Abstract
This chapter presents a study that employs a case-study design aiming to examine the effectiveness of training of morphological structure on the spelling of complex words by 8 Greek primary school students who faced particular difficulties in spelling acquisition. Students (6 males and 2 females) were attending Learning Support Units in mainstream primary schools (Grades 2 to 6) in the prefecture of Dodecanese in Greece. The experimental design of the intervention was based on the word-pair paradigm (a base and an inflected or a derived word) as in the Tsesmeli and Seymour's (2009) study, and included a pre-test, a training programme and a post-test. Pre- and post-test items entailed two lists of word pairs, the List of Inflections (n= 50 pairs) and the List of Derivations (n= 50 pairs). The Training Program aimed to offer systematic, targeted and step-by-step instruction of morphological decomposition of words to the students using color-coding techniques. It was implemented on an individual basis and delivered via the Smart Notebook educational software (Smart Technologies, 2007) which particularly helped students to interact positively with verbal stimuli. The intervention had a substantial impact in enhancing the spelling of complex words by 8 Greek individuals. In particular, instructional gains by each individual were statistically significant, and generalised considerably to untrained but analogous words and pseudowords in terms of structure and suffixation. Qualitative analysis of the results revealed that the increase was most important on suffix spelling (Mann & Singson, 2003). Τhe degree of improvement by eight students did not seem to be associated directly with their chronological age but rather with the stage of their spelling acquisition. This relationship was statistically negative, suggesting that the degree of improvement was greater in students with lower spelling capabilities. These findings are particularly important for the development of alternative approaches in the educational interventions for individuals with spelling difficulties and developmental dyslexia, and are consistent with the experimental literature (Nunes & Bryant, 2006; Reed, 2008; Tsesmeli & Seymour, 2009).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Spelling Skills |
Subtitle of host publication | Acquisition, Abilities, and Reading Connection |
Publisher | Nova Science Publishers, Inc. |
Pages | 1-44 |
Number of pages | 44 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781616684723 |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |