.) These attributes helped to substantiate that the research findings were due to the experimental treatment and not some other factor(s) (e.g., control group differences, random assignment to groups). The following quality-appraisal attributes were used to assess the quality of the studies retrieved and included in this review:

• Use of a comparison control group(s) or treatment group(s)

• Random participant assignment to treatment or control group(s)

• Limited differences or variance between the control and treatment group(s) for a clear statistical comparison

• Sufficient information regarding the participant sample, which would allow a clinician to adequately determine whether a client matched the description of the participant sample and/or replicate the study

• Inclusion of reliable and valid outcome measures to ensure the researchers consistently and accurately measured what they purported to measure

• Use of blind examiners (individuals who conduct assessments or analyze data without knowledge of the participant treatment group)

• Inclusion of comparison statistics and effect sizes to allow the researcher(s) to quantify the probability that the results were due to at least a 5% chance (p < .05)

• Inclusion of effect sizes to interpret practical clinical significance on a 0 to 1.0 plus scale. Effect sizes can indicate little clinical significance (0.2), moderate clinical significance (0.5), or large clinical significance (0.8).

Although researchers have yet to reliably determine how to weight these quality judgments, we can take a summative assessment approach in that the more quality-appraisal attributes included in a study, the more we can trust that the research was replicable, reliable, valid, and generalizable.

In our review for Tim, we can surmise that the randomized controlled trials have the most quality-appraisal points and provide the most reliable and generalizable of evidence, compared to the case studies with the least amount of appraisal points. Although the results from 13 case studies are applicable to Tim given the participant similarities to his specific case, we need to verify the case study findings with results of control trials with and without randomization that include a larger number of participants with varied abilities and that control for bias through measures such as blinded evaluators.

Research IntegrationWith the 13 included studies in hand, the following

literacy outcomes of a multiple-linguistic word-study approach were reported.

Reading and Spelling OutcomesFor those studies in which reading and spelling were

both outcome variables, multiple-linguistic word-study spelling treatments resulted in increased word-level reading recognition, decoding, and/or spelling abilities for children with and without LLD (Abbott & Berninger, 1999; Apel & Masterson, 2001; Berninger et al., 1998, 1999, 2002, 2008; Blachman et al., 1999; Kelman & Apel, 2004).

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A commonality across the studies was the inclusion of the linguistic factors of phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge in explicit word-study spelling activities. Phonemic awareness activities linked to spellings and orthographic knowledge word-sorts appeared to facilitate

children’s literacy development. For example, phonemic seg-menting activities linked to orthographic spellings were found to increase the word-level reading and/or spelling abilities in children ages 10, 11, and 13 with language-literacy deficits (Apel & Masterson, 2001;

Kelman & Apel, 2004; Masterson & Crede, 1999). These case study findings were further supported by randomized controlled studies in which treatment comparisons were made. Berninger et al. (1999) examined phonemic blending activities linked to orthographic knowledge and found that activities that focused on matching phonemes to specific letters (/p/ matched to the letter p) or letter combinations (e.g., /i/ matched to the letters ee; /sl/ matched to the letters sl) were more effective in increasing scores for reading-word recognition than phonemic blending activities that focused on matching blended phonemes to whole words (e.g., /s/-/l/-/i/-/p/ blended to /slip/ to the written word sleep) for first-grade children with reading deficits. Moreover, when third-grade children with low writing scores (Berninger et al., 2002), and second-grade children in a different study with low spelling scores (Graham & Harris, 2005) were explicitly taught phoneme–orthographic correspondences (e.g., dif-ferent ways to spell /k/, /j/, /z/) and various orthographic rules (e.g., short- versus long-vowel rules), children in both studies performed significantly better on spelling and reading measures compared to control groups that did not receive linguistically based word-study spelling instruction.

The addition of a morphological awareness linguistic component also appeared to facilitate reading and spelling development. Morphological awareness instruction that focused on inflectional and derivational affixes, whether presented orally only or linked to written spellings, significantly improved seven- and eight-year-old children’s spelling of morphologically based words compared to control groups that received phonological awareness instruction (phoneme manipulation, blending), and in some cases, an orthographic knowledge component (short- versus long-vowel spelling rules; Nunes et al.,

2003). Nunes et al. (2003) found that children receiving any of the linguistically based treatments (morphological awareness orally, morphological awareness linked to spelling, phonological awareness orally, phonological awareness linked to spelling and orthographic knowledge) increased their reading and spelling abilities. Berninger et al. (2008) further supported the inclusion of morphological awareness with the finding that children with dyslexia in fourth to ninth grades receiving a morphological awareness spelling treatment improved in their ability to read and spell pseudowords, which indicated a generalization of spelling learning.

Additionally, studies by Vadasy et al. (2005) lend support to the use of all three linguistic components (phonological, orthographic, and morphological) for read-ing and spelling improvement in a word-study spelling instructional approach. In Study 1, which was conducted with second-grade children who had low average reading scores, the researchers found that a multiple-linguistic approach with an additional reading component in which children read words that reflected newly learned phono-logical, orthographic, or morphological spelling patterns significantly increased the reading skills of decoding, recognition, fluency, and comprehension, in addition to spelling abilities. Interestingly, a subsequent randomized study of second- and third-grade children who had low average reading scores resulted in strong effect sizes for reading decoding, recognition, and fluency only, without effects for spelling and reading comprehension. This discrepancy possibly could be explained by different grade-level needs in Studies 1 and 2. In Study 1, only second-grade children were included, whereas in Study 2, both second- and third-grade children were included. Given that the importance of morphological awareness in spelling accuracy surpasses that of orthographic knowledge in third grade (Green, McCutchen, Schwiebert, Quilan, Eva-Wood, & Juelis, 2003), possibly more morphologically based lessons were needed at the third-grade level to increase spelling and the morphologically related skill of reading comprehension.

Writing OutcomesLinguistically based word-study spelling treatments

appeared to be successful in increasing children’s writing abilities (Berninger et al., 1998, 2002, 2008; Graham &

A commonality across the studies was

the inclusion of the linguistic factors of

phonemic awareness and orthographic

knowledge.

Children receiving any of the linguistically based treatments increased their reading and spelling abilities.

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Harris, 2005; Nunes et al., 2003). When linguistically based instruction was linked to children’s writings and new spellings were practiced in written compositions,

writing improved in children with language literacy deficits in second grade (Berninger et al., 1998) and fourth through ninth grade (Berninger et al., 2008), regardless of the type of linguistically based instruction used. Also noteworthy were studies in which writing im-

proved following a linguistically based spelling treatment without a written composition component in third-grade children with low compositional writing skills (Berninger et al., 2002) and second-grade children with low spelling skills (Graham & Harris, 2005).

Implications for TimAlong with careful consideration of the EBP

components of research evidence, clinical expertise, and Tim’s individual needs, the research in the present review lends itself toward the use of a multiple-linguistic word-study approach for Tim. A systematic review of the research indicates that a multiple-linguistic spelling word-study remediation component in literacy intervention may be a useful linguistic addition that positively contributes toward young school-age children’s literacy progress. Specifically, the inclusion of the linguistic factors of phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge in explicit word-study spelling activities appears to facilitate improved word-level reading decoding, recognition, and spelling abilities in young school-age children with and without LLD. Additionally, morphological awareness appears to benefit literacy development in children as young as second grade and as advanced as seventh grade; however, more research needs to be conducted in this area to replicate these findings. Thus, Tim appears to be an ideal candidate for language treatment with a multiple-linguistic word-study approach that focuses on the language links between phonological awareness (sounds) and orthographic knowledge (spellings). Moreover, given Tim’s difficulties in morphological awareness and his advanced elementary grade level, he may very likely benefit from an additional morphological awareness word-study focus. In addition, in order to aid in Tim’s literacy development, this multiple-linguistic word-study instruction should include

opportunities to practice new linguistic strategies in a single-word reading and written context since the evidence suggests that school-age children’s writing and reading improves when linguistically based word-study spelling instruction is linked to written composition and reading practice.

ReferencesAbbott M. (2001, October). Effects of traditional versus

extended word-study spelling instruction on students’ orthographic knowledge. Reading Online, 5(3). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=abbott/index.html

Abbott, S. P., & Berninger, V. W. (1999). It’s never too late to remediate: Teaching word recognition to students with reading disabilities in grades 4–7. Annals of Dyslexia, 49, 223–250.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2001). Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists with respect to reading and writing in children and adolescents (position statement, guidelines, technical report and knowledge and skills required). Rockville, MD: Author.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2004). Report of the Joint Coordinating Committee on Evidence-Based Practice. Rockville, MD: Author.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (n.d.). Key steps in the EBP process. Retrieved December 1, 2008 from http://www.asha.org/members/ebp/assessing.htm

Anglin, J. (1993). Vocabulary development: A morpho-logical analysis. Monographs of the Society of Research in Child Development, 58, (10, Serial No. 238).

Apel, K., & Masterson, J. J. (2001). Theory-guided spelling assessment and intervention: A case study. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 32(3), 182–195.

Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Hart, P. (2004). Integration of language components in spelling: Instruction that maximizes students’ learning. In E. R. Silliman, & L. C. Wilkinson (Eds.), Language and Literacy Learning in Schools. (pp. 292–315). New York: Guilford Press.

Writing improved in children with language

literary deficits in second grade

regardless of the type of linguistically based

instruction used.

Jan

Highlight

Jan

Highlight

Jan

Highlight


Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Niessen, N. L. (2004). Spelling assessment frameworks. In A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. Ehren, & K. Apel, (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Literacy: Development and Disorders. (pp. 644–660). New York: Guilford Press.

Apel, K., Wolter, J. A., & Masterson, J. J. (2006). Effects of phonotactic and orthotactic probabilities during fast-mapping on five-year-olds’ learning to spell. Developmental Neuropsychology, 29, 1, 21–42.

Bailet, L. L. (2004). Spelling instructional and intervention frameworks. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren, & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders (pp. 661–678). New York: Guilford Press.

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnson, F. (1996). Words Their Way: Word Study Learning and Teaching Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Merrill.

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnson, F. (2000). Words their way: Word study learning and teaching phonics, vocabulary, and spelling (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Merrill.

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S. & Johnson, F. (2004). Words their way (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Zook, D., Ogier, S., Lemos-Britton, Z., Brooksher, R. (1999). Early intervention for reading disabilities: Teaching the alphabetic principle in a connectionist framework. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32(6), 491–503.

Berninger, V., Nagy, W., Carlisle, J., Thomson, J., Hoffer, D., Abbott, S. & Johnson, C. (2003). Effective treatment for dyslexics in grades 4 to 6: Behavioral and brain evidence. In B. Forman (Ed.), Preventing and treating reading disability: Bringing science to scale (pp. 382–417). Timonium, MD: York Press.

Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Brooks, A., Abbott, S. P., Rogan, L., Reed, E., & Graham. (1998). Early intervention for spelling problems: Teaching functional spelling units of varying size with a multiple-connections framework. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(4), 587–605.

Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Begay, K., Coleman, K. B., Curtin, G., Hawkins, J., & Graham, S. (2002). Teaching spelling and composition alone and together: Implications for the simple view of writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 291.

Berninger, V. W., Winn, W. D., Stock, P., Abbott, R. D., Eschen, K., Lin, S., Garcia, N., Anderson-Youngstrom, M., Murphy, H., Lovitt, D., Trivedi, P., Jones, J., Amtmann, D., & Nagy, W. (2008). Tier 3 specialized writing instruction for students with dyslexia. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21, 95–129.

Bird, J., Bishop, D. V. M., & Freeman, N. H. (1995). Phonological awareness and literacy development in children with expressive phonological impairments. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38(2), 446–462.

Blachman, B. A., Ball, E. W., Black, R., & Tangel, D. M. (1994). Kindergarten teachers develop phonemic awareness in low-income, inner-city classrooms: Does it make and difference? Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 6, 1–17.

Blachman, B. A., Tangel, D. M., Ball, E. W., Black, R., & McGraw, C.K. (1999). Developing phonological and word-recognition skills: A two-year intervention with low-income, inner-city children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 239–273.

Bourassa, D. C., & Treiman, R. (2001). Spelling development and disability: The importance of linguistic factors. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 32(3), 172–181.

Carlisle, J. F. (1996). An exploratory study of morphological errors in children’s written stories. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8, 61–72.

Carlisle, J. F. (2000). Awareness of the structure and meaning of morphologically complex words: Impact on reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 169–190.

Carlisle, J. F., & Nomanbhoy, D. M. (1993). Phonological and morphological awareness in first graders. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 177–195.

50 EBP Briefs

Catts, H. W., Fey, M. E., Zhang, X., & Tomblin, J. B. (2001). Estimating the risk of future reading difficulties in kindergarten children: A research-based model and its clinical implementation. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 32(1), 38–50.

Cunningham, A. E. (2006). Accounting for children’s orthographic learning while reading text: Do children self-teach? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95, 56–77.

Darch, C., Soobang, K., Johnson, S., & James, H. (2000). The strategic spelling skills of students with learning disabilities: The results of two studies. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 27(1), 15–26.

Ehri, L. C. (1980). The development of orthographic images. In U. Frith (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling. London, England: Academic press.

Ehri, L. C. (1992). Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and its relationship to recoding. In P. B. Gough, L. C. Ehri & R. Treiman (Eds.), Reading acquisition. Hillside, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ehri, L. C., & Saltmarsh, J. (1995). Beginning readers outperform older disabled readers in learning to read words by sight. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7(3), 295–326.

Elbro, C., & Arnbak, E. (1996). The role of morpheme recognition and morphological awareness in dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 46, 209–240.

Evans, M. A., Williamson, K., & Pursoo, T. (2008). Preschoolers’ attention to print during shared book reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 12, 106–129.

Gillam, S. L., & Gillam, R. B. (2006). Making evidence-based decisions about child language intervention in the schools. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 37, 304–315.

Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2005). Improving the writing performance of young struggling writers: Theoretical and programmatic research from the Center on Accelerating Student Learning. The Journal of Special Education, 33(1), 19–33.

Green, L., McCutchen, D., Schwiebert, C., Quilan, T., Eva-Wood, A., & Juelis, J. (2003). Morphological development in children’s writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 752–761.

Hall, D. P., Cunningham, P. M., & Cunningham, J. W. (1995). Multilevel spelling instruction in third grade classrooms. In K. A. Hinchman, D. L. Leu, & C. Kinzer (Eds.), Perspectives on literacy research and practice (pp.384–389). Chicago: National Reading Conference.

Henry, M. (1990). WORDS: Integrated Decoding and Spelling Instruction Based on Word Origin and Word Structure. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Kelman, M. E., & Apel, K. (2004). Effects of a multiple linguistic and prescriptive approach to spelling instruction: A case study. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 25(2), 56–66.

Lonigan, C. J., Burgess, S. R., & Anthony, J. L. (2000). Development of emergent literacy and early reading skills in preschool children: Evidence from a latent variable longitudinal study, Developmental Psychology, 36, 596–613.

Masterson, J. J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2002) SPELL: Spelling performance evaluation for language & literacy. Evanston, IL: Learning By Design.

Masterson, J. J., & Crede, L. A. (1999). Learning to spell: Implications for assessment and intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 30, 243–254.

Nagy, W. E., & Anderson, R. C. (1984). The number of words in printed school English. Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304–330.

Nagy, W. E., Berninger, V. W., & Abbott, R. D. (2006). Contributions of morphology beyond phonology to literacy outcomes of upper elementary and middle school students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 134–147.

Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Olsson, J. (2003). Learning morphological and phonological spelling rules: An intervention study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7(3), 289–307.


Reed, D. K. (2008). A synthesis of morphology interventions and effects on reading outcomes for students in grades K–12. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice (Blackwell Publishing Limited), 23(1), 36–49.

Share, D. L. (2004). Orthographic learning at a glance: On the time course and development onset of self-teaching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 267–298.

Storch, S. A., & Whitehurst, G. J. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: Evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 934–947.

Vadasy, P. F., Sanders, E. A., Peyton, J. A. (2006). Paraeducator-supplemented instruction in structural analysis with text reading practice for second and third graders at risk for reading problems. Remedial and Special Education, 27(6), 365–378.

Wasowicz, J., Apel, K., Masterson, J. J., & Whitney, A. (2004) SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing. Evanston, IL: Learning By Design.

Williams, C., & Hufnagel, K. (2005). The impact of word study instruction on kindergarten children’s journal writing. Research in Teaching English, 39(3), 233–270.

Williams, C., & Phillips-Birdsong, C. (2006). Word study instruction and second-grade children’s independent writing. Journal of Literacy Research, 38(4), 427–465.

Windsor, J. (2000). The role of phonological opacity in reading achievement. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43, 50–61.

Wolter, J. A. (2005). Summary of special interest division 1 student research grant: A multiple linguistic approach to literacy remediation. Perspectives on Language Learning and Education, 12(3), 22–25.

Author Note

Julie A. Wolter, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education at Utah State University and is a member of the Child Language Research Group at Utah State University. She may be contacted at [email protected]

Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s). All rights reserved. PPVT is a trademark of Wascana Limited Partnership. ASSIST, EVT and PsychCorp are trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries, of Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s).

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Imagine where you could go if you were able to look beyond the score. Begin by administering two renowned vocabulary tests, the PPVT™-4 and the EVT™-2. Use the new Growth Scale Value (GSV) to easily monitor progress over time. For even more information, you can interpret the scores in multiple ways, such as examining the child’s home versus school vocabulary knowledge or comparing their expressive versus receptive skills. The ASSIST™ software takes you to the next level, giving you in-depth analysis, report options, and targeted interventions.

A score is a number on a page.

Where will it take you?“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought

to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to

get to,” said the Cat.

Alice’s Adventures in WonderlandLewis Carroll

PPVT-4 and EVT-2. The right direction.

52 EBP Briefs

Tabl

e 1.

Des

crip

tions

and

Out

com

es o

f Res

earc

h St

udie

s

Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Leve

l Ib

(Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol

Tri

al) a

nd L

evel

IIa

(Con

trol

led

Wit

hout

Ran

dom

izat

ion)

Evi

denc

e (A

SHA

)

Abb

ott &

B

erni

nger

(1

999)

Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol T

rial

20 c

hild

ren

Gra

des 4

–7

Perfo

rmed

low

av

erag

e in

read

ing

Trea

tmen

t (T

x) G

roup

:

Ex

plic

it in

struc

tion

of

mor

phol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s and

str

uctu

ral a

naly

sis o

f syl

labl

es

(Hen

ry, 1

990)

Con

trol G

roup

:

St

udy

skill

s tra

inin

g

Both

gro

ups r

ecei

ved

Tx

in

orth

ogra

phic

kno

wle

dge

(spe

lling

ru

les a

nd p

hone

me–

grap

hem

e co

rres

pond

ence

s), p

hono

logi

cal

awar

enes

s (de

letio

n), d

ecod

ing

(pho

nem

e bl

endi

ng),

and

read

ing

com

preh

ensio

n.

16 se

ssio

ns, 1

hou

r du

ratio

n, o

ver a

4-

mon

th p

erio

d

Indi

vidu

al se

ssio

ns

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

Read

ing

com

preh

ensio

n (R

C)

Phon

olog

ical

Aw

aren

ess (

PA)

Ort

hogr

aphi

c K

now

ledg

e (O

K)

Chi

ldre

n in

bot

h tre

atm

ent (

Tx)

an

d co

ntro

l gro

ups s

igni

fican

tly

impr

oved

gro

wth

cur

ve in

all

outc

ome

area

s.

No

signi

fican

t diff

eren

ces w

ere

foun

d on

out

com

e m

easu

res

betw

een

the

cont

rol g

roup

and

T

x gr

oup

whi

ch m

ay h

ave

been

du

e to

dec

reas

ed p

ower

as a

resu

lt of

smal

l gro

up sa

mpl

e siz

es a

nd/

or c

omm

on sh

ared

Tx.

Ber

ning

er,

Abb

ott,

Zoo

k,

Ogi

er, L

emos

-B

ritt

on, &

B

rook

sher

(1

999)

Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol T

rial

48 c

hild

ren

Gra

de 1

Perfo

rmed

lo

w a

vera

ge in

de

codi

ng a

nd/o

r re

cogn

ition

Tx

Gro

ups:

Who

le W

ord

Tx

W

ord

ID ,

phon

olog

ical

bl

endi

ng a

ctiv

ities

, mat

chin

g th

e w

hole

-wor

d or

thog

raph

ic

code

to b

lend

ed so

unds

Subw

ord

Tx

W

ord

ID a

nd p

hono

logi

cal

blen

ding

act

iviti

es, m

atch

ing

orth

ogra

phic

cod

e of

sing

le/

mul

ti-le

tter u

nits

to so

unds

Com

bine

d T

x

W

hole

wor

d an

d su

bwor

d T

x

All T

x gr

oups

read

conn

ecte

d te

xt

8 se

ssio

ns, 3

0 m

inut

es

dura

tion,

in th

e su

mm

er fo

llow

ing

1st g

rade

yea

r,

1 se

ssio

n pe

r wee

k

Indi

vidu

al se

ssio

ns

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

Gro

wth

cur

ve a

naly

sis re

veal

ed

signi

fican

t inc

reas

es in

wor

d-le

vel r

eadi

ng fo

r all

Tx

grou

ps,

with

the

subw

ord

Tx

resu

lting

in

the

mos

t effe

ctiv

e Tx

in w

ord

ID sc

ores

as m

easu

red

by a

sig

nific

ant i

nter

actio

n of

Tx

and

time.

Pre-

Tx

phon

olog

ical

aw

aren

ess

and

orth

ogra

phic

kno

wle

dge

scor

es p

redi

cted

chi

ldre

n’s su

cces

s in

the

all T

x.

cont

inue

d


Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Bla

chm

an,

Tang

el, B

all,

Bla

ck, &

M

cGra

w (1

999)

Con

trolle

d/

Not

Ran

dom

ized

128

child

ren

Gra

de 1

T

x (n

= 6

6)

Con

trol (

n =

66)

Con

tinue

d lo

ngitu

dina

l stu

dy

in w

hich

Tx

grou

p re

ceiv

ed

phon

olog

ical a

war

enes

s ins

truct

ion

(Bla

chm

an e

t al.,

199

4)

Tx

Gro

up:

Ph

onem

ic a

war

enes

s in

struc

tion

linke

d to

spel

ling,

al

phab

etic

code

(ort

hogr

aphi

c kn

owle

dge)

, and

dec

odin

g

Con

trol G

roup

:

Tr

aditi

onal

bas

al-r

eade

r pr

ogra

m

30-m

inut

e da

ily

instr

uctio

n fo

r firs

t-gr

ade

scho

ol y

ear.

Cla

ss in

struc

tion

Spel

ling

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

PA

The T

x gr

oup

perfo

rmed

sig

nific

antly

bet

ter t

han

cont

rol

grou

p on

pho

nem

ic a

war

enes

s, sp

ellin

g, a

nd re

adin

g m

easu

res.

Abb

ott (

2001

)C

ontro

lled/

N

ot R

ando

mize

d16

chi

ldre

n G

rade

3

Tx

Gro

up (n

= 8

) C

ontro

l: (n

= 8

)

Tx

Gro

up:

O

rtho

grap

hic

know

ledg

e fo

cus w

ord-

study

(Bea

r, In

vern

izzi,

Tem

plet

on, &

Jo

hnsto

n, 1

996)

Con

trol G

roup

:

Tr

aditi

onal

spel

ling

Tx

45 m

inut

es d

aily,

1

scho

ol-y

ear.

Cla

ss in

struc

tion

Spel

ling

OK

Chi

ldre

n re

ceiv

ing

wor

d-stu

dy sp

ellin

g in

struc

tion

with

or

thog

raph

ic k

now

ledg

e fo

cus

perfo

rmed

sign

ifica

ntly

bet

ter

on o

rtho

grap

hic

know

ledg

e sp

ellin

g m

easu

res (η p

2 = .3

9) (n

o co

nfide

nce

inte

rval

repo

rted

), an

d th

eir s

pelli

ngs r

eflec

ted

mor

e so

phist

icat

ed o

rtho

grap

hic

spel

lings

.

No

signi

fican

t diff

eren

ces f

ound

be

twee

n ch

ildre

n’s a

bilit

ies t

o pr

oduc

e lo

w/h

igh

frequ

ency

w

ord

spel

lings

.

Tabl

e 1.,

cont

inue

d

cont

inue

d

54 EBP Briefs

Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Ber

ning

er e

t al.

(200

2)R

ando

mize

d C

ontro

l Tria

l96

chi

ldre

n G

rade

3

Perfo

rmed

low

av

erag

e on

w

ritin

g flu

ency

co

mpo

sitio

n

Tx

Gro

ups:

Spel

ling

Onl

y:

Ph

onem

ic a

war

enes

s and

or

thog

raph

ic k

now

ledg

e

Writ

ing

Com

posit

ion

Onl

y

Ex

ecut

ive

func

tioni

ng,

info

rmat

ion/

pers

uasiv

e w

ritin

g

Com

bine

d Sp

ellin

g an

d W

ritin

g

Con

trol:

H

andw

ritin

g, k

eybo

ard

trai

ning

, com

posin

g pr

actic

e

24 se

ssion

s, 20

min

utes

du

ratio

n, o

ver

4-m

onth

per

iod

Cla

ss in

struc

tion

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

For a

ll T

x gr

oups

chi

ldre

n sig

nific

antly

impr

oved

spel

ling

and

writ

ing

abili

ties f

rom

pre

- to

post-

test

perfo

rman

ce.

Chi

ldre

n in

the

spel

ling

trai

ning

on

ly p

rogr

am p

erfo

rmed

sig

nific

antly

bet

ter o

n a

deco

ding

te

st th

an th

ose

child

ren

rece

ivin

g th

e sp

ellin

g w

ith c

ompo

sitio

nal

writ

ing

com

pone

nt. O

ther

pe

rform

ance

are

as w

ere

not

signi

fican

tly d

iffer

ent

Nun

es, B

ryan

t, &

Ols

son

(200

3)R

ando

mize

d C

ontro

l Tria

l45

7 ch

ildre

n 7-

and

8-y

ear-

old

child

ren

Tx

Gro

ups:

(n =

220

)

Mor

phol

ogic

al A

war

enes

s Tr

aini

ng A

lone

(ora

l onl

y)

Segm

entin

g, b

lend

ing,

m

anip

ulat

ing

affixe

s

Mor

phol

ogic

al A

war

enes

s Tr

aini

ng w

ith S

pelli

ng

segm

entin

g, b

lend

ing,

m

anip

ulat

ing

affixe

s with

bas

e w

ords

link

ed to

spel

ling

Phon

olog

ical

Aw

aren

ess T

rain

ing

Alon

e (o

ral o

nly)

Se

gmen

ting,

ble

ndin

g, a

nd

man

ipul

atin

g ph

onem

es

Phon

olog

ical

Aw

aren

ess w

ith

Spel

ling

Link

ing

phon

eme

segm

entin

g,

blen

ding

, and

man

ipul

atin

g to

spel

ling

rule

s (or

thog

raph

ic

know

ledg

e)

Con

trol G

roup

: (n

= 23

7)

N

o ad

ditio

nal s

mal

l-gro

up

trai

ning

12 se

ssio

ns, w

eekl

y

Small

-gro

up in

struc

tion

(4–8

chi

ldre

n)

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

Mor

phol

ogic

al

Awar

enes

s (M

A)

OK

For a

ll in

terv

entio

n gr

oups

, ch

ildre

n pe

rform

ed si

gnifi

cant

ly

bette

r tha

n co

ntro

ls on

sta

ndar

dize

d re

adin

g m

easu

res.

For b

oth

mor

phol

ogic

al

awar

enes

s Tx

grou

ps, c

hild

ren

perfo

rmed

sign

ifica

ntly

be

tter t

han

cont

rols

on

mor

phol

ogic

ally

-bas

ed sp

ellin

g m

easu

res,

alth

ough

no

signi

fican

t di

ffere

nces

foun

d be

twee

n gr

oups

on

mor

phol

ogic

ally

-bas

ed

read

ing

mea

sure

s.

No

signi

fican

t diff

eren

ces f

ound

be

twee

n gr

oups

on

orth

ogra

phic

kn

owle

dge-

spel

ling

and

read

ing.

Tabl

e 1.,

cont

inue

d

cont

inue

d


Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Gra

ham

&

Har

ris (

2005

)R

ando

mize

d C

ontro

l Tria

l60

chi

ldre

n

Gra

de 2

Low

ave

rage

sp

ellin

g

Tx

Gro

up:

Ort

hogr

aphi

c kn

owle

dge

activ

ities

with

spel

ling

wor

d so

rts

Con

trol:

M

ath

less

ons

48 se

ssion

s, 20

min

utes

du

ratio

n, 3

tim

es a

w

eek,

for 1

6 w

eeks

Small

-gro

up in

struc

tion

(2 st

uden

ts)

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Tx

grou

p ou

tper

form

ed

cont

rol g

roup

on

spel

ling

mea

sure

s im

med

iate

ly (e

ffect

siz

es ra

nge

= .6

6 to

1.0

5), a

nd

6-m

onth

s pos

t-Tx

(effe

ct si

zes

rang

e =

.70

to 1

.07)

Tx

grou

p ou

tper

form

ed

cont

rol g

roup

on

writ

ing

(effe

ct

size

= .7

8) a

nd d

ecod

ing

(effe

ct

size

=.82

)

Vada

sy, S

ande

rs,

& P

eyto

n (2

005)

Stud

y 1:

Con

trolle

d/

Not

Ran

dom

ized

Stud

y 1:

31 c

hild

ren

Gra

de 2

Low

ave

rage

re

adin

g sc

ores

Stud

y 1:

Tx

Gro

up: (

n =

10)

Ph

onol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s, or

thog

raph

ic k

now

ledg

e,

mor

phol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s, an

d w

ord

ID li

nked

to

spel

ling

of si

ght w

ords

. Ora

l re

adin

gs w

hich

incl

uded

w

ords

of m

ultip

le-li

ngui

stic

linka

ges.

Con

trol:

(n =

19)

N

o ad

ditio

nal t

utor

ing

Stud

y 1:

(M =

42.

2 ho

urs)

30 m

inut

es d

urat

ion,

4

days

/ wee

k, 2

0 w

eeks

Indi

vidu

al in

struc

tion

Stud

y 1:

Spel

ling

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

Read

ing

fluen

cy

RC

Stud

y 1:

Chi

ldre

n in

the T

x gr

oup

signi

fican

tly im

prov

ed o

n a

com

posit

e of

dec

odin

g an

d re

cogn

ition

(d =

.86)

, rea

ding

flu

ency

(d =

.82)

, rea

ding

co

mpr

ehen

sion

(d =

.75)

, and

sp

ellin

g (d

= 1

.06)

com

pare

d to

co

ntro

l gro

up

Stud

y 2:

Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol T

rial

Stud

y 2:

21 c

hild

ren

Gra

de 2

(n =

6)

Gra

de 3

(n =

15)

Low

ave

rage

de

codi

ng

Stud

y 2:

Tx

Gro

up: (

n =

11)

Ph

onol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s, or

thog

raph

ic k

now

ledg

e,

mor

phol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s, an

d w

ord

ID li

nked

to

spel

ling

of si

ght w

ords

. Ora

l re

adin

gs w

hich

incl

uded

w

ords

of m

ultip

le-li

ngui

stic

linka

ges.

Con

trol:

(n =

10)

N

o ad

ditio

nal t

utor

ing

Stud

y 2:

(M =

36

hour

s)

30 m

inut

es d

urat

ion,

4

days

/wee

k, 2

0 w

eeks

Indi

vidu

al in

struc

tion

Stud

y 2:

Spel

ling

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

Read

ing

fluen

cy

RC

Stud

y 2:

Chi

ldre

n in

the T

x gr

oup

impr

oved

sign

ifica

ntly

mor

e th

an

the

cont

rol g

roup

on

a de

codi

ng

and

reco

gniti

on c

ompo

site

(d =

1.

06),

read

ing

fluen

cy (d

= 1

.09)

.

No

signi

fican

t diff

eren

ces w

ere

foun

d be

twee

n gr

oups

on

read

ing

com

preh

ensio

n (d

= .3

2), a

nd

spel

ling

(d =

-.32

).

Tabl

e 1.,

cont

inue

d

cont

inue

d

56 EBP Briefs

Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Ber

ning

er, e

t al.,

(2

008)

Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol T

rial

Stud

y 1:

Gra

des 4

–6

(n =

22)

G

rade

s 7–9

(n

= 1

7)

Dia

gnos

is D

ysle

xia

Stud

y 1:

Tx

Gro

ups:

Ort

hogr

aphi

c K

now

ledg

e Sp

ellin

g T

x (n

= 2

0)

Mor

phol

ogic

al A

war

enes

s Sp

ellin

g T

x (n

= 1

9)

All T

x gr

oups

rece

ived

writ

ing

com

posit

ion

instr

uctio

n

Stud

y 1:

14 se

ssio

ns,

120

min

utes

dur

atio

n,

cons

ecut

ive

wee

k da

ys

Small

-gro

up in

struc

tion

Stud

y 1:

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Stud

y 1:

Chi

ldre

n w

ho re

ceiv

ed

mor

phol

ogic

al a

war

enes

s sp

ellin

g T

x sig

nific

antly

im

prov

ed th

e m

ost o

n no

nwor

d sp

ellin

g. C

hild

ren

who

rece

ived

or

thog

raph

ic k

now

ledg

e sp

ellin

g T

x im

prov

ed si

gnifi

cant

ly o

n re

al

wor

d sp

ellin

g an

d de

codi

ng. A

ll T

x gr

oups

sign

ifica

ntly

impr

oved

in

spel

ling

and

writ

ing.

Stud

y 2:

24 c

hild

ren

Gra

des 4

–6

Dia

gnos

is D

ysle

xia

Stud

y 2:

Lang

uage

Tx

Gro

up: (

n =

12)

Ph

onem

e-gr

aphe

me

corr

espo

nden

ce -a

pplie

d to

de

codi

ng, s

pelli

ng a

pplie

d in

writ

ing,

not

e ta

king

str

ateg

ies,

com

pute

r-as

siste

d re

port

writ

ing

Non

verb

al C

ontro

l Tx

Gro

up:

(n =

12)

C

ompu

ter-

base

d pr

oble

m-

solv

ing

activ

ities

Stud

y 2:

4 sm

all g

roup

sess

ions

18

0 m

inut

es to

tal

Small

-gro

up in

struc

tion

Stud

y 2:

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Stud

y 2:

Both

Tx

grou

ps re

sulte

d in

sig

nific

antly

impr

oved

non

wor

d de

codi

ng, s

pelli

ng, a

nd w

ritte

n no

te-ta

king

.

Leve

l III

(Cas

e St

udy)

Evi

denc

e (A

SHA

)

Mas

ters

on &

C

rede

(199

9)C

ase

Stud

y10

:5-y

ear-

old

mal

e G

rade

5

Dia

gnos

ed w

ith

lear

ning

disa

bilit

y

Phon

emic

Aw

aren

ess A

ctiv

ities

Ph

onem

ic se

gmen

ting

and

blen

ding

link

ed to

co

rres

pond

ing

spel

ling

Ort

hogr

aphi

c K

now

ledg

e Ac

tiviti

es

O

rtho

grap

hic

rule

wor

d so

rts

and

focu

s on

the

men

tal

grap

hem

ic re

pres

enta

tion

of

the

wor

ds

12 se

ssio

ns,

60-m

inut

e du

ratio

n,

6 w

eeks

, bi-w

eekl

y.

Indi

vidu

al se

ssio

ns

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Sign

ifica

nt in

crea

ses w

ere

foun

d in

spel

ling

base

d on

non

-ov

erla

ppin

g SE

Ms f

rom

pre

test

to p

ost-t

est.

Writ

ing

appe

ared

to im

prov

e gi

ven

incr

ease

d po

st-T

x pe

rcen

tage

of w

ords

cor

rect

in 4

of

5 w

ritin

g sa

mpl

es. I

ncon

siste

nt

base

lines

and

unk

now

n re

liabi

lity

prev

ente

d eff

ectiv

enes

s in

terp

reta

tion

of th

ese

resu

lts.

Tabl

e 1.,

cont

inue

d

cont

inue

d


Stud

yD

esig

nSa

mpl

e D

escr

ipti

onIn

terv

enti

on/

Com

pari

son

Inte

nsit

y/D

urat

ion/

G

roup

sLa

ngua

ge

Out

com

esFi

ndin

gs

Ape

l &

Mas

ters

on

(200

1)

Cas

e St

udy

13-y

ear-

old

fem

ale

Gra

de 8

Dia

gnos

is AD

D/ L

angu

age-

Lite

racy

Defi

cit

Phon

emic

Aw

aren

ess A

ctiv

ities

:

Ph

onem

ic se

gmen

tatio

n w

ith

writ

ten

links

to sp

ellin

g

Ort

hogr

aphi

c K

now

ledg

e Ac

tiviti

es:

O

rtho

grap

hic

spel

ling

rule

w

ord

sort

s (Be

ar e

t al.,

200

0)

Mor

phol

ogic

al A

war

enes

s Ac

tiviti

es:

D

eriv

atio

nal m

orph

olog

y sp

ellin

g w

ord

gam

es

Phon

emic

Dec

odin

g Ac

tiviti

es

C

ontin

uous

voi

cing

of

phon

emes

whe

n bl

endi

ng

wor

ds

15 se

ssio

ns, 9

0 m

inut

e du

ratio

n, d

aily,

(23

hrs

tota

l)

Indi

vidu

al in

struc

tion

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

MA

PA

Larg

e eff

ect s

izes f

ound

for t

he

diffe

renc

e in

spel

ling

abili

ty p

re-

and

post-

test

(d =

.84)

.

Sign

ifica

nt in

crea

ses i

n de

codi

ng

and

wor

d ID

bas

ed o

n no

n-ov

erla

ppin

g SE

Ms f

rom

pre

test

to p

ost-t

est.

Mar

ked

incr

ease

s of p

hone

mic

aw

aren

ess a

nd m

orph

olog

ical

aw

aren

ess s

kills

pre

-test

to p

ost-

test.

Kel

man

& A

pel

(200

4)C

ase

Stud

y11

-yea

r-ol

d fe

mal

e G

rade

4

Low

ave

rage

sp

ellin

g

Tx

Gro

ups:

Phon

emic

Aw

aren

ess A

ctiv

ities

:

Ph

onem

ic se

gmen

tatio

n lin

ks

to sp

ellin

g

Ort

hogr

aphi

c K

now

ledg

e Ac

tiviti

es:

O

rtho

grap

hic

spel

ling

rule

w

ord

sort

s (Be

ar e

t al.,

200

0)

11 se

ssio

ns, a

vera

ge

sess

ion

60 m

inut

es),

over

8 w

eeks

Indi

vidu

al in

struc

tion

Spel

ling

Writ

ing

Dec

odin

g

Wor

d ID

A m

ultip

le-li

ngui

stic

spel

ling

appr

oach

resu

lted

in c

linic

ally

sig

nific

ant i

ncre

ase

in sp

ellin

g ab

ilitie

s (d

= .5

).

Wor

d le

vel d

ecod

ing

and

ID

skill

s mar

kedl

y in

crea

sed

as

mea

sure

d by

non

-ove

rlapp

ing

SEM

.

Tabl

e 1.,

cont

inue

d

58 EBP Briefs

Tabl

e 2.

Asse

ssmen

t of M

etho

dolo

gica

l Stu

dy Q

ualit

y, B

ased

on

Cri

teri

a (G

illam

& G

illam

, 200

6)

Stud

y

Com

pari

son

grou

p in

clud

ed

Gro

up

vari

ance

co

ntro

lled

Ran

dom

as

sign

men

t to

gro

up(s

)

Part

icip

ant

desc

ript

ions

ad

equa

teB

lindi

ng o

f ev

alua

tors

Rel

iabl

e/va

lid

outc

ome

m

easu

res

Stat

isti

cal

sign

ifica

nce

repo

rted

Prac

tica

l si

gnifi

canc

e

(effe

ct si

ze

repo

rted

)

Leve

l Ib

(Ran

dom

ized

Con

trol

Tri

al) a

nd L

evel

IIa

(Con

trol

led

wit

hout

Ran

dom

izat

ion)

Evi

denc

e (A

SHA

)

Ber

ning

er e

t al.

(199

8)ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

no

Abb

ott &

Ber

ning

er

(199

9)ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

no

Ber

ning

er e

t al.

(199

9)ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

no

Bla

chm

an e

t al.

(199

9)ye

sye

sno

yes

yes

yes

yes

no

Abb

ott (

2001

)ye

sye

sno

yes

yes

yes

yes

no

Ber

ning

er e

t al.

(200

2)ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

no

Nun

es e

t al.

(200

3)ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

no

Gra

ham

& H

arri

s (20

05)

yes

yes

yes

yes

noye

sye

sye

s

Vada

sy e

t al.

(200

5ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

yes

Ber

ning

er e

t al.

(200

8ye

sye

sye

sye

sno

yes

yes

yes

Leve

l III

(Cas

e St

udy)

Evi

denc

e (A

SHA

)

Mas

ters

on &

Cre

de

(199

9)no

not

appl

icab

leno

yes

noye

sye

sno

Ape

l & M

aste

rson

(200

1)no

not

appl

icab

leno

yes

yes

yes

noye

s

Kel

man

& A

pel (

2004

)no

not

appl

icab

leno

yes

noye

sno

yes

Documents

Title: Analysis - Arts & Sciences | Arts & Sciences J., Apel, K., & Wasowicz, J. (2006). Spelling Evaluation for Language and Literacy- 2 (SPELL-2) [computer software]. Evanston, IL: