Poster Session #1: UC South Ballroom
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Dr. Julie Wolter
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to 1) examine the sensitivity of a linguistically based spelling analysis compared that to an all-or-none traditional scoring system when determining spelling ability, and 2) determine how these scoring systems relate to young school-age children’s language and reading success. Significance. Spelling is a language or linguistically-based skill (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2004; Ehri, 2000; Henderson, 1990; Moats, 2009; Treiman, Cassar, & Zukowski, 1994), and the awareness of sounds in words (phonological awareness), knowledge of the spelling patterns in words (orthographic knowledge), understanding of relationships among base words and their inflectional and derivational forms (morphological awareness), all influence not only spelling acquisition but also vocabulary, reading decoding, reading comprehension, and writing development (Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002; Bourassa & Treiman, 2001; Graham & Harris, 2005). Thus assessment practices that consider all linguistic foundational areas may be more sensitive to overall literacy abilities. Methods. First grade children completed an age-level dictated spelling test and a battery and language and literacy measures. These spelling results were scored according to a linguistically based method (Wolter, 2015) and a traditional all-or-none didactic scoring system. These task results were then examined for sensitivity and range of performance and correlated to language and literacy performance. It was hypothesized that the linguistic analysis will be more sensitive to range of performance and thus be more closely related to and indicative of language and literacy success. Results, future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.
Category
Health and Medical Science
Linguistically Based Spelling Analysis and its Relation to Early School Literacy Success
UC South Ballroom
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to 1) examine the sensitivity of a linguistically based spelling analysis compared that to an all-or-none traditional scoring system when determining spelling ability, and 2) determine how these scoring systems relate to young school-age children’s language and reading success. Significance. Spelling is a language or linguistically-based skill (Apel & Masterson, 2001; Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2004; Ehri, 2000; Henderson, 1990; Moats, 2009; Treiman, Cassar, & Zukowski, 1994), and the awareness of sounds in words (phonological awareness), knowledge of the spelling patterns in words (orthographic knowledge), understanding of relationships among base words and their inflectional and derivational forms (morphological awareness), all influence not only spelling acquisition but also vocabulary, reading decoding, reading comprehension, and writing development (Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002; Bourassa & Treiman, 2001; Graham & Harris, 2005). Thus assessment practices that consider all linguistic foundational areas may be more sensitive to overall literacy abilities. Methods. First grade children completed an age-level dictated spelling test and a battery and language and literacy measures. These spelling results were scored according to a linguistically based method (Wolter, 2015) and a traditional all-or-none didactic scoring system. These task results were then examined for sensitivity and range of performance and correlated to language and literacy performance. It was hypothesized that the linguistic analysis will be more sensitive to range of performance and thus be more closely related to and indicative of language and literacy success. Results, future research directions and clinical implications are discussed.