AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN SPELLING ALPHABETS AT SALIMA
KINDERGARTEN CIMAHI
Ika Juniarti Pertiwi (09220056)
lovebilfasya@gmail.com
English Education Study Program Language and Arts Department Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan
dan Ilmu Pendidikan (STKIP) Siliwangi Bandung
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this research entitled “An Analysis Of Difficulties In Spelling Alphabets at Salima
Kindergarten Cimahi” were to find out the causes of students difficulties in spelling alphabets and to find out
which letters of the alphabets are difficult to be spelled by students. In this research the writer used descriptive
qualitative method. The site in this research conducted in group B at Salima Kindergarten Cimahi that consists
of twenty students. Techniques data analysis of this research was used observation by giving a correct spelling
of the alphabets, then the students followed the correct spelling as well, and asked them to spell the alphabets
from A to Z one by one without help. When analyzing the data, coding consistently was given to make it easier
occurance findings. After the data was collected, interview for this research were compiled through giving a
questions for classroom teacher. The results of the analysis shows that: 1) analysis of students difficulties in
spelling alphabets performed on group B consists of 20 students and only 10 students who have difficulties in
speling the alphabets: 2) from 26 letters of the alphabets, only 13 letters are still difficult to be spelled by
students, there are: A, C, E, G, H. J, K, Q, R, S, T, W, Y: 3) the difficulties caused by the students
pronunciation of English still unfamiliar and the different characteristics of the students. This research suggests
that young leraners have different characters, they can be separated with the play while learning. They can not
be equated with adults. Teaching spelling the alphabets for young learners need patience and accuracy.
Key Words: analysis of difficulties, and spelling alphabet.
Children find the difficulties because not familiar
with the pronunciaton of English.
Spelling alphabets in early childhood is very
different from adults. Teaching young learners need
patience especially in spelling alphabets they are
often difficulties. Because of the characteristics of the
children are very different, the difficulties of spelling
alphabets always be found, in the family were not
introduced to English language. In otherwise they
usually get bored quickly and if look something
interesting they concentration always quickly fall
apart. Therefore needed a way of dynamic and
careful teaching, means follow the movement of
young learners. It is all because the characters of
young learners are different. One child will not be the
same as other child.
At the beginning of the alphabetic stage, children
start to spell words out letter by letter, even though at
the same time they are still reading words in non
alphabetic ways, particularly by recognizing words as
unanalysed whole. Only letter on during the
A. BACKGROUND
Preparatory reading is in kindergarten, although the
stages that are taught to children are still in the stage
of pre-reading. But it is necessary for the preparation
enter to primary school. Preparatory reading usually
done is spelling. Often found some of the difficulties
faced by students’ in spelling alphabets. The cause
of spelling difficulties is alphabets pronunciation,
because characteristics of young learners are very
different. Most bored quickly, and the other do not
and high curiosity. Besides that, difficulties comes
because they are not accustomed to speak a foreign
language. The sound of the letter A in the Indonesian
language, and the sound of the letter A in the English
language is different pronunciation. It is usually the
cause of spelling difficulties on young learners. In
addition, the difficultues also due hardship English is
rarely used in their families, because the child’s
parents are also still largely unfamiliar with the
English language. Could be because it used to.
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alphabetic stage do they extend their knowledge of
alphabetic correspondences between letters and
sounds to help them to read the words as well (Wiley
& Sons, 2009). Students’ begin to study at
kindergarten with different experiences, and learn in
a variety of ways and different rates. Considering
these factors, and the importance of teacher
discretion, the following suggested indicators may be
use to assess students’ achievement for each
corresponding prescribed learning outcome. By the
end of kindergarten, students’ who have fully met the
prescribed learning outcome are able to spell some
short, familiar words conventionally (Kindergarten
Curriculum Package, 2010:15).
English is that spelling. According to Butler (et al.
1973:333) spelling is an important aspect of written
communication and one of important process in
learning English. Spelling refers to the proper way to
write a word, using the correct order of letters, an
example: spelling the words “cat” as “C” “A” “T”,
spelling is when actually say or write the letters of
the word “cat”.
According to Willis (2001:68) English spelling is
difficult. Children need to learn how to recognize
sounds and letters. It is better not to teach the names
of letters when starting to teach reading, as of course
some of the letters of the English alphabet no longer
match the actual sounds of the language. When you
use phonics, you are teaching children the way the
letter sounds, not the name of letter. Another way to
help children with sounds is let them play with the
sounds as they repeat a word they are reading on a
card or in their book, e.g.singing it or saying ot
loudly or quickly or slowly, or whispering. This
playing with words obviously helps pronunciation
but it also helps children remember the words.
B. LITERATURE REVIEW
The Nature of Teaching For Young Learners
Preschool education refers to the education of
children prior to the first grade. As stated in
Permendiknas RI ( No.58 Tahun 2009) Undang
Undang Nomor 20 Tahun 2003 tentang Sistem
Pendidikan Nasional Pasal 1 angka 14 menyatakan
bahwa Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini (PAUD) adalah
suatu upaya pembinaan yang ditujukan melalui
pemberian rangsangan pendidikan untuk membantu
pertumbuhan dan perkembangan jasmani dan rohani
agar anak memiliki kesiapan dalam memasuki
pendidikan lebih lanjut. The law number 20 of 2003
on national education system Article 1 number 14
stated that early childhood education is an effort
aimed at the development of children from birth to
the age of six which is done through the provision of
educational stimulation to assist the growth and
development of mind and body so that children have
the readiness to enter further education.
According to Willis (2001:4) children like as a
learners are developing quickly as individuals, learn
in variety of ways, are not able to understand
grammatical rules and explanations about language,
try to make sense of situations by making use of non
verbal clues, talk in their mother tongue about what
they understand and do this helps them learn, can
generally imitate the sounds they hear quite,
accurately and copy the way adults speak, are
naturally curious, love to play and use their
imagination, are comfortable with routines and enjoy
repetition, have quite a short attention span and so
need variety.
The Nature of Alphabet
Teach young children simple and fun way to learn
about the alphabet, as it is written in the A Child’s
First Dictionary (2007:7) the alphabet is the 26 letters
that you use to write words. The alphabet starts with
the letter a and ends with z. Teachers can help
students’ write the alphabet by coloring or playing
games together. This activity is very important
because it is capital for children to reading and
writing. Sometimes there is a lot of difficulties when
we teach students’ to know the letters of alphabets.
But with the step of fun things to teach alphabet, will
help
students’
understand
of
alphabet
(www.bincanganak.com). The alphabet may be
memorized chorally in recitation or by song. A
common problem is that students’ who know the
letters in sequence often have difficulty thinking of
the name of the letter when it is presented in isolation
(Allen, 1975:71)
C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research Method
To know how effective this analysis, the research
use qualitative method. In the qualitative research,
the data must not wait and let data accumulate, and
then analyze. If so, will have difficulty in handling
the data. The less data, the easier it is to handle.
Benefits of this strategy is that each stage of data
collection is driven by a clear focus, therefore
The Nature of Spelling Difficulties
English is the first foreign language for Indonesia to
study formally at schools. In the process of learning
English, there are so many problems that should be
faced by the students’. One of the major problems in
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a) Researcher View The Students’ Difficulties In
Spelling Alphabets
Interview with classroom teacher indicated that
difficulties in spelling alphabets is in the
pronunciation. Many students’ are not fluent. But the
sound is still vague, and the pronunciation is wrong,
example that Q should be read kyu to be ki. In one
day, students’ has not been able to spell the alphabets
with the correct pronunciation. In this study, the
writer analyze the letters of the alphabets are difficult
to spell by students’.
Based on the results of the interview is an assessment
of teacher to students’ in spelling alphabets due to
different characteristics of students’. There is some
students’ with concentration awake and not quickly
dispersed, and some students’ who do not want to
still stay so the concentration is quickly dispersed.
observations and next interviews became more
focused, narrow, and dipped in (Alwasilah,
2002:113).
2. Site and Subject
The site of this research conducted in Salima
Kindergarten Cimahi. Especially for students on
group B, consists of 20 students.
3. Research Data Analysis Techniques
Data was collected and organized based on
appropriate code. Part of data was also omitted if it
was having relationship with data needed. The
specific techniques are :
a) Observation
One of the purpose of conducting this research was to
find out the difficulties in spelling alphabets in the
English classroom activities at Salima Kindergarten
Cimahi. For gaining this data, direct observation was
used. When analyzing the field notes should be given
the code consistently to help in some ways, the easy
identification, and make it easier occurance findings,
in this case finding the difficulties in spelling
alphabets at Salima Kindergarten Cimahi.
b)
Kind of Students’ Difficulties In Spelling
Alphabets
From students’ consists of 20, only 10 students’ were
still difficulties in spelling alphabets. In the table
below is a description from result of observation
about letters of the alphabets that are difficult to
spell by students’, as a follow:
b) Interview
Interview was used as the follow up way to collect
the data after conducting observations. Since it is not
simply a matter of using questions and answers to
elicit information that the researcher goes to analyze,
but a data collection method that offers different
ways of exploring people’s experience and views
(Croker, 2009:183). The use of interview proved
useful as it allows the researcher to elicit informants’
feelings, experiences, thought, or how they interpret
the world. The researcher interviewed the class
teacher and ask the questions about the respect of
students’ to learning basic English, especially the
letters of the alphabets, and ask the questions about
students’ dificulties in spelling alphabets at Salima
Kindergarten Cimahi. Researcher applied the five
important steps in the interview to find out the
difficulties in spelling alphabets as follows:
determine who interviewed, prepare materials
interviews, preliminary steps, set the duration of the
interview and still productive, finish the interview.
4. Research Procedure
The research steps are identifying study problem,
determining study title, determining study site and
subject, developing study instrument, collecting study
data, analyzing study data, drawing study conclusions
and suggestions.
TABLE 1
Data Analysis of Spelling Alphabets
Alphabet
Difficulties
No Difficulties
Letters
Standard
Total
Pronunciation
Aa [ei]
Bb [bi:]
Cc [si:]
Dd [di:]
Ee [i:]
Ff [ef]
Gg[dʒi:]
Hh [eitʃ]
Ii [ai]
Jj[dʒei]
Kk [kei]
Ll [el]
Mm [em]
Nn [en]
Oo [o]
Pp [pi:]
Qq [kiu:]
Rr [a:/ar]
Ss [es]
Tt [ti:]
Uu [ju:]
Vv [vi:]
Ww
[‘dʌəlju:]
Xx [eks]
D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
3
[ai]
1
[ce]
1
[eit], [e]
2
[je], [jei]
[ut], [ec], [ait]
2
3
[ji]
[kay], [keit], [ka]
1
3
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
[ki]
[er], [ay]
[yes], [ays]
[te]
1
2
2
1
√
√
[‘bʌəlju:]
1
√
Yy [wai]
Zz
[zed/zi:]
[ai], [yey]
√
TABLE 2
Category of Difficulties
Alpha
Difficulty Causes
bet
Letter
s
Less
Less Sh Hesit
Concentr Famil y
ant
ation
iar
Aa [
ei ]
Cc [
si: ]
Ee [ i:
]
Gg[dʒ
i:]
Hh
[eitʃ]
Jj[dʒe
i]
Kk [
kei ]
Qq [
kiu:]
Rr [
a:ar ]
Ss [ es
]
Tt [ ti:
]
Ww
[‘dʌəl
ju:]
Yy [
wai ]
the students’ can follow it well, but when they spell it
without teachers help, the difficulties starts.
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√
√
E.CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Based on the results of field research and data
analysis through a discussions and findings, writer
found several conclusions as follows: 1) analysis of
students’ difficulties in spelling alphabets performed
on group B consists of 20 students’ and only 10
students’ who have difficulty in spelling the
alphabets. 2) from the 26 letter of the alphabets, only
13 letters are still difficult to spelled by students’, the
difficulties caused by the students’ pronunciation of
English still unfamiliar and the different
characteristics of the students’.
Seen from the conduct of research findings and
conclusions, the writer propose some suggestions as
follows: 1) young learners have different characters,
one child to another child are very different, they can
not be separated with the play while learning.
Spelling the alphabets should be done with
interspersed games, 2) young learners can not be
equated with adults, in giving the lessons teacher
must to understand the characters of childrens. 3)
make the learning environment more attractive,
teachers make alphabets letters with colorful, or
make the media of alphabets such as cards or picture
series. This make the childrens interested and not get
bored quickly.
Quic
kly
Bore
d
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
Based on the data in the table, it can be concluded
that not all alphabet letters difficult to spelled by
students’. From the 26 letters of the alphabets is only
13 letters difficult to spelled by students’, there are A,
C, E, G, H, J, K, Q, R, S, T, W, Y. If viewed in
general, the difficulties caused by the students’
pronunciation of English still unfamiliar. In addition,
the different characteristics of the students’ is cause
of
difficulties.
Students’
who
maintained
concentration and not get bored so fast, more quickly
capture what teacher teach about spelling alphabets.
Conversely, students’ who get bored and not
concentrate, they have difficulties in spelling
alphabets. Even when the teacher gave an example
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