Spelling deficits in dyslexia: evaluation of an orthographic spelling training

Orthographic spelling is a major difficulty in German-speaking children with dyslexia. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an orthographic spelling training in spelling-disabled students (grade 5 and 6). In study 1, ten children (treatment group) received 15 individually administered weekly intervention sessions (60 min each). A control group (n = 4) did not receive any intervention. In study 2, orthographic spelling training was provided to a larger sample consisting of a treatment group (n = 13) and a delayed treatment control group (n = 14). The main criterion of spelling improvement was analyzed using an integrated dataset from both studies. Repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed that gains in spelling were significantly greater in the treatment group than in the control group. Statistical analyses also showed significant improvements in reading (study 1) and in a measure of participants’ knowledge of orthographic spelling rules (study 2). The findings indicate that an orthographic spelling training enhances reading and spelling ability as well as orthographic knowledge in spelling-disabled children learning to spell a transparent language like German.     

Longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling across languages varying in orthographic consistency

We examined the longitudinal predictors of nonword decoding, reading fluency, and spelling in three languages that vary in orthographic depth: Finnish, Greek, and English. Eighty-two English-speaking, 70 Greek, and 88 Finnish children were followed from the age of 5.5 years old until Grade 2. Prior to any reading instruction, they were administered measures of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid naming speed. In Grade 2, they were administered measures of nonword decoding, text-reading fluency, and spelling. The results showed that the model for nonword decoding in Greek was similar to that of Finnish (both have consistent grapheme-to-phoneme mappings) while the model for spelling in Greek was similar to that of English (both have some inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme mappings). In addition, the models for nonword decoding and spelling in Finnish were similar, because Finnish is consistent in both directions. Letter knowledge dominated the prediction in each language. The predictable role of orthographic consistency on literacy acquisition is discussed.     

A behaviour‐genetic analysis of orthographic learning,spelling and decoding

As part of a longitudinal twin study of literacy and language, we conducted a behaviour‐genetic analysis of orthographic learning, spelling and decoding in Grade 2 children (225 identical and 214 fraternal twin pairs) in the United States and Australia. Each variable showed significant genetic and unique environment influences. Multivariate analyses revealed very high genetic correlations among the variables, indicating that the same genes are involved in their aetiology. These genes are partly independent of those contributing to intelligence. A further analysis indicated that the covariation between decoding and orthographic learning is mediated by shared genes rather than by a direct causal path. The authors argue that a learning parameter, most directly assessed by orthographic learning in this study, underlies all three literacy variables. The results are also discussed in relation to Share's self‐teaching hypothesis, which may require modification.     

Establishing word representations through reading and spelling: comparing degree of orthographic learning

Skilled reading involves rapid and automatic word recognition. Through a self‐teaching process, phonological decoding during reading is thought to establish the word‐specific representations in memory that support efficient word reading. Much is known about orthographic learning during reading; less is understood about this process during spelling. Here, we compared the degree of orthographic learning that occurs during reading and spelling. Forty‐eight children in Grade 2 practised reading or spelling nonwords within stories. Orthographic learning was measured using spelling recognition, spelling production and word naming tasks. Both readers and spellers showed evidence of orthographic learning; however, spellers outperformed readers on all tasks. Overall, results suggest that spelling sets up a higher quality representation in memory and highlight the importance of spelling in the development of word reading efficiency.     

Introducing the Microcomputer into English. II. An evaluation of WILT as a program using a problem-solving approach to learning spelling

Use of the spelling program WILT with a class of mixed-ability third-year secondary-level pupils as part of an evaluation study of programs for language development is reported. The behaviour and language activities characteristic of pupils using WILT are described and 14 categories of language activity identified. The results of an analysis of the language activities of four groups are presented, and the types of learning that are encouraged by WILT are identified. Differences between the pupils' and the class teacher's evaluations of WILT are examined, and the educational value of the program assessed.     

Speech and drama training for lectures as a means of improving university teaching

Although considerable resources have been invested in programs for the improvement of college and university teaching, there is little data available on the effectiveness of these programs. The present study assessed the value of speech and drama training as a method of improving lecturing skills in university teachers. It was found that teachers who received speech and drama training showed significant improvement in student ratings of classroom teaching relative to control teachers. Rival hypotheses involving greater motivation to improve in experimental teachers and generalized placebo and self-help effects were ruled out on the basis of student rating data from previous courses and differential findings for target and nontarget rating scales. It is concluded that speech and drama training can make a small but significant contribution to the improvement of university teaching.     

Teaching for analogical transfer as a means of improving problem-solving,thinking and learning

Analogical transfer is transfer of a basic structure acquired through one or more instances to another instance. A basic structure like this is sometimes called a paradigm. Paradigmatic teaching, i.e. teaching for analogical transfer, requires the teaching of a basic structure by appropriate exemplars as well as the teaching of its application in various fields and contexts. This is demonstrated using research on teaching for problem-solving, inductive thinking, and learning-to-leam.Invited paper presented at the joint meeting of the Dutch Research Association on Instructional Processes (OTG), the German Division for Empirical Educational Research (AEPF) of the German Educational Association and the Division for Educational Psychology (FPP) of the German Psychological Association on April 23–25, 1989, at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.     

Collaborative scholarship as a means of improving both university teaching practice and research capability

The literature suggests generic workshops on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) rarely have a lasting impact on teaching. Seeking an alternative approach, academic developers designed a four-stage Collaborative Scholarship Model where they provided individualised SoTL mentoring to academics implementing a teaching innovation. Project outcomes included sustained change to teaching, openness to new ideas, scholarly contributions and peer recognition (through awards, publications or invited presentations). This model had a sustained impact on participants’ teaching and increased research productivity. Although few individuals can be mentored at one time in this labour-intensive model, long-term benefits may still outweigh limitations in scalability.     

Is it misspelled or is it mispelled? The influence of fresh orthographic information on spelling

The effect of exposure to incorrectly and correctly spelled words on subsequent spelling performance was examined as a function of spelling proficiency and of time lapse between exposure and test. Spelling accuracy was found to be respectively depressed and enhanced by such exposure, relative to performance on unexposed control words. The effect was persistent and pervasive, obtaining at both immediate and one-week delayed testing and in both good and poor spellers. The findings indicate that fresh orthographic information exerts an influence on pre-existing abstract orthographic representations, rather than establishing new episodic traces, and that this process takes place implicitly.     

Student learning behaviours as a means for a cognitive evaluation of a physics program

The formative evaluation model presented here examines the character of classroom interaction by juxtaposing required and performed student learning behaviours. We use the concept of learning behaviours as a tool for the examination of interactions among the commonplaces of learning (students, teachers, and curriculum materials). We define learning behaviours as actions performed by the students as a result of learning stimuli that are presumed to advance the student towards the acquirement of new knowledge. Learning behaviours may have negative as well as positive outcomes. For example, the identification of variables in an experiment, a required learning behaviour, might very possibly lead to the identification of non-relevant as well as relevant variables. This could lead to the development of misconceptions concerning conclusions drawn from the experiment. Hopefully, such student misconceptions arising from the materials would be identified during the process of formative evaluation. The evaluation model described here is an integral part of a curriculum project aimed at the development of learning materials in physics for technical vocational high schools. In particular, the materials are intended to teach basic principles of physics to students of poor motivation and limited ability. They are oriented towards the needs of technical vocational students and present physics and technology as complementary disciplines (Finegold & Reiner, 1984).     

The role of orthographic and phonological processing skills in the reading and spelling of monolingual Persian children

The main objective of the present study was to examine the contribution of phonological and orthographic skills to Persian reading and spelling. The Persian language is of interest because it has very consistent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences, but somewhat inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences. Reading, spelling, phonological, and orthographic skills were tested in a sample of 109 monolingual Persian students (mean age = 8;1, SD = 4 mo) attending Grade 2 in Iran. The results showed that although monolingual Persian children relied both on phonological and orthographic skills, phonological skills were a strong predictor for both reading and spelling. Another objective of the study was to compare children’s spelling performance in terms of phoneme-to-grapheme (PG) consistencies. As expected, children spelled PG-consistent words more accurately than PG-inconsistent words. Moreover, they relied more on orthographic skills for spelling PG-inconsistent words than for spelling PG-consistent words. The results are discussed in terms of the differential effect of orthographic consistency on reading and spelling.     

The process of internal evaluation as a tool for improving peer supervision

Peer supervision is a method which enables the counselors to be involved in a continuous learning process throughout their professional career and not only when they are in training. It is a personal way of learning in which a pair or a small group of colleagues gives supervision to one another. In this article some advantages, potential pitfalls and conditions or ``guidelines' that should be followed to ensure the most effective peer supervision experience are discussed. An effective evaluation can greatly improve the process of peer supervision and can successfully minimise potential obstacles and pitfalls. Hence, in the second part of the article we describe the internal evaluation of the peer supervision process and illustrate it with some results of final evaluations from four peer supervision processes.     

因子分析在人才培养质量评价指标体系构建中的应用

在人才培养质量评价中,科学合理的评价指标体系是保证评价结果客观准确的关键要素。在用人单位人才培养质量评价指标体系的设计中,运用因子分析技术,采用定性研究与定量分析相结合方法,建构指标体系的内在结构,能够从用人单位需求出发准确把握影响人才培养质量的主要因素,从而减少主观随意性,提高评价指标体系设计的科学性。     

教学督导:提高教育教学质量的重要手段

教学质量是学校发展的生命线,教学督导是学校加强教学管理、规范教学过程、深化教学改革、提高教学质量的重要措施和手段。为了更好地发挥督导在教学工作中的作用,需坚持六个原则,处理好四个关系,实现以高尚的师德建构督导形象,以严格的纪律营造和谐督导,以教学规章作为督导尺度。     

An implicit test of Chinese orthographic satiation

In this research, an implicit test using a lexical-decision task, in which words were discriminated from homophonic pseudo-words, was developed to detect the phenomenon of Chinese orthographic satiation. The phenomenon is defined as a sense of uncertainty of the composition of a well-learned Chinese character through a prolonged visual inspection of the character. A statistic, β, was developed as a measure of the rate of orthographic satiation. Results show that the characters consisting of two radicals resulted in a higher value of β than did those consisting of a single radical. The results also showed that characters semantically dissimilar to its radical resulted in a higher rate of satiation than did those semantically similar to its radical. These results are discussed in terms of the link between orthography and sound of Chinese characters and its relation to orthographic satiation.     

Morphological,phonological, and orthographic differences between the spelling of normally achieving children and basic literacy adults

In this study, we compared 41 adults in a basic literacy class with 92 achievement-level-matched children on their use of English print conventions, as inferred by a qualitative analysis of spelling errors. The two groups followed similar patterns in their mastery of basic spelling features, including letter reversals, consonant blends, and short vowels, with the adults showing relatively more advanced skill in using orthographic patterns. However, the adults made a preponderance of misspellings that were rarely made by the children, including omissions, substitutions, and additions of derivational and inflectional morphemes, and neglect of word endings in general. The findings indicate clear morphological difficulties along with more subtle phonological coding deficits. We suggest that low literacy adults would benefit from specific direct instruction in linguistic analysis, with particular attention to the morphological principles underlying inflections and derivations. Such instruction should be based on a careful assessment of reading and spelling knowledge.     

Features and strategies of supervisor professional community as a means of improving the supervision of preservice teachers

This article explores whether features associated with effective professional communities among K-12 teachers are relevant and sufficient for improving the practice of supervisors in teacher education programs. Interview and observational data from nineteen supervisors in one teacher education program illuminate what supervisors want in order to improve their professional practices and how their needs could be met through ongoing collaboration. The article proposes five features of professional communities that can help supervisors improve their work: norms promoting collaboration; trust and familiarity; activities deprivatizing practices; access to logistical information and shared expectations about the role of supervisors; and time for collaboration.     

Use of predictive text in text messaging over the course of a year and its relationship with spelling,orthographic processing and grammar

An investigation into the impact of predictive text use upon the literacy skills of primary school, secondary school and university cohorts was conducted over the course of a year. No differences in use of text abbreviations (‘textisms’) were found between predictive text users and nonusers. However, secondary school children who used predictive text made more genuine spelling errors than nonusers. Predictive text was related to use of some specific grammatical violations in school‐age children's text messages but was not related overall to the tendency to make grammatical errors when texting. University students, however, made significantly fewer grammatical errors in their text messages when they used predictive text. Over the course of a year, predictive text use was variable for all age groups. Consistency of predictive text use was unrelated to grammatical understanding, spelling or orthographic processing for primary and secondary school cohorts. Predictive text use was negatively related to morphological awareness for adult participants.