Contributions of morphological skill to children’s essay writing

Morphological skills have previously been found to reliably predict reading skill, including word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, less is known about how morphological skills might contribute to writing skill, aside from its well-documented role in the development of spelling. This correlational study examines whether morphological skill, as measured by a sentence generation task tapping both derivational morphology and meta-syntactic skills, predicts performance on a standardized essay writing task for fifth- and eighth-grade U.S. students (N = 233), after controlling for grade level, comprehension, and writing fluency. Multilevel analyses indicated that morphological skill and writing fluency were each uniquely predictive of essay quality, and this finding was consistent regardless of whether accurate spelling was required in the morphological task. Our results suggest that morphological skills play an important role in writing, as has been previously documented in reading and spelling.     

Effects of reading and spelling predictors before and after school entry: Evidence from a German longitudinal study

Previous studies indicate that the effectiveness of reading and spelling predictors in transparent orthographies is affected by the onset of literacy training at school entry. In this longitudinal study with 65 German speaking children, the effects of literacy predictors on reading and spelling abilities were compared before and after school entry. Phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and rapid naming were assessed before and after school entry. In addition, reading and spelling abilities were assessed at the end of first grade. Path model analyses showed that letter sound knowledge before school entry predicted reading and spelling at the end of first grade, while rapid naming after school entry predicted reading but not spelling abilities. This study shows that the onset of schooling influences the predictability of early literacy predictors and indicates that with the onset of formal literacy education, predictors representing automaticity in serial processing increase in significance for reading abilities.     

The double deficit hypothesis in the transparent Finnish orthography: a longitudinal study from kindergarten to Grade 2

We examined the double deficit hypothesis (Wolf & Bowers, 1999) and literacy development in a longitudinal dataset of 1,006 Finnish children who were nonreaders at school entry. A single phonological awareness (PA) deficit was a predictor of pseudoword spelling accuracy and reading fluency, and a single rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficit was a predictor of reading fluency. The group with both PA and RAN deficits experienced the most extensive reading and spelling difficulties. However, all groups included both poor and average Grade 2 readers and spellers. Poor letter knowledge and vocabulary, task avoidance, attention difficulties, hyperactivity, and lack of teaching at home were additional risk factors for reading and spelling problems, but their impact varied depending on the presence of PA and RAN deficits.     

Does spelling instruction make students better spellers,readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review

Despite the importance of spelling for both writing and reading, there is considerable disagreement regarding how spelling skills are best acquired. During this and virtually all of the last century, some scholars have argued that spelling should not be directly or formally taught as such instruction is not effective or efficient. We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies to address these claims. The corpus of 53 studies in this review included 6,037 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and yielded 58 effect sizes (ESs) that were used to answer eight research questions concerning the impact of formally teaching spelling on spelling, phonological awareness, reading, and writing performance. An average weighted ES was calculated for each question and the quality of included studies was systematically evaluated. Results provided strong and consistent support for teaching spelling, as it improved spelling performance when compared to no/unrelated instruction (ES = 0.54) or informal/incidental approaches to improving spelling performance (ES = 0.43). Increasing the amount of formal spelling instruction also proved beneficial (ES = 0.70). Gains in spelling were maintained over time (ES = 0.53) and generalized to spelling when writing (ES = 0.94). Improvements in phonological awareness (ES = 0.51) and reading skills (ES = 0.44) were also found. The positive outcomes associated with formal spelling instruction were generally consistent, regardless of students’ grade level or literacy skills.     

Does sensitivity to orthographic regularities influence reading and spelling acquisition? A 1-year prospective study

Recent studies focused on the influence of orthographic processing on reading and spelling performance. It was found that orthographic processing is an independent predictor of reading and spelling performance in different languages and children of different ages. This study investigated sensitivity to orthographic regularities in German-speaking children (N = 31) prior and during formal reading and spelling instruction. In addition, the relationship between sensitivity to orthographic regularities and reading and spelling performance was explored. Two aspects of children’s sensitivity to orthographic regularities (sensitivity to frequent double consonants and sensitivity to legal positions of double consonants) were measured with a nonword forced choice task. The results show that sensitivity to orthographic regularities improved significantly from kindergarten to first grade. Moreover, children’s sensitivity to orthographic regularities at the end of first grade accounted for a significant amount of unique variance in their reading and spelling performance. These results suggest that orthographic sensitivity on a sublexical level is important for the development of reading and spelling skills.     

The contribution of vocabulary knowledge and spelling to the reading comprehension of adolescents who are and are not English language learners

This study examined the contributions of vocabulary and spelling to the reading comprehension of students in grades 6–10 who were and were not classified as English language learners. Results indicate that vocabulary accounted for greater between-grade differences and unique variance (ΔR ² = .11–.31) in comprehension as compared to spelling (ΔR ² = .01–.09). However, the contribution of spelling to comprehension was higher in the upper grade levels included in this cross-sectional analysis and functioned as a mediator of the impact of vocabulary knowledge at all levels. The direct effect of vocabulary was strong but lower in magnitude at each successive grade level from .58 in grade 6 to .41 in grade 10 while the indirect effect through spelling increased in magnitude at each successive grade level from .09 in grade 6 to .16 in grade 10. There were no significant differences between the language groups in the magnitude of the indirect impact, suggesting both groups of students relied more on both sources of lexical information in higher grades as compared to students in lower grades.     

Adolescent Weak Decoders Writing in a Shallow Orthography: Process and Product

It has been hypothesized that students with dyslexia struggle with writing because of a word-level focus that reduces attention to higher level textual features (structure, theme development). This may result from difficulties with spelling and/or difficulties with reading. Twenty-six Norwegian upper secondary students (M = 16.9 years) with weak decoding skills and 26 age-matched controls composed expository texts by keyboard under two conditions: normally and with letters masked to prevent them reading what they were writing. Weak decoders made more spelling errors and produced poorer quality text. Their inter-key-press latencies were substantially longer preword, at word end, and within word. These findings provide some support for the word-level focus hypothesis, although we found that weak decoders were slightly less likely to engage in word-level editing. Preventing reading did not affect differences between weak decoders and controls, indicating that their reduced fluency was associated with production rather than reading difficulties.     

Effects of tutoring in phonological and early reading skills on students at risk for reading disabilities

This study examined the effectiveness of nonprofessional tutors in a phonologically based reading treatment similar to those in which successful reading outcomes have been demonstrated. Participants were 23 first graders at risk for learning disability who received intensive one-to-one tutoring from noncertified tutors for 30 minutes, 4 days a week, for one school year. Tutoring included instruction in phonological skills, letter-sound correspondence, explicit decoding, rime analysis, writing, spelling, and reading phonetically controlled text. At year end, tutored students significantly outperformed untutored control students on measures of reading, spelling, and decoding. Effect sizes ranged from .42 to 1.24. Treatment effects diminished at follow-up at the end of second grade, although tutored students continued to significantly outperform untutored students in decoding and spelling. Findings suggest that phonologically based reading instruction for first graders at risk for learning disability can be delivered by nonteacher tutors. Our discussion addresses the character of reading outcomes associated with tutoring, individual differences in response to treatment, and the infrastructure required for nonprofessional tutoring programs.     

Reading skill components and impairments in middle school struggling readers

This study investigated how measures of decoding, fluency, and comprehension in middle school students overlap with one another, whether the pattern of overlap differs between struggling and typical readers, and the relative frequency of different types of reading difficulties. The 1,748 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students were oversampled for struggling readers (n = 1,025) on the basis of the state reading comprehension proficiency measure. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses showed partial invariance among struggling and typical readers (with differential loadings for fluency and for comprehension), and strict invariance for decoding and a combined fluency/comprehension factor. Among these struggling readers, most (85 %) also had weaknesses on nationally standardized measures, particularly in comprehension; however, most of these also had difficulties in decoding or fluency. These results show that the number of students with a specific comprehension problem is lower than recent consensus reports estimate and that the relation of different reading components varies according to struggling versus proficient readers.     

Supplemental Reading Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Disabilities: Improve Reading 30 Minutes at a Time

Supplemental reading instruction provides a way to improve the reading outcomes of students at risk for reading difficulties and to meet the challenges produced by increases in student diversity in today’s classrooms. The research–based intervention described in this article includes intensive, explicit, and systematic reading instruction in five areas: fluency, phonemic awareness, instructional–level reading with an emphasis on comprehension, word analysis, and spelling. This intervention was effective in improving the reading skills of low SES, second–grade English monolingual and English–language learners.     

Reading and spelling difficulties in high school students: Causes and consequences

Basic skills in reading and spelling and supporting metalinguistic abilities were assessed in ninth and tenth grade students in two school settings. Students attending a private high school for the learning disabled comprised one group and the other comprised low to middle range students from a public high school. Both the LD students and the regular high school students displayed deficiencies in spelling and in decoding, a factor in reading difficulty that is commonly supposed to dwindle in importance after the elementary school years. Treating the overlapping groups as a single sample, multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the contribution of nonword decoding skill and phonological and morphological awareness to spelling ability. The analysis revealed that decoding was the major component, predicting about half of the variance in spelling. The effect of phonological awareness was largely hidden by its high correlation with decoding, but was a significant predictor of spelling in its own right. Morphological awareness predicted spelling skill when the words to be spelled were morphologically complex. An additional study showed that differences in decoding and spelling ability were associated with differences in comprehension after controlling for reading experience and vocabulary. Even among experienced readers individual differences in comprehension of text reflect efficiency of phonological processing at the word level.     

To tell a story,to write it: developmental patterns of narrative skills from preschool to first grade

In this 1-year longitudinal study, the authors explored the development of narrative skills between the oral and written form. The authors aimed to assess the predictive power of textual narrative competence on early narrative text writing skills taking into account the impact of spelling ability. Eighty children (M age?=?5.3 years, age range?=?4.9–5.7 years; SD?=?0.29) were followed longitudinally until entering the first grade of primary school. During kindergarten, they were tested with an oral story production task and in first grade with a written story production task. Narratives were evaluated in terms of structure, cohesion and consistency. In the first grade, children were also submitted to a dictation task to evaluate their spelling competence. Repeated measures ANOVAs were performed in order to examine narrative competence development, also considering gender differences, and regression analyses were implemented to evaluate the predictive capability of textual abilities expressed by oral narratives on textual abilities expressed by writing. The results showed some significant differences when scores in kindergarten were compared to scores in primary school. Moreover, the ability to tell well-structured, cohesive and consistent stories predicts the ability to write stories with the same qualities in the sample of participants without spelling difficulty. Instead, the predictive link is not apparent considering those children with difficulties in orthographic ability. This research allows us to reflect about how the medium of writing might interfere, on the basis of the level of mastery, with the opportunity to express narrative skills in the transition from the oral to written code. The central role of writing instrument functionality opens the way to practical implications.     

Perceptions and knowledge of preservice and inservice teachers about early literacy instruction

A major conclusion from the last decade of research on children with poor reading performance is that early, systematic instruction in phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondences improves early reading and spelling skills and results in a reduction of the number of students who are reading below grade level. To teach reading to at-risk students and students with learning disabilities, teachers need to have positive perceptions regarding the role of systematic, explicit instruction, as well as knowledge of English language structure. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and knowledge of general educators at two professional levels toward early literacy instruction for students at risk for reading failure. Unfortunately, our findings are similar to those obtained by Moats in 1994: Many general education teachers, at both preservice and inservice levels, are not prepared adequately for this challenging task.     

Computer-based reading and spelling practice for children with learning disabilities.

To examine the effects of computer-based reading and spelling practice on the development of reading and spelling skills, a pretest-training-posttest experiment was conducted in The Netherlands. Eleven girls and 17 boys with written language disorders (on the average, 9 years, 7 months old and performing 2 grades below age expectancy) practiced hard-to-read words under three conditions: reading from the computer screen, copying from the screen, and writing from memory after presentation on the screen. For all words, whole-word sound was available on call during practice. To assess learning effects, both a dictation and a read-aloud task were administered in which nonpracticed control words were also presented. During training, the computer kept record of several aspects of the pupils' learning behavior. It was found that copying words from the screen resulted in significantly fewer spelling errors on the posttest than writing words from memory, and that both forms of spelling practice led to fewer spelling errors than only reading words during practice. All three forms of practice improved to the same degree both the accuracy and fluency of reading the practiced words aloud. The way in which spelling and reading practice, in combination with speech feedback, support the development of phonological skills in children with written language disorders is highlighted in the discussion.     

Examining the independent contribution of prosodic sensitivity to word reading and spelling in early readers

This study was designed to examine the independent contribution of prosodic sensitivity—the rhythmic patterning of speech—to word reading and spelling in a sample of early readers. Ninety-three English-speaking children aged 5–6 years old (M = 69.28 months, SD = 3.67) were assessed for their prosodic sensitivity, vocabulary knowledge, phonological, and morphological awareness (predictor variables) along with their word reading and spelling (criterion variables). Bivariate (zero-order) correlation analyses revealed that prosodic sensitivity was significantly associated with all other variables in this study. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for individual differences in vocabulary, phonological, and morphological awareness, prosodic sensitivity was still able to explain unique variance in word reading, but was unable to make an independent contribution to spelling. The findings suggest that prosodic sensitivity gives added value to our understanding of children’s reading development.     

Phonemic awareness,spontaneous writing,and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective

This study examined the nature of the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading and spelling development and focused particularlyon the development of early self-directed writing. The spontaneous writing attempts of 44 first-graders were followed on 6 test occasions from the start of grade 1 (7 years) until the middle of grade 2. The children were divided into 2 groups, one group (N = 21) with a high level of phonemic awareness on entry into grade 1 (HPA) and one group (N = 23) with a low level on entry (LPA). The connection between level of inventedspelling used in the self-directed writing and later reading andspelling achievement in grades 1 and 2 was investigated. The results showed remarkable differences between the two groups. Level of invented spelling at Time 1 was highly predictive of both reading and spelling achievement at the end of grades 1 and 2, but only for the HPA group. With Time of Mastery regarding phonemic spelling as the independent variable and reading and spelling at the end of grade 2 as the dependent variable, regressions analysis indicated strong direct effects of early phonemic spelling upon later reading and spelling development, but only for the LPA children. The two groups showed different patterns of development in learning to read and spell during grades 1 and 2.     

The Developmental Dynamics of Literacy Skills During the First Grade

The aim of the study was to investigate prospective relationships between reading and writing performance during the first grade of primary school. The data was collected from 83 Finnish‐speaking children who were examined four times on reading, spelling, and productive writing skills during the first grade. At the beginning of the school year, they were also tested on initial reading skill. The results showed that reading and spelling manifested a reciprocal relationship during the first semester: reading performance increased subsequent spelling proficiency, and spelling skills enhanced subsequent reading. Later on, however, reading predicted spelling in a less reciprocal association. In turn, productivity of writing predicted subsequent reading performance during the first grade although the reverse was not true. The results suggest that it may be important to emphasize the support which compositional writing may offer to the development of reading.     

An Examination of an Intervention Program Designed to Enhance Reading and Spelling Through the Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Recognition

Morphological analysis of words has been shown to characterize skilled reading. A manipulation on the presentation of words, designed to encourage this process, was examined in dyslexic readers. Fifty-eight Hebrew-speaking university students with dyslexia were divided into three groups. One underwent a very short-term morpheme-based training, consisting of a time-restricted exposure to the root morphemes of words presented in a lexical decision task. The rest of the words’ letters remained on screen until a response. Another group received a control training consisting of the same procedure, except that the presentation of a nonmorphological orthographic unit was manipulated. Two untrained control groups, of dyslexic readers and of typical readers (n = 20), received pre- and posttest measures without training. The results suggest modest but positive effects on reading and spelling following the morpheme-based training, thereby suggesting that the morphological manipulation examined should be integrated in more intensive trainings.     

A longitudinal study of children's early literacy experiences at home and later literacy development at home and school

Studies of literacy attainment in the early years of school have identified various measures at school entry which predict later attainment. The study reported has sought not only to replicate earlier findings but to investigate significant home factors from a younger age. Literacy experiences of 42 children at ages 3, 5 and 7 were investigated, and the relationship of home factors to literacy development explored. Findings are reported concerning two outcome measures at age 7: children's reading level, as determined by the difficulty level of their school reading book, and whether or not children at age 7 were judged to have literacy difficulties. Significant factors included having favourite books at age 3; letter knowledge and parents reading to children at school entry; and at age 7, access to home computers, and parents’ knowledge of literacy teaching in school. Children with literacy difficulties owned fewer books, were less likely to read to themselves or their parents, and generally had less support for literacy at home. Implications for teachers, highlighting the relevance of home literacy, are discussed. The findings underline the importance of home factors for children's literacy development.     

Prevalence of combined reading and arithmetic disabilities

This study assesses the prevalence of combined reading and arithmetic disabilities in 799 Dutch schoolchildren using st dardized school achievement tests. Scores of arithmetic, word recognition, reading comprehension, and spelling of child in fourth and fifth grade were used. The main interest involved the co-occurrence of word recognition and arithmetic d abilities because of their possible relationship. The authors find a percentage of 7.6 for combined reading and arithme disabilities. Reading disabilities and arithmetic disabilities co-occurred more often than expected based on rates of the s arate conditions. Children with combined reading and arithmetic disabilities seem to have more generalized achievem difficulties than single-deficit groups. Different operationalizations for reading disabilities (spelling and reading comp hension measures instead of word recognition) led, in part, to selection of other children. This might imply that differ processes underlie the relationship between arithmetic and word recognition disabilities compared to the relationship arithmetic disabilities with difficulties in spelling and reading comprehension.