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Spelling: Some Notes on Development,
Assessment, Intervention, and Orthography
R. Malatesha Joshi, Ph.D.
Texas A & M University
College Station, Texas 77843-42322
mjoshi@tamu.edu
University of Lyon, France
September 14, 2011
• Zainab Allaith, Texas A & M University, USA and
Bahrain
• R. Boulware-Gooden, Tennessee, USA
• Suzanne Carreker, Neuhaus Education Center, USA
• Rajni Chengappa, University of Mysore, India
• Barbara Conway, Neuhaus Education Center, USA
• Quentin Dixon, Texas A & M University, USA &
Singapore
• Elena Gregorenko, Yale University, USA and Moscow
State University, Russia
• Torleiv Hoien, Stanvanger Institute, Norway
• Ramona Pittman, Texas A & M University, San Antonio,
USA
• Rebecca Treiman, Washington University, USA
• Jing Zhao, Sun Yet Sen University, China
• The Real Magic of Spelling: Improving Reading and
Writing
• Myths and Realities of English Spelling
• Optimal System: Morphophonemic spelling
• Spelling Development and Assessment
• Dialect and Spelling – Effect of Instruction
• Orthography and spelling:
– Study I a & b – English as a Second Language
– Study II – Russian
– Study III – Chinese
– Study IV – Arabic
– Teacher Preparation
• Conclusions
• Why study spelling?
• Shankweiler, Lundquist, Dreyer, and Dickinson
(1996): ‘… although spelling is . . . not a
component of reading, it provides a valuable
indicator of the level of orthographic skill on which
all literacy activities ultimately depend. Word
recognition and all subsequent higher level
processes that take place in reading are
constrained by the ability to fluently transcode
print into language’ (p. 287).
• High degree of relationship between reading
and spelling (0.8)
• Spelling is the foundation of reading and the
greatest ornament of writing
• Noah Webster, 1783
• The ability to spell words easily and accurately is
an important part of being a good writer. A person
who must stop and puzzle over the spelling of each
word, even if that person is aided by a
computerized spelling checker, has little attention
left to devote to other aspects of writing.
What is good writing?
Good Writers:
• Drafting it, revising it, and editing it.
Poor writers:
• Spelling every word right.
• Write as neat as you can.
What do good writers do?
Good Writers:
• They read it over and see if they have
everything they want.
• Think of very creative ideas.
Poor writers:
• They use whatever paper the teacher tells
them.
• They get plenty of sleep.
How do you make your paper better?
Good Writers:
• Make the ending real exciting.
• Put my sentences in different order.
Poor writers:
• Make sure I have my date and name on
there.
• Write it bigger so that it takes up more
space.
Spelling Instruction
• 18th century
–primer
–speller
• 1807
–Noah Webster produced the first set of
readers by an American author, a series of
three graded books. First was the
American Spelling Book.
• This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in
Salina, Kansas.
• What is meant by the following? Alphabet, phonetic,
orthography, etymology, syllabication
• Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’
• What are the following, and give examples of each:
Trigraph, diphthong, linguals
• Define the following prefixes and use in connection
with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter,
mono
• Use the following correctly in sentences:
• cite, site, sight
• Fane, fain, feign
• Vane, vain, vein,
• raze, raise, rays
• It is a damn poor mind indeed which
can’t think of at least two ways to
spell any word.
•Andrew Jackson, 1833
English can’t be spelt
G.B. Shaw
• Dewey (1971): English spelling: Roadblock to
reading. NY: Teachers College Press.
• Chaotic and indefensible, with the worst
orthography of all those that have
pretensions to being alphabetic.
• English spelling system be reformed to bring
it in line with the ideal of one-to-one
mapping
Noah Webster
Thumb------------thum
Tongue-----------tung
Women----------wimmen
Island-------------iland
Frolick--------------frolic
Colour--------------color
Theatre-------------theater
Traveller-----------traveler
1931- The Chicago Tribune
iland
rime
fantom
crum
jaz
lether
• News out of Cornwall, England:
•
The European Union Commissioners have announced
that agreement has been reached to adopt ENGLISH as
the preferred language for European communications,
rather than GERMAN, which was the other possibility. As
part of the negotiations, the British government conceded
that English spelling had some room for improvement and
has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be
known as Euro-English (Euro for short). In the first year,
‘s’ will be used instead of the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, sivil
servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard ‘c’
will be replased with ‘k’. Not only will this klear up
konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter. There
will be growing publik entusiasm in the sekond year, when
the trouble-some ‘ph’ will be replased by the ‘f’. This will
make words like ‘fotograf’ 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the spelling
kan be expekted to reach the stage where more
komplikated changes are possible. Governments
will enkorage the removal of double letters, which
have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent ‘e’s
in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go. By
the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such
as replasing ‘th’ by ‘z’ and ‘w’ by ‘v’. During ze fifz
year, ze unesesary ‘o’ kan be dropd from vords
kontaining ‘ou’, and simlar changes vud of kors be
aplid to ozer komibinations of leters. After zis fifz
yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no
mor trubls or difikultis und evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru!!!
Ve vil al haf to relern schpeling. Bt ve r zur yu vil
lik dis!!!
Spelling Research
• Social Sciences Citation Index (20012011)
– 12,994
Reading
– 5,963
Writing
– 1,181
Spelling
Why do some children (and some vicepresidents) spell POTATO as POTATOE?
Myths about English Spelling
1. Visual Memory
2. Computer Spell Check
3. English is an irregular language
– Bernard Shaw
GHOTI
Fish
• gh rough
• o in women
• ti condition nation initial
Realities about English spelling
• 1. Visual Memory
–650,000 – 800,000 words
–More errors made on vowels than on
consonants
–More errors with the irregular words
(sew) than on regular words (cat)
Realities about English spelling
2. Computer Spell Checker
I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad to no
Its very polished in its weigh
My checker tolled me sew.
The bevers bild tunls to get to their loj
• Bevers – beavers
• Bild – build
• Tunls – tuns, tunas, tunes, tongs, tens, tans, tons,
tins, tense, teens, towns
• Loj – log, lot, lox, loge, look, lost, lorid, load, lock,
lode, lout, lo, lob, lose, low, logs
Realities about English spelling
• 1. Visual Memory
–650,000 – 800,000 words
• 2. Computer Spell Checker
• 3. English is an irregular language
–GHOTI
–FISH
• gh never pronounced /f/ in the initial position
• o in women wimmen muney luve wurry
• ti condition nation initial
English is an irregular language
• 50% of the words are predictable
• 37% are predictable except for one sound
– knit
– boat
• 4-13% have to be learned by sight but many of
them are high frequency words
– of
– the
Chomsky and Halle “near optimal
system for lexical representation”
• English spelling is governed by Phonological and
morphological principles
• English is a morphophonemic language
• Father & fathead
• judge & headgear
•
•
•
•
be/bee
in/inn
by/buy
to/two
• ox, box, fox
• rocks, socks, locks
The Morphophonemic Nature of English
• name, mile
• horse, purse
• Dense/dens, tease/teas, please/pleas
•
•
•
•
•
heal
wise
know
hear
sign
health
wisdom
knowledge
rehearsal
signature
The Morphophonemic Nature of English
TH -> voiced in function/grammar words: then
& this
Unvoiced in content words: thick and thief
They rode along the rode and when they
reached the lake, rode across it .
They rode along the road and when they
reached the lake, they rowed across it.
• I. Deacon and Bryant, 2001, 2007
–6-, 7-, 8-year-olds
–turn = turn + –ed
–turnip = turn + ip
–Dirty & city
• II. Siegel, 2008
• 6th grade students – 929 English as first language;
309 English as a second language
• Measures of phonological awareness, reading,
fluency, and spelling were administered.
• Morphological awareness made a greater
contribution to reading and spelling over and
above phonological awareness and syntactic
awareness.
• In almost all the spelling tasks, performance on
the morpheme awareness was more highly
correlated than phonological or syntactic
awareness.
• Morphological awareness is impaired in students
with dyslexia.
• Spelling Development and Assessment
• Stage model vs. overlapping wave model
or shingle-like
5. Standard Spelling
Points
Criteria
Example
0 pts.
no alphabetic representation,
random symbols
xopqr
1 pt.
initial phoneme represented
with phonetically related
letter, or other single letter
representing a salient part of
the word
r / lap
2 pts.
correct initial phoneme, may
be followed by random letter
string
stuv / sick
3 pts.
more than one phoneme, but
not all, with phonetically
related or conventional letters
sowe / snowing
4 pts.
all phonemes, with mix of
phonetically related or
conventional letters
chran / train
5 pts.
all phonemes with
conventional letters; correct
short vowel; attempt to mark
long vowel
snoing / snowing
6 pts.
correct spelling
k / sick
Spelling errors of an above average speller and a
below average speller.
Target Word
Natasha
Chris
tomb
tume
tiem
cellar
seller
slier
valley
vally
viley
feud
fude
found
doubt
dought
det
grammar
gramar
gamer
conferred
confurred
confed
rehearsal
rehurcle
rehise
negative
negetive
neatev
• (Masterson & Apel, 2000)
• Phonological Errors: Phoneme or syllable is not
represented by any symbol (e.g., next – net)
• Phonetic Errors: Phonemes are represented with
graphemes or other symbols, but illegal ones for the
sound (much – merk); Phonemes are added to the
word. (strong – stronagb); Phoneme is present in the
letter string, but is out of order by more than one letter.
(fountain – fontuan)
• Orthographic Errors: Phoneme is legal grapheme for
the sound, but is not the correct one, requiring
knowledge of a spelling pattern or memorization and
creation of an MOI (shake – shak); Phoneme is
represented correctly but is out of order by only one
letter (e.g., tardy – trady).
• Etymological Errors:
• legal grapheme but not the correct alternative
• Correct spelling is influenced by spellings derived from
another language (champagne – shampane; knife –
nife).
• The word is derived from another word which would
aid in correct spelling (continuity - contanooity).
• Morphological Errors:
• Phoneme is, or is part of, a morpheme (which changes
or influences the meaning and spelling of the word)
(luminous – luminus).
• The morpheme can be learned and applied to a
substantial number of other words.
• Confusion of homophones correctly spelled: (baste –
based).
•
•
•
•
•
•
Error categories were mutually exclusive.
Categories were hierarchical.
Was the sound represented?
Was it represented with a legal grapheme?
Was it legal but incorrect?
Would language knowledge have had influence on
the correct spelling?
• Would knowledge of meaning have had influence
on the correct spelling?
• Larsen, S. C., Hammill, D. D., & Moats, L. C. (1999).
Test of written spelling (4th ed.).
• 89 participants from grade 3
• Group I: Low < 89 (n = 12)
• Group II: Average 90-110 (n = 46)
• Group III: Above Ave. to High 111 > (n = 31)
• (Conway, Joshi, & Carreker submitted)
TABLE 2
Means and Standard Deviations of Error Type Proportions
Error Type
Group
(SD)
Group I
Group II
Group III
Mean
.24
.16
.10
Phonological
Phonetic
Group I
Group II
Group III
.26
.22
.17
(.11)
(.08)
(.10)
Orthographic
Group I
Group II
Group III
.25
.26
.32
(.08)
(.07)
(.06)
Etymological
Group I
Group II
Group III
.12
.16
.20
(.05)
(.04)
(.06)
Morphological
Group I
Group II
Group III
.15
.20
.21
(.07)
(.06)
(.06)
(.11)
(.11)
(.06)
Proportions of Phonological and Phonetic Errors
= phonological;
= phonetic.
Proportions of Orthographic, Etymological,
Morphological Errors
Multiple Comparisons among Three Achievement Groups
Error Type
Achievement
Mean
Group
Difference
I
Phonological I
II
I
Phonetic
I
II
I
Orthographic I
II
I
Etymological I
II
I
Morphological I
II
II
III
III
II
III
III
II
III
III
II
III
III
II
III
III
.075
.142
.067
.039
.082*
.043
-.018
-.072*
-.053*
-.044*
-.084*
-.040*
-.049*
-.06*
-.018
Std.
Error
Sig.
.017
.017
,017
.019
.020
.020
.012
.013
.013
.011
.012
.012
.013
.013
.013
.009
.000
.018
.251
.012
.187
.528
.002
.011
.020
.001
.031
.021
.004
.659
95%
Confidence
Interval
.023
.129
.089
.196
.013
.120
-.022
.100
.021
.143
-.018
.104
-.058
.020
-.111
-.033
-.092
-.014
-.080
-.008
-.120
-.048
-.076
-.004
-.090
-.008
-.108
-.026
-.059
.024
• Students in Grades 3 who scored low on a
standardized spelling achievement test made
proportionally higher number of phonological and
phonetic errors.
• Higher level spellers made proportionally more
errors that are orthographic, etymological, and
morphological.
• Why George Bernard Shaw was wrong?
• Ghoti
Fish
• 1. Position (environment) of the Letters (gh
is never pronounced /f/ in the initial position
and ti never pronounced /sh/ at the end of a
word)
• 2. History of English Language (or word
origin) women-wimmen
• 3. Syllable Patterns (ti makes the /sh/ sound
in the final syllable pattern - tion)
•
•
•
•
•
1. Position (environment) of the Letters
a, o, u, or a consonant
(/k/ for c; carat, color, cut, and clarity;
g gate, gold, gut, group)
Exceptions: Kangaroo, Kaola
• ii. e, i, or y; c /s/ city, central, cyber
• g /j/ gem, giant, stingy
Spelling generalizations
• ff, -ll, -ss, -zz
– Double a final l, f, s, and z immediately following
a single vowel in one syllable words.
• Examples: tell, staff, grass, buzz
• Common exceptions: if, clef, gas, this, us,
thus, yes, bus, plus
• Note: Final –s as /z/ is never doubled – as, is,
was, has, his
• Not peel, quiz
Special case of e
• vce pattern – to make the previous vowel long to
distinguish it between closed syllable and final e
syllable as in mat vs. mate; hat vs. hate
• as a soft sound marker like in prince, dance or in
ledge, judge; pigeon, gorgeous; angle vs. angel
• love, give
• as a singular marker: tens and tense; dens and
dense; tease and teas; horse, and course.
traffic
lock
brook
brick
dock
task
brake
music
seek
keg
carve
rook
dike
meek
kettle
public
keep
trunk
crash
thick
luck
track
pack
smoke
kindle
cure
culvert
week
kilt
speck
quake
crater
duke
carpet
yoke
shellac
attic
sulk
kin
cord
joke
elk
peck
combat
rock
look
frantic
deck
traffic
lock
brook
brick
dock
task
brake
music
seek
keg
carve
rook
dike
meek
kettle
public
keep
trunk
crash
thick
luck
track
pack
smoke
kindle
cure
culvert
week
kilt
speck
quake
crater
duke
carpet
yoke
shellac
attic
sulk
kin
cord
joke
elk
peck
combat
rock
look
frantic
deck
Final /k/ generalizations
• ck after a short vowel
black lock neck
duck
sick
• k after a consonant or a vowel digraph
milk
week
bank
book
• ke after a long vowel
make broke
like
duke
• c at the end of a word with two or more
syllables
garlic Atlantic magic
picnic
• Why George Bernard Shaw was wrong?
1. Position (environment) of the Letters (gh
is never pronounced /f/ in the initial
position and ti never pronounced /sh/ at
the end of a word)
2. History of English Language (or word
origin)
3. Syllable Patterns (ti makes the /sh/ sound
in the final syllable pattern - tion)
3 – 5% Other
10 – 12%
Greek
60% Latin
(50% directly from Latin; 10%
from Latin through French
20 – 25% Anglo-Saxon / Old English
Greek
(and others)
Specialized words
used mostly in science,
though some, like
television, are common.
Romance
Technical, sophisticated words used
primarily in more formal settings
such as literature and textbooks
Anglo-Saxon
Common, everyday, down-to-earth words used frequently in
ordinary situations and found in school primers
one
twenty
ninety
hundred
red
brown
green
pig
deer
cow
shrimp
fox
lobster
head
leg
feet
arm
run
play
the
work
and
laugh
cough
right
high
pick
duck
sock
king
hook
kiss
kilt
knee
knife
knock
gnat
gnarl
gnash
twin
twilight
between
betwixt
write
wring
wrist
wrench
cheap
chest
bench
witch
hatch
match
edge
trudge
ridge
hedge
this
these
bath
why
while
when
Marvelous
Ingredient
Fascinate
Tremendous
Accompaniment
Act
Direct
Conduct
Apt
Erupt
Attempt
Facial
Precious
Special
Nation
Pretentious
Partial
Phrase
graph
phone
Choir
ache
orchid
kilometer
kinescope
kerosene
thermos
athlete
theme
cycle
gymnastics
thyme
spaghetti
moose
trombone
skunk
yacht
cobra
mosquito
coyote
sauerkraut
• Anglo-Saxon words are short; tend to have
vowel pairs (Latin words generally do not)
• Bread; boat, sail (exceptions are oi, oy, ou as
in boil, loyal, and soup adopted from French)
• Latin seldom has silent letters, Anglo-Saxon
certainly does. Pronunciation has changed,
but the spelling has not. (knee from knie –
Evil Knievel?; gh in light and night)
• Anglo-Saxon make compound words: airport;
bookcase; fireplace; horseback
Origins of English
Country
People
Language
CH
Germany
Angles
Saxons
Jutes
Germanic
CH
Old English
France
Normans
Latin
Middle
English
SH
Italy
Romans
Latin
None
Greece
Greeks
Greek
K
• Why George Bernard Shaw was wrong?
• 1. Position (environment) of the Letters (gh
is never pronounced /f/ in the initial position
and ti never pronounced /sh/ at the end of a
word)
• 2. History of English Language (or word
origin)
• 3. Syllable Patterns (ti makes the /sh/ sound
in the final syllable pattern - tion)
• Kit and kite; cap and cape
• Rabbit and middle and lilac, tiger
• Other factors:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Nephew & uphill; father & fathead
Site and cite citation
Road, rowed and rode
Parts of Speech (noun – ist; adjective –est)
Physicist, Chemist, Pharmacist
Fastest, Smartest, Coldest
Etymology
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pasteurize (Louis Pasteur)
Galvanize (Luigi Galvani)
Fahrenheit (Gabriel Fahrenheit)
Caesarean
(Julius Caesar)
Silhouette
(French minister of finance in the 1700s who was accused of
“shady” deals)
Chauvinists
(Nicholas Chauvin, whose blind and vociferous devotion to
Napoleon, resulted in the downfall of France)
Maverick
(Sam Maverick refused to brand his cattle) people who are
different; out of the ordinary
Salary Sal = salt (Roman soldiers were paid ‘sal’ as their pay)
• Kessler and Treiman (2001)
• Vowel spellings are quite variable
• On a consistency scale of 0 to 1 (1 being
sound is spelled the same way)
• Vowels = 0.53 (knowing the beginning
consonant; 0.65; knowing the final
consonant 0.74)
• Beginning consonant = 0.91
• Final consonant = 0.82
• Better spellers are more sensitive to
environmental patterns than poor spellers
• Helpful to present spelling words in groups:
–child, wild, mild; side, ride, hide
–can, cat, cap; cut; cold; clock
–kit, keep
• Structured, Explicit, Sequential, Direct
• Spelling Instruction at different grade levels
• Kindergarten:
• phoneme awareness + letter name and letter sound
knowledge
• (1) count the number of syllables in words,
• (2) listen for a particular sound in words and give a
“thumbs-up” if the sound is heard, and
• (3) count the number of sounds in words by saying
a word slowly and moving a token for each sound.
• End of kindergarten: quickly name letters on a chart
• Give the sounds of letters with one frequent sound
(e.g., b, d, f).
Alphabetic Knowledge
All letters are not created equal
B, D, T,
/bi/, /di/, /ti/
F, L, N
/ εf/, / εl/, / εn/
W, Y
• Grade 1:
• Anglo-Saxon words with regular consonant and vowel sound–
letter correspondences
• One-syllable words with one-to-one correspondences such as
the short vowels and the consonant sounds /b/, /d/, /f/, /g/,
/h/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /s/, and /t/.
• A few common patterns for sounds that have more than one
spelling: /k/ before a, o, u, or any consonant is spelled c (e.g.,
cap, cot, cub, class, club) and before e, i, or y is spelled k (e.g.,
kept, kiss, skit).
• Other common patterns: when a long vowel sound in the initial
or medial position is followed by one consonant sound, e is
added to the end of the word (e.g., name, these, five, rope,
cube)
• “Floss rule,” - after a short vowel, a final /f/ is spelled ff, final /l/
is spelled ll, and final /s/ is spelled ss (as in stiff, well, and grass).
Some common exceptions to point out are if, this, us, thus, yes,
bus, and his. Once students are secure with the spelling of the
first three sounds, they can add /z/ as in fizz.
• Grade 2:
• more complex Anglo-Saxon letter patterns and common inflectional
endings.
• Students learn to spell one-syllable words with patterns such as:
• final /k/ after a short vowel in a one-syllable word is spelled ck (e.g., back,
peck, sick, sock, duck),
• final /k/ after a consonant or two vowels is spelled k (e.g., milk, desk, book,
peek),
• final /ch/ after a short vowel in a one-syllable word is spelled tch and
ch after a consonant or two vowels, such as in catch, pitch, match, bench,
pouch; the words which, rich, much, and such are exceptions.
• final /j/ after a short vowel in a one-syllable word is spelled dge and ge after
a long vowel, a consonant, or two vowels (e.g., badge, fudge, age, hinge,
scrooge), and
• initial and medial /au/ is spelled ou and final /au/ is spelled ow (e.g., out,
found cow, how).
• Inflectional endings - ing and ed. Spelling derivatives with these endings
may require the doubling or dropping a letter. When a word ends in one
vowel, one consonant, and one accent (all one-syllable words are accented),
and a suffix that begins with a vowel is added, the final consonant is
doubled (e.g., hopping, running, beginning, stopped, bagged). When a word
ends in a final e and a suffix that begins with a vowel is added, the final e is
dropped (e.g., hoping, naming, saved, joked).
Characteristics of good spellers:
Lessons from Spelling Bee Participants
Word origin of Bee:
A. “community social gathering where friends and
neighbors join in a single activity”
B. May also come from bene (M.E.) (favor)
1999-2011: 9 out of 13 winners are of Indian origin
Majority bilinguals
A. repeat the word
B. use it in a sentence: blue vs. blew
C. word origin: chair, chef, ache; face vs. phase
D. Parts of speech: Noun vs. adjective: chemist vs.
coldest
• The 25 Most Commonly Misspelled Words
• Which of the following spellings is correct?
a) acomodate
Know
b) accomodate c) acommodate d) accommodate e) Don't
• Which of the following spellings is correct?
a) comitment b) comitmment c) commitment d) comitmant
e) Don't Know
• Which of the following spellings is correct?
a) seperate
b) separete
c) separate
e) Don't Know
d) seperat
• Which of the following spellings is PREFERRED?
a) supersede
b) supercede
c) superceed
d) suparseed
e) Don't Know
• Which of the following spellings is correct?
a) withhold
b) withhuld
c) withold
e) Don't Know
d) withhald
Dialect and spelling
• Treiman, Goswami, Tincoff, & Leeves (1997).
• Compared spelling performance of 6-7 -year-old US
and British children:
US children
• Doctor dkr, deor,
• Hurt
• Card
• Girl
docktur
hrt, hrte,
crd, crdi, kird
grl
British Children
docke, docd, dot
hut, hoot,
cud, cade
gel
• More surprisingly, dialect influences spelling even
in adults (Treiman & Barry, 2000).
• British university students:
• Leper → lepa
• Panther → pantha
• Ether → etha
• (only 1% of the U.S. students made errors like
above)
• High incidence of reading problems among
African Americans may be partly due to the
difference in the spoken English and the
Academic English (Scarborough, Charity)
• Teachers can readily understand the difficulties
with reading and spelling experienced by many
students learning English as a second language,
but they may be baffled by the difficulties
encountered by students who speak AAVE.
• Characteristics of AAVE
When a word ends in two or more consonants, AAVE
speakers will delete or reduce some of the consonants
especially t or d.
AAVE:
han’
AE: hand
Des’
desk
When ng appears at the end of a word, AAVE speakers
will pronounce it as n.
AAVE:
cryin’
AE: crying
runnin’
running
The voiceless th is pronounced as t or f
AAVE:
tin AE: thin
baf
bath
The letter r is deleted when it appears after a vowel
AAVE:
sistuh
AE: sister
Fouh
four
– Disappearance of /l/ in word-final position: toll pronounced as
toe; tool as too
– Omission of the verb form be in certain sentence patterns: He
old for “He is old”
– Noun-Verb agreement often not indicated; The boys was there;
They was going
– Past tense may not be marked by ed
• walked -> walk; called -> call. However, came and went are
used correctly, indicating that phonological variations, not
variations in meaning, lead to such alternatives
• Differences in preposition use: He teach at Wilson
Elementary for He teaches at Wilson Elementary
• To express a remote event, AAVE speakers will use stressed
BÍN.
• AAVE: He BÍN married
• AE: He has been married for a very long time
• AAVE: She BÍN ate it.
• AE: She ate it a long time ago
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
School: An inner city school
Classification: Academically Unacceptable
Participants: 124 sixth graders (2 teachers)
65 females
59 males
57 comparison
67 treatment
Fall: randomly assigned the participants
December – Teacher training
Language Variation Status (LVS) of the Diagnostic
Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV; Seymour,
Roeper, & de Villiers, 2003)
• Spring – intervention started 25 minutes a week for
3 days a week for 8 weeks
– FLOSS Rule (e.g., staff, bill, brass, and buzz [if a
word has one syllable and ends in f, l, s, or z,
double the final letter])
– Rules for adding a suffix to a word (e.g. ride
[drop the e before adding ing])
– When to use s or c for /s/ (e.g., sat and celery)
– When to use the diphthong oi and oy for /oi/
(e.g., boil and boy)
– Rule for spelling /k/ sound in final position (e.g.,
milk, week, make, and garlic)
– Rule for –tch for /ch/ (e.g., batch, kitchen, mulch,
beach, etc.)
– Words that end in /j/ (e.g. cage versus ledge)
• Means for the Comparison and Treatment Groups
Group
DELV
Spel-pre
Spel-2 Spel 3
Treatment
7.91
57.63
67.78
65.22
Comparison 7.79
61.40
61.26
69.37
E11
75
E12
E13
Number of Words
70
E14
E25
65
E26
E27
60
C18
C19
55
C110
C211
50
1
2
Testing Times
3
C212
C213
C214
Conclusion
• Structured systematic, explicit instruction
improved spelling in children with AAVE
• The Role of Orthography in Literacy Acquisition
• Orthography/Writing system of a language/script
• ‘graphemic patterns of a written language and
their mapping onto phonology, morphology, and
meaning’
(Henderson, 1984, p. 1).
Classification of orthographies (DeFrancis,
1989)
Graphic Symbols
Syllabic
Phonetic
Meaning +
phonetic
Japanese Chinese
Sumerian
Alphabetic Symbols
Consonantal
Phonetic
Meaning +
Phonetic
Phoenician Egyptian
Alphabetic
Phonetic Meaning
+
Phonetic
Greek
Korean
Finnish
English
Writing Systems
Logographic
(Morphosyllabic)
Kanji
Chinese
Syllabic
No phonemic
representation
Kana
ba vs bi
ti vs gi
Alphabetic
Potential
phonemic
representation
Devanagari
ba vs bi
ti vs gi
Roman alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet
Japanese Kana
•@
•&
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ಅ ಆಇಈಉಊಋಎಏಐ಑ಒಓ
ಔ ಕ ಖ ಗ ಘ
ಙ ಚ ಛ ಜ ಝ
ಞ ಟ ಠ ಡ ಢ
ಣ ತ ಥ ದ ಧ
ನ ಩ ಪ ಫ ಬ
ಭ ಮ ಲ ಴ ವ ಶ ಷ ಸ ಳ
•
಄ ಅ ಆ ಇ ಈ ಉ ಊ ಎ ಏ ಐ ಑ ಒ ಓ ಄ಂ ಄ಃ
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ಕ ಖಹ ಖಿ ಖಿೀ ಕು ಕೂ ಕೃ ಖೆ ಖೆೀ ಖೆೈ ಖೊ ಖೊೀ ಖೌ ಕಂ ಕಃ
ಖ ಗಹ ಗಿ ಗಿೀ ಖು ಖೂ ಖೃ ಗೆ ಗೆೀ ಗೆೈ ಗೊ ಗೊೀ ಗೌ ಖಂ ಖಃ
ಗ ಘಾ ಘಿ ಘಿೀ ಗು ಗೂ ಗ೅ ಘೀ ಘೀೀ ಘೀೈ ಘೀೂ ಘೀೂೀ ಘೌ ಗಂ ಗಃ
ಘ ಙಾ ಙ಺ ಙ಺ೀ ಘು ಘೂ ಘೃ ಙ ೆ ಙ ೆೀ ಙ ೆೈ ಙ ೆೃ ಙ ೆೃೀ ಙೌ ಘಂ ಘಃ
ಙ ಚಹ ಚಿ ಚಿೀ ಙು ಙೂ ಙೃ ಚೆ ಚೆೀ ಚೆೈ ಚೊ ಚೊೀ ಚೌ ಙಂ ಙಃ
ಚ ಛಹ ಛಿ ಛಿೀ ಚು ಚೂ ಚೃ ಛೆ ಛೆೀ ಛೆೈ ಛೊ ಛೊೀ ಛೌ ಚಂ ಚಃ
ಛ ಜಹ ಜಿ ಜಿೀ ಛು ಛೂ ಛೃ ಜೆ ಜೆೀ ಜೆೈ ಜೊ ಜೊೀ ಜೌ ಛಂ ಛಃ
ಜ ಝಹ ಝಿ ಝಿೀ ಜು ಜೂ ಜೃ ಝೆ ಝೆೀ ಝೆೈ ಝೊ ಝೊೀ ಝೌ ಜಂ ಜಃ
ಝ ಞಾ ಞ಺ ಞ಺ೀ ಝು ಝೃ ಝೃ ಞ ೆ ಞ ೆೀ ಞ ೆೈ ಞ ೆೃ ಞ ೆೃೀ ಞೌ ಝಂ ಝಃ
ಣ ತಹ ತಿ ತಿೀ ಣು ಣೂ ಣೃ ತೆ ತೆೀ ತೆೈ ತೊ ತೊೀ ತೌ ಣಂ ಣಃ
ತ ಥಹ ಥಿ ಥಿೀ ತು ತೂ ತೃ ಥೆ ಥೆೀ ಥೆೈ ಥೊ ಥೊೀ ಥೌ ತಂ ತಃ
ಥ ದಹ ದಿ ದಿೀ ಥು ಥೂ ಥೃ ದೆ ದೆೀ ದೆೈ ದೊ ದೊೀ ದೌ ಥಂ ಥಃ
ದ ಧಹ ಧಿ ಧಿೀ ದು ದೂ ದೃ ಧೆ ಧೆೀ ಧೆೈ ಧೊ ಧೊೀ ಧೌ ದಂ ದಃ
ಧ ನಹ ನಿ ನಿೀ ಧು ಧೂ ಧೃ ನೆ ನೆೀ ನೆೈ ನೊ ನೊೀ ನೌ ಧಂ ಧಃ
ಞ ಟಹ ಟಿ ಟಿೀ ಞು ಞೂ ಞೃ ಟೆ ಟೆೀ ಟೆೈ ಟೊ ಟೊೀ ಟೌ ಞಂ ಞಃ
ಟ ಠಹ ಠಿ ಠಿೀ ಟು ಟೂ ಟೃ ಠೆ ಠೆೀ ಠೆೈ ಠೊ ಠೊೀ ಠೌ ಟಂ ಟಃ
ಠ ಡಹ ಡಿ ಡಿೀ ಠು ಠೂ ಠೃ ಡೆ ಡೆೀ ಡೆೈ ಡೊ ಡೊೀ ಡೌ ಠಂ ಠಃ
ಡ ಢಹ ಢಿ ಢಿೀ ಡು ಡೂ ಡೃ ಢೆ ಢೆೀ ಢೆೈ ಢೊ ಢೊೀ ಢೌ ಡಂ ಡಃ
ಢ ಣಹ ಣಿ ಣಿೀ ಢು ಢೂ ಢೃ ಣೆ ಣೆೀ ಣೆೈ ಣೊ ಣೊೀ ಣೌ ಢಂ ಢಃ
ನ ಩ಹ ಪಿ ಪಿೀ ನು ನೂ ನೃ ಩ೆ ಩ೆೀ ಩ೆೈ ಪೊ ಪೊೀ ಩ೌ ನಂ ನಃ
಩ ಪಹ ಫಿ ಫಿೀ ಫು ಫೂ ಩ೃ ಪೆ ಪೆೀ ಪೆೈ ಫೃ ಫೃೀ ಪೌ ಩ಂ ಩ಃ
ಪ ಫಹ ಫೄ ಫೄೀ ಪು ಪೂ ಪೃ ಫೆ ಫೆೀ ಫೆೈ ಫೊ ಫೊೀ ಫೌ ಪಂ ಪಃ
ಫ ಬಹ ಫ೅ ಫ೅ೀ ಫು ಫೂ ಫೃ ಬೆ ಬೆೀ ಬೆೈ ಬೊ ಬೊೀ ಬೌ ಫಂ ಫಃ
ಬ ಭಹ ಫೆ ಫೆೀ ಬು ಬೂ ಬೃ ಫೇ ಫೇೀ ಫೇೈ ಮೊ ಮೊೀ ಭೌ ಬಂ ಬಃ
ಭ ಮಹ ಯಿ ಯಿೀ ಭು ಭೂ ಭೃ ಯೆ ಯೆೀ ಯೆೈ ಯೊ ಯೊೀ ಮೌ ಭಂ ಭಃ
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ಲ ಲಹ ಲಿ ಲಿೀ ಲು ಲೂ ಲೃ ಲೆ ಲೆೀ ಲೆೈ ಲೊ ಲೊೀ ಲೌ ಲಂ ಲಃ
಴ ಴ಹ ವಿ ವಿೀ ಴ು ಴ೂ ಴ೃ ಴ೆ ಴ೆೀ ಴ೆೈ ವೊ ವೊೀ ಴ೌ ಴ಂ ಴ಃ
ವ ವಹ ಶಿ ಶಿೀ ವು ವೃ ವೃ ವೆ ವೆೀ ವೆೈ ವೆೃ ವೆೃೀ ವೌ ವಂ ವಃ
ಶ ಶಹ ಷಿ ಷಿೀ ಶು ಶೂ ಶೃ ಶೆ ಶೆೀ ಶೆೈ ಶೊ ಶೊೀ ಶೌ ಶಂ ಶಃ
ಷ ಷಹ ಸಿ ಸಿೀ ಷು ಷೂ ಷೃ ಷೆ ಷೆೀ ಷೆೈ ಷೊ ಷೊೀ ಷೌ ಷಂ ಷಃ
ಸ ಸಹ ಹಿ ಹಿೀ ಸು ಸೂ ಸೃ ಸೆ ಸೆೀ ಸೆೈ ಸೊ ಸೊೀ ಸೌ ಸಂ ಸಃ
ಳ ಳಹ ಳಿ ಳಿೀ ಳು ಳೄ ಳ೅ ಳೆ ಳೆೀ ಳೆೈ ಳೆೄ ಳೆೄ ೀ ಳೌ ಳಂ ಳಃ
• ಔ ಕಹ ಕಿ ಕಿೀ ಔು ಔೂ ಔೃ ಕೆ ಕೆೀ ಕೆೈ ಕೊ ಕೊೀ ಕೌ ಔಂ ಔಃ (Ka, Ki, Ke, Ko, . . .
• ಮ ಯಹ ರಿ ರಿೀ ಮು ಮೂ ಮೃ ಯೆ ಯೆೀ ಯೆೈ ಯೊ ಯೊೀ ಯೌ ಮಂ ಮಃ (ra, ri, re, ro, . . . .
Orthographic Depth
Shallow……………………............……...…Deep
S
y
l
l
a
b
i
c
S
t
r
u
c
t
u
r
e
Simple
Complex
Finnish Greek
Italian
Spanish
German
Norwegian
Icelandic
Source. Seymour, Aro, and Erskine (2003).
Portuguese French
Dutch
Swedish
Danish
English
English
French
Czech
German
Spanish
No. of
letters
26
26
39
(13v +
26C)
30
28-29 (w)
No. of
phonemes
44
(20V +
24C)
38
(19V +
19C)
37
(6V +
25C)
≈30
29
(5V +
17C)
Phoneme letter ratio
1.7:1
1.5:1
1:1
1:1
1:1
No. of
graphemes
≈ 250
≈165
42
≈30
29
• Frith, Wimmer, & Landerl :
German - fewer errors for both words (8%)
and nonwords (15%);
English - words (30%) and nonwords (53%)
Caravolas et al.
Spelling, Czech - 65% accuracy
English - 36%
• Seymour et al. examined the speed and
accuracy of familiar word reading and
nonword reading in 8 writing system
• Finnish, Spanish, Italian, & Greek = 95 %
Portuguese, French, and Danish ≈ 75%
English = 34 % for word reading and
29% for non-word reading.
Reading level after 1 year of instruction
% correct
Word reading
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Seymour et al. (2003), British Journal of Psychology
Items/min
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
r accuracy/speed = .87
Seymour et al. (2003), British Journal of Psychology
• The establishment of an effective
sight vocabulary and decoding
needs about 2 years of reading
experience in English as against 1year in many European languages.
Orthographic Depth Hypothesis
• An important factor that has an
influence on the rate in which literacy
skills is acquired depends on the degree
of correspondence between
orthography and phonology (GPC).
• Brains may be similar from one
culture to another but
orthographies certainly are not.
(Coltheart, Patterson, & Marshall)
• I A. How does the orthography of one language
influence the spelling performance of children in
another language?
• Number of participants from different countries at
various grade levels
• Country
US Norway India
China
• Grade
•
• 3
41
• 4
39
•
• 5
93
43
• 6
72
42
•
• 7
36
• 8
40
• Spelling Test: 50 words
• High frequency content words: father, world,
and food
• High frequency function words: because and
between
• Irregular words: elephant and half
• Normal procedure of administering the
spelling test
• Number of words spelled correctly by children from
different grades and different countries (standard
deviations in parentheses).
• Country
US
Norway
India
China
• ________________________________________________________
• Grade
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
3
4
5
6
7
8
33.54 (10.87)
40.58 (9.12)
8.92 (8.49)
19.04 (13.42)
7.40 (3.58)
11.83 (6.18)
11.06 (7.86)
21.33 (9.07)
• Means (and standard deviations) of correct phonetic
elements.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Country US
Norway
India
China
____________________________________________________
Grade
3
4
5
6
7
8
250.71 (46.97)
287.79 (25.12)
156.77 (28.94)
195.07 (30.70)
70.35 (30.21)
106.14 (49.12)
135.56 (52.94)
192.80 (47.65)
Sample of spelling errors for the words night and world
Norwegian
Indian
Night nait, nte, najit, nite, nit, niat
nigt, nnet
niteght
World word, vold,
wold, vorld
Joshi et al. (2006)
volte, word,
wold, owed
Chinese
nite, nice, like,
light, nike, nine
work, worker,
wall, what
•
•
•
•
•
Study I. B.
Simultaneous bilinguals; Singapore
Chinese (n=168), Malay (n=72), Tamil (n=45)
About 2 years of exposure to English
Words like he, green, house, table
Chinese
Malay
Conv. Sp.
14
10
Phon. Eq.
25
45
Real word sub.
37
11
(grass, take, home)
Quinton, Joshi, Jing-Zhao (2010)
Tamil
10
50
7
First Language Phonology and Spelling in a
Second Language
Spanish
• Cronnell (1985): Hispanic children from grades 3 and 6 confused English
phonemes which do not contrast in their first language:
• /b/ and /v/: as in bery (very) and combins (convince).
• Similar errors were reported for the sounds /ð/ and /d/, /z/ and /s/, and /ʧ/
and /ʃ/.
• They also made errors due to the absence of /i:/ in Spanish such as steel (still)
and it (eat); and errors due to the absence of /˄/ in Spanish such as op (fun)
and fan (fun).
• Ferroli & Shanahan (1992): Bilingual Latino children from grades 2 and 3 used
voiceless patterns to spell voiced English phonemes (e.g., /p/ and /b/). Spanish
does not attend to differences in voicing.
• Fashola, Drum, Mayer, & Kang (1996): compared the spelling performance of
Spanish-speaking bilingual children from grades 2, 3, 5, and 6 with their English
monolingual counterparts.
• The Spanish-speaking participants made more predicted errors (i.e., errors
related to the Spanish language) than their English counterparts. However, the
two comparison groups did not differ in the amount of other errors which they
made.
• Study II: Russian (Boulware-Gooden, Joshi,
Carreker, Grigorenko, 2007)
• Nature of Russian orthography:
• Spelling is highly phonetic and morphemic (easy to
predict the sounds of the letters and morphemes,
roots, prefixes, suffixes are added without changes)
• US Sample: Gr. 4 = 46 (9.2 yrs); Gr. 6 = 43 (11.1)
(50.2% males)
• Russian Sample: Gr. 4 = 55 (10.4 yrs); Gr. 6 = 51
(12.2) (53% males)
• Tasks: 1. Silent Phonological Choice Task. (Olsen et
al., 1994) Which sounds like a real word? pake,
kake, and dake. – 60 items
• 2. Test of Morphological Structure. (Carlisle, 1995).
Farm: “My uncle is a __________.”
• Driver: “Children are too young to _________.”
Each test contained 28 questions.
• Orthographic Awareness Test. Joshi and Aaron
(1995) – 45 items.
• Choose the incorrect spelling: hear, here or heer.
• Spelling Test (Joshi & Aaron, 2002). 56 words
• ‘regular’, ‘exceptional’, ‘unique’, and
'morphophonemic’
• Similar/equivalent tests were constructed in Russian
• Results from Multiple Regression and Commonality
analyses:
• English speaking participants:
• 4th grade: Total variance 63%
• Phonology – 34%; morphology- 62% & orthography18%
• 6th grade: Total Variance: 55%; phonology - 37 %:
morphology-46% & orthography 14%.
• Russian speaking participants:
• 4th grade: 54%: phonology - 1 %; morphology - 45%;
& orthography 36%.
• 6th grade: 47% phonology - 2%; morphology, 15%; &
orthography 34%.
• Chinese: (Jing Zhao, Joshi, & Dixon, Submitted)
Orthography Feature
Nature
Chinese
morpho-syllabic
compound
words
English
morpho-phonemic
infl. & deri.
words
Participants:
Original Sample: 183 (American) + 537 (Chinese) =720
Final Sample: 166 English speakers in Grade 3, U S
339 Chinese-English bilingual speakers in Grade 8, China
Readability Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 3.19
Real word spelling: TWS-Test of Written Spelling-IV (Larsen, Hammill, &
Moates, 1999)
Pseudo word spelling :SOS-Spelling of Sounds (Woodcock Johnson III subtest)
(Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001).
Orthographic Awareness: OA1-Orthographic Choice (Aaron, Joshi, &
Williams, 1999): hear here heer
OA2-Permissible Letter Sequence (Wang, Perfetti, & Liu, 2005): beff vs ffeb
Morphological Awareness
MA1-Extract the Base (August et al., 2001) Publicity. The ___ was happy
with the show (public).
MA2-Word Form Exercise (Nunes, Bryant, & Bindman, 1997)
This is person who knows how to mab along the street. Yesterday he
mabbed along the street. Today he does the same thing. What does he do
today? Today he ________long the street. (mabs)
Phonological Awareness
PA1-Speech Sound and Syllable Counting
PA2-Sound Oddity Task
Results
Measurement Model
American
Chinese
Content 01
χ2 (13) = 26.514, p = .14
CFI = .972
RMSEA = .045 with the 90% CI [.020 - .070]
Major Findings
• Over 60% of the variance in spelling of
English words was explained by
metalinguistic awareness.
• MA makes the largest contribution to
“Metalinguistic Awareness” construct for
both groups.
• For the Chinese group, PA was less
important while OA was more important
compared to the American group.
Characteristics of Arabic
• Arabic is written from right to left.
• It is a consonantal language. There are 28 consonants in
the alphabet.
• It is transparent, with predictable sound-to-letter
correspondences when diacritical marks are present.
• Most of the Arabic consonants are very similar to the
English consonants, and there are several consonants in
Arabic which do not exist in the English language: /Ɂ/,
/ħ/, /x/, /sˁ/, /dˁ/, /tˁ/,/ðˁ/, /ʕ/, /ɣ/, and /q/.
• There are also a few English consonants which do not
exist in Arabic: /g/, /p/, /v/, and/ʧ/ (note that /g/ and
/ʧ/ do exist in some spoken dialects).
• Allaith & Joshi (2011, & in Press)
• Measure:
– A paper and pencil based dictation task which consisted of
various words which had the target phonemes embedded
in them (eight words for each phoneme).
– All of the words were one syllable with no consonant
clusters, and they reflected the frequent spelling
generalizations of English.
• Scoring:
– Each participants received two scores based on the
number of errors s/he made.
– One score reflected phoneme pair errors (e.g., spelling b as
/p/).
– The other score reflected all other errors.
Results: Other Errors
• Mean ranks, Mann-Whitney U, and effect sizes of the other errors for the fourth
and sixth grade Arabic participants and their English counterparts.
Results: Other Errors
• The Arabic and the English participants
generally did not differ in the other errors they
made for the target phonemes.
• This suggests that the two groups were
comparable.
Results: Phoneme Pair Errors
• Mean ranks, Mann-Whitney U, and effect sizes of the phoneme pair errors for
the fourth and sixth grade Arabic participants and their English counterparts.
Results: Phoneme Pair Errors
• The Arabic participants mostly differed from the
English participants in spelling the phonemes /p/
and /b/ using the graphemes which correspond to
their phoneme pairs (large effect size).
• The Arabic participants also tended to spell /v/ as f
and /f/ as v more than the English participants did
(medium effect size).
• The Arabic and the English students performed
similarly on /d/ and /t/.
• If spelling is easy, then why students
spell poorly?
• Teacher preparation
• Joshi et al., JLD, 2009
• Carreker & Joshi, LDQ, 2010
• Teacher Preparation (Binks, Joshi, & Washburn,
In Press, SSR) Peter Effect in teacher preparation
Study 1:
Prepared a questionnaire
Based on Moats, McCutchen, & Cunningham
Total of 60 items
Questions like:
How well do you think you are prepared to teach
normal readers, struggling readers, phonological
awareness, decoding?
Definition of terms: phoneme (morpheme)
refers to . .
Explain: No. of speech sounds in box,
moon, .
No. of morphemes in observer, heaven, .. .
Vocabulary Instruction: semantic mapping
Comprehension: Summarizing, reciprocal
teaching
Reliability of 0.92 (Cronbach’s α)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Item Difficulty:
Thompson and Levitov (1985)
ideal difficulty level about 0.60.
0.63
ranged from 0.21 number of morphemes in spinster
0.95 for number of syllables in pedestal.
Item Discrimination:
Ebel and Frisbie (1986)
0.30 and above reasonably good items
52 of the 60 items had a D score of 0.30-1
0.12-0.20 – syllable counting items
• University instructors of reading education
courses (n=98)
• 90 of them had a doctorate and 8 of them
were working on their doctorates
• All had taught in elementary schools
• Teaching 2-4 courses in reading education
• All of them believed that they are well
prepared to teach reading
Good:
• > 90% defined and counted the number of
syllables correctly
• (compared to about 50% of inservice,
preservice, ACP teachers)
• 98% correctly recognized the definition of a
phoneme
• 92% correctly recognized that “chef” and
“shoe” begin with the same sound.
Bad:
• 65% correctly recognize a word with two closed
syllables (napkin)
• 56% correctly recognize a word with an open
syllable (bacon)
• 58% correctly recognize the definition of
phonological awareness
• 54% correctly recognize the definition of
phonemic awareness
• 63% correctly count speech sounds in “through”
• 67% correctly recognize the definition of a
morpheme
and the Ugly:
• 42% correctly count the correct speech
sounds in “box’
• 27% correctly recognize a word with a final
stable syllable (paddle)
• 50% correctly recognize the rule that governs
the use of ‘c’ in the initial position for /k/
• 21% correctly recognize the rule that governs
the use of ‘k’ in the initial position for /k/
Teachers’ knowledge about morphemes
No. of syllables
No. of morphemes
Heaven
92%
40%
Observer
96%
26%
Teacher
92%
48%
Frogs
88%
29%
Spinster
90%
19%
B. Not taught in university courses
• First Year teachers
• Graduated in 2008
• Rated themselves as fairly good in teaching
phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency
• (Average 2.7 on a scale of 1-4)
• Very good in teaching vocabulary,
comprehension, and children’s literature (2.9)
University faculty
First Year Teachers
define and count the
number of syllables
correctly
≈ 92%
≈ 92%
Identifying the definition
of a phoneme
98%
89%
correctly recognize that
“chef” and “shoe” begin
with the same sound.
92%
88%
correctly recognize a
word with two closed
syllables (napkin)
65%
53%
correctly recognize the
58%
definition of phonological
awareness
47%
No. of morphemes:
heaven
Observer
Frogs
Name all the 5
components of NRP
40%
26%
29%
21%
18%
24%
15%
0%
Other interesting observations:
1. Seeing letters and words backwards is
characteristic of dyslexia (3-4 True) (3.6)
2. Children with dyslexia can be helped by using
colored lenses/colored overlays (2.8)
3. Most teachers receive training to work with
dyslexic children (1-2 False) (1.5)
1. gv for give, np for nap, d for deep (H)
2. baskt for basket, trombn for trombone,
suprm for supreme (G)
3. hin for him, samwich for sandwich, canp
for camp, imto for into (B)
4. sep for step, bac for black, sip for ship
(F)
5. kook for cook, kamp for camp, kut for
cut
6. wini for weni, het for hitfor leg, nist for
nest
7. sp for sip, mn for man, ht for hit, cd for
seed (H)
8. interst for interest, uweams for
awareness, fantact for fantastic ( G )
9. sede for seed, nead for need, swiet for
sweet (A)
10. dib for dip, sad for sat, shruk for shrug
11. looct for looked, churchez for churches,
campen for camping (C)
12. cuf for cuff, kis for kiss. mis for miss [A)
A. Teach student a specific spelling pattern
or rule to help student spell words
correctly.
B. Have student use a mirror to help him
or her spell words.
C. Teach student inflectional endings.
D. Have student trace and copy words five
times.
E. Have student place two fingers on his or
her vocal cords to help student spell words
correctly.
F. Prepare a deck with blends. Student
reads the blend on each card and gives the
sounds of the blends, moving a counter for
each sound in the blend.
G. Engage student in practices such as,
"Say contest without con," or "Say
hamburger without bur."
H. Have student segment three- and fourphoneme words, moving a counter for
each sound.
I. Have student close his or her eyes and
make a visual image of the words.
• CONCLUSIONS
• English spelling is not as irregular as it has been
made to believe (it is not perfect).
• Spelling assessment should be based on a rubric not
right/wrong category
• Instruction in spelling helps in becoming better
spellers. Instruction must be explicit, systematic,
and sequential.
• The nature of orthography of an individual’s native
language and the learner’s knowledge that words
could be broken down into phonetic elements
appear to facilitate the acquisition of English
spelling.
• Conclusions (Contd.)
• Metalinguistic awareness (PA, MA, and OA) may
contribute differently to spelling performance
depending on the type of orthography. Even
though morphological awareness may be
important in Russian, Chinese, and English, the
amount of contribution may be different in
different orthographies.
• Classroom teachers and university professors of
reading education both showed weakness in the
content knowledge as well as pedagogical
knowledge about linguistic aspects of spelling.
• Joshi, R. M., Treiman, R., Carreker, S., &
Moats, L. (2008-2009). How words cast
their spell: Spelling instruction focused
on language, not memory, improves
reading and writing. American Educator,
32 (4), 6-16, 42-43.
• http://www.aft.org/pubsreports/american_educator/issues/wint
er08_09/joshi.pdf
• Writing saved me from the sin and
inconvenience of violence.
•
Alice Walker
• Spell check is soft wear that is mower or lass a
weigh too verify yore spelling and fined yore
miss steaks, how ever it does knot no witch
words are miss used butt spelled rite. Their
could be mini flaws inn yore spelling that wood
be passed the spell check.
• Thank you
• Merci beaucop
• TODA RABA ‫תודה רבה‬
• Muchas Gracias
• Muito Abrigado/a
• ‫ּתֹודָ ה ַרבָה‬
• "efharisto" (ευχαριστώ)
• 谢谢
• ً‫شڪراً جـزيال‬
• धन्यवाद