Spelling patterns of plural marking and learning trajectories in French taught as a foreign language

Although French plural spelling has been studied extensively, the complexity of factors affecting the learning of French plural spelling are not yet fully explained, namely on the level of adjectival and verbal plural. This study investigates spelling profiles of French plural markers of 228 multilingual grade 5 pupils with French taught as a foreign language. Three analyses on the learner performances of plural spelling in nouns, verbs and pre- and postnominal attributive adjectives were conducted (1) to detect the pupils’ spelling profiles of plural marking on the basis of the performances in the pretest, (2) to test the profiles against two psycholinguistic theories, and (3) to evaluate the impact of the training on each spelling profile in the posttest. The first analysis confirms the existing literature that pupils’ learning of French plural is not random but ordered and emphasizes the role of the position for adjectives (pre- or postnominal) on correct plural spelling. The second analysis reveals the theoretical difficulties of predicting spelling of adjectival and verbal plural. The third analysis shows that strong and poor spellers both benefit from a morphosyntactic training and provides transparency and traceability of the learning trajectories. Together, the descriptive analyses reveal clear patterns of intra-individual spelling profiles. They point to a need for further research in those areas that have empirically provided the most inconsistent results to date and that are not supported by the theories: verbs and adjectives.

Using Spelling Error Analyses to Examine Individual Differences in German Students From Diverse Linguistic Backgrounds: A Latent Class Approach

The current study examined German spelling errors among students with German as their first (L1) and those with German as their second language (L2) in Grades 3–4 (elementary school students; n = 127) and Grades 5–7 (secondary school students; n = 379). Five hundred and six students participated in the study. We performed two separate latent class analyses on elementary and secondary school students. Results indicate that elementary school students can be categorized as good (Class 1), consonant error dominant (Class 2), or poor spellers (Class 3). However, secondary students can be categorized as addition and sequence error dominant (Class 1), substitution and omission error dominant (Class 2), or poor spellers (Class 3). The three-step multinomial logistic regression analyses suggested that decoding was associated with the highest chances of being poor spellers in both elementary and secondary schools. Speaking German as L1 or L2 was a significant predictor of heterogeneities in secondary but not elementary school students. Polish L1 secondary students had the highest possibility of being poor spellers. The results suggest heterogeneities of student profiles. In addition, special attention should be given to secondary school students with the Polish L1 background in their spelling struggles associated with German orthography.

Derivational Morphology Bridges Phonology and Orthography: Insights Into the Development of Word-Specific Spellings by Superior, Average, and Poor Spellers

Purpose Morphology, which is a bridge between phonology and orthography, plays an important role in the development of word-specific spellings. This study, which employed longitudinal sampling of typically developing students in Grades 3, 4, and 5, explored how the misspellings of words with derivational suffixes shed light on the interplay of phonological, orthographic, and morphological (POM) linguistic features as students learn to integrate POM features appropriately to generate correct spellings. Method Sixty typically developing Grade 3 students were tested using the Spelling subtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Second Edition (Wechsler, 2001) and were divided into superior, average, and poor spellers. Students' spelling skill was then assessed using the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Second Edition annually for another 2 years. Misspelled derivations from these three testing sessions were analyzed for linguistic feature errors and error complexity/severity. Differences in the integration of POM features across spelling ability levels at Grades 3–5 were analyzed with Kruskal–Wallis analyses of variance. Results Longitudinal results demonstrated POM integration for the development of word-specific spellings involving derivational morphology was in its initial stages over Grades 3–5 and was influenced by spelling ability level. Information from a qualitative analysis revealed considerable variability in how students applied their POM knowledge to spell complex derivations. Conclusions Word-specific spellings draw on multiple linguistic codes—P, O, and M—and their interconnections. It involves more than an understanding of orthographic rules. Rather, accurate spelling develops through an increased understanding of the phoneme–grapheme relationships as facilitated by the identification of word parts (base + or − affixes) in written language. Educational and clinical implications are discussed.

But spell checker always corrects witch words eye misspelled

The present study examined spell checker software for both spelling recognition and production among college students. Sixty-four participants identified and corrected spelling in a prewritten story and produced spelling by writing a story. Both were completed with or without spell checker access. Results demonstrated differences between the performance of good and poor spellers (as defined using a baseline spelling test). When compared to good spellers, poor spellers corrected a greater percentage of spelling errors with spell checker than without. Spell checker helped all participants produce fewer spelling errors, but not fewer homophone errors. Additionally, more often than good spellers, poor spellers reported placing less effort into spelling words correctly when using spell checker. These findings suggest that poor spellers may have a greater need for spell checker than good spellers, and may be at a greater risk for relying on the software as the only step in the proofreading process.

Instructional Practices for Spelling by Spanish-Speaking Children With and Without Learning Disabilities in Early Grades

The main objectives of this study were to examine the type of adaptations made by Grades 1 through 3 primary school teachers working with children who are poor spellers of a transparent language such as Spanish and to analyze whether these adaptations were determined by the grade taught by these teachers. Using the total population of primary school classroom teachers in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands as a base, the authors took a random sample that was stratified by level, resulting in a representative sample of 300 teachers. For data collection, the authors employed an online questionnaire containing a list of specific teaching activities or procedures the teachers used to work on spelling. Results revealed that regardless of the grade taught, the teachers made a variety of adaptations in these teaching activities or procedures when working with weaker spellers, as compared to when working with stronger spellers. Furthermore, the results provide information on Spanish language spelling practices for these specific grades.

Fluency and Accuracy in Alphabet Writing by Keyboarding: A Cross-Sectional Study in Spanish-Speaking Children With and Without Learning Disabilities

The aim of this study was to analyze whether children with and without difficulties in handwriting, spelling, or both differed in alphabet writing when using a keyboard. The total sample consisted of 1,333 children from Grades 1 through 3. Scores on the spelling and handwriting factors from the Early Grade Writing Assessment (Jiménez, in press) were used to assign the participants to one of four groups with different ability patterns: poor handwriters, poor spellers, a mixed group, and typically achieving students. Groups were equalized by a matching strategy, resulting in a final sample of 352 children. A MANOVA was executed to analyze effects of group and grade on orthographic motor integration (fluency of alphabet writing) and the number of omissions when writing the alphabet (accuracy of alphabet writing) by keyboard writing mode. The results indicated that poor handwriters did not differ from typically achieving children in both variables, whereas the poor spellers did perform below the typical achievers and the poor handwriters. The difficulties of poor handwriters seem to be alleviated by the use of the keyboard; however, children with spelling difficulties might need extra instruction to become fluent keyboard writers.

Internal Structure and Development of Keyboard Skills in Spanish-Speaking Primary-School Children With and Without LD in Writing

This study had two purposes: examining the internal structure of the Test Estandarizado para la Evaluación Inicial de la Escritura con Teclado (TEVET; Spanish Keyboarding Writing Test), and analyzing the development of keyboarding skills in Spanish elementary school children with and without learning disabilities (LD) in writing. A group of 1,168 elementary school children carried out the following writing tasks: writing the alphabet in order from memory, allograph selection, word copying, writing dictated words with inconsistent spelling, writing pseudowords from dictation, and independent composition of sentence. For this purpose, exploratory factor analysis for the TEVET was conducted. Principal component analysis with a varimax rotation identified three factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. Based on factorial analysis, we analyzed the keyboarding skills across grades in Spanish elementary school children with and without LD (i.e., poor handwriters compared with poor spellers, who in turn were compared with mixed compared with typically achieving writers). The results indicated that poor handwriters did not differ from typically achieving writers in phonological processing, visual-orthographic processing, and sentence production components by keyboarding. The educational implications of the findings are analyzed with regard to acquisition of keyboarding skills in children with and without LD in transcription.

The Cognitive Profiles of Poor Readers/Good Spellers and Good Readers/Poor Spellers in a Consistent Orthography: A Retrospective Analysis

Reading and spelling are closely related to each other, but empirical evidence shows that they can also dissociate. The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive profiles of good readers/poor spellers and poor readers/good spellers in a relatively consistent orthography (Greek). One hundred forty children were administered measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, phonological short-term memory, and orthographic knowledge in grades 1 and 2. Their performance in reading and spelling was assessed in grade 4. Two small groups of children exhibited dissociation between reading and spelling: seven children were identified as poor readers/good spellers and 11 children as good readers/poor spellers. The former group experienced severe deficits in both rapid naming and phonological awareness. The latter group experienced only mild deficits in orthographic knowledge. Although inefficient orthographic knowledge affects their spelling accuracy (Greek is inconsistent in the direction of spelling), it does not impact their reading fluency because they can recognize words by relying on partial cues.

Aer yuo looking cloesly? Even good spellers are impacted by partial cue reading

Differences in letter string processing between better and relatively poorer (average) spellers were examined. Forty undergraduate students completed a simultaneous orthographic matching task judging pairs of letter strings as same or different. Reading exposure, spelling, and reading habits were measured. Significant differences in reaction times, but not accuracy, were found between the two groups. When the groups were combined, a negative correlation was found between reaction time in the matching task and spelling ability. Taken together, these results suggest that unexpectedly poorer spellers tend to read words based on partial cues, while excellent spellers attend to entire words. Further, results indicate that processing partial vs. full cues may be a continuum, rather than a dichotomy, with even average spellers processing less than do excellent spellers. These results have implications for how unexpectedly poor spellers are defined in research and for the range of individuals who could improve their spelling by processing fuller cues.