Spelling Instruction and its Effect on Word Recognition and Reading Ability
Shannon Mullins
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to test and understand the effects of appropriate spelling instruction
on word recognition and reading ability of first grade students. In my opinion, spelling
instruction has taken a “back seat” within the classroom. With tight curriculum pacing
expectations, assessment inundations, and scheduling constraints, teachers have been forced to
take “short cuts” with the delivery of what seems like a “less important” curriculum to students.
I believe that spelling instruction has been an unfortunate recipient of this rule of thought and is a
topic of study that is often overlooked for its value and significance. This paper will show that
appropriate developmental spelling instruction is very beneficial and extremely necessary to
students of all ability levels and can have a significant impact on their word recognition and
reading ability. This writing will reflect on the positive impact spelling /word study instruction
has on the development of word recognition skills and reading ability of all students.
To benchmark a child’s understanding of orthographic knowledge, students in a single
first grade classroom will be pre-tested using word recognition and spelling inventory
assessments. After pre-testing each child, the students will be grouped according to their
spelling ability. Each group of students will receive specific spelling instruction through the use
of word study to target the errors made within their own spelling. Word study is a way for
students to practice and learn the appropriate use of specific spelling patterns they have used but
confused within their own spelling through sorting word patterns found within a given group of
words. After a period of time, the students will be given the same word recognition and spelling
inventories as a posttest to see if the targeted word study instruction made a difference within
their own spelling of given words and in recognizing words in and out of context.
My hope is to find that through accurate word study instruction, the students under my
evaluation will develop a solid sense of the way letters work in words and will be able to transfer
that knowledge to their own spelling. I anticipate finding that through this direct route of
instruction, the students will be able to recognize words in and out of context more successfully.
Area of Focus
The purpose of this study is to describe the effects of targeted word study instruction on a child’s
ability to spell words correctly, to recognize words in isolation quickly, and to observe the
impact orthography has on the reading ability of early elementary students.
Research Question
Do first grade elementary students receiving word study instruction acquire better word
recognition skills and develop stronger reading abilities than other first grade students?
Review of Literature
Treiman and Cassar (1996) argued that young children are capable of correctly spelling
words using morphemes. Larkin and Snowling (2008) extend the work of Treiman and Cassar
(1996) and Bourassa, Treiman, and Kessler (2006) in their study to support findings that
children in early elementary school can use their understanding of the morphological structure of
words to increase their accuracy among spelling attempts. In this study, Larkin and Snowling
(2008) state that phonological awareness alone is not enough to ensure spelling acquisition
within the English language. The subjects in this study were tested on word recognition using
one and two-syllable spelling words. The study concluded that early grade school subjects
showed no evidence of using morphology to assist them in the spelling of one and two syllable
words. One possible explanation for why the results did not support the other research findings
is the two-morpheme words used in the spelling test were all regular past tense verbs. This may
have enabled the students to adopt a strategy of consistently adding the “ed” ending in their
spelling attempts inappropriately, Larkin and Snowling (2008). Another reason for the
inconsistent findings could be due to the developmental readiness of the subjects in the study.
Children at this early stage of spelling development rely heavily on phonetic spelling as opposed
to orthographic spelling strategies, which are found in a later developmental spelling phase. In
summary, there is support for a developmental progression of spelling among early elementary
students who most often use a phonetic form of spelling and lead up to an understanding of the
orthographic rules found within the spelling of words.
Bryant and Bindman (2006) state that in order for children to read and write successfully
they must grasp the morphemic structure of the words they are learning to use. The spelling of
words in the English language, as well as in many other alphabetic languages, require children to
have a firm understanding of the morphemic structure of the words used within that language.
This is necessary because the pattern of spelling and the sound of a word can change pending the
language rule and the context in which the word is used. Students need to make sense of the
spellings that are not specified in the word’s phonological representation, Bryant and Bindman
(2006). Therefore, children must have a firm understanding of the morphemic and phonological
structure of the alphabetic language they are learning. Bryant and Bindman (2006) suggest that
the understanding of an alphabetic language in terms of literacy development is bi-directional.
For example, when spelling and reading words, one must consider how the word sounds and
what they know morphologically and phonologically about the spelling of the words in and out
of context before comprehending the word. Bryant and Bindman (2006) conducted two
longitudinal studies that support a student’s understanding of the morphologic structure of an
alphabetic language. The subjects in these studies had not been exposed to the morphological or
phonological representation of words within the structure of a classroom setting. However, their
exposure to literacy through environmental means did impact their morphological and
phonological awareness. The first study measured a subject’s ability to represent morphology in
spelling the appropriate use of the “ed” ending in past regular verbs. This task was used as a
predictor of morphological awareness and was assessed through an oral analogy task. Bryant
and Bindman (2006) found that a subject’s awareness of morphology was a strong predictor of
their ability to spell words that cannot be spelled simply by phonological representation. In the
second study, three measures of morphological spelling were used to predict the subject’s
morphological awareness using a pseudo-word interpretation task in and out of context. Subjects
were asked to manipulate the pseudo-words through their morphologic understanding to interpret
their meaning. The results showed a high correlation and supported the validity of
morphological awareness. In their longitudinal studies, Bryant and Bindman (2006) found a
connection between morphological awareness and its effect on a student’s spelling and reading
of words. They found that in order for children to make sense of how a word is spelled and read,
a strong morphological awareness was necessary. It allowed a subject to use morphemes as a
new tool for thinking about how to spell and read words found within the language they are
learning.
Cassar and Treiman (1997) found evidence that some orthographic knowledge is
displayed earlier in the spelling development of young children. From a child’s initial
understanding of print they use many strategies for spelling. Children pull from their limited
knowledge of language in an attempt to spell words. In other words, children use what they
know from their experience with language and where they are developmentally in an attempt to
spell words. Caessar and Treiman (1997) conducted several experiments investigating children’s
knowledge of double letters using three orthographic practices with the position of double
consonants. They used non-words and position to test a child’s understanding of the conventions
of doubling. The results of their study showed a developmental trend in acquiring these
orthographic forms of spelling. They saw that a knowledge of position was present as early as
kindergarten, consonant doubling was present in first grade, and at sixth grade and above
children showed a clear understanding of short vowels and medial doubling. In summary, these
results support stage development in spelling acquisition as well as suggesting that some
orthographic knowledge emerges earlier in the course of spelling development.
Ehri (1979) studied the beginning reader’s ability to use orthography as a representational
system for storing speech sounds in memory. She wanted to assess how important this ability
might be as children learn to read. Ehri (1979) developed what is called the Word
Amalgamation Theory. This theory is described when various identities are combined to form a
single unit in lexical memory. The identities found within the lexicon are abstract word units
made up of the following: phonological identity - how words sound and are articulated, syntactic
identity - grammatical roles of words within sentences, and semantic identity - the meaning of
the word. Amalgamation is the process by which these identities are combined to form a single
unit in lexical memory. This is important because the more knowledge a reader has about how
print maps speech, the easier the reading process will become for them. The larger task for the
early reader is to learn how to incorporate print into their existing knowledge of letter sounds
successfully. Ehri used beginning readers to examine the process of how orthographic forms
were established as images symbolizing sounds within memory. She taught young readers visual
cues to four sets of words, some with just squiggles, some with the beginning letter, some with
misspellings, and some with CVC word patterns. According to Ehri’s findings, when all three
identities of a word are amalgamated in the lexicon, word recognition moves from taking print to
sound and accessing the word’s meaning using phonology to recognize the word as a single unit.
With the word bonded by their identities in memory through amalgamation, the pronunciation
and meaning of the word are recognized simultaneously instead of separately. The sound of the
word no longer stands in the way of word recognition because the amalgamation of the identities
is the “glue” for word recognition. Printed word learning is therefore complete due to a word’s
orthographic image being formed in lexical memory and the image being amalgamated with its
phonological, syntactic, and semantic identities. In conclusion, sounds accompanied by spelling
support were learned much faster than sounds prompted by initial letters without spellings,
misspellings, and squiggles.
Perfetti states that reading comprehension depends upon the availability of highly
developed skills in early literacy development, including the ability to convert print into the
language code, Perfetti (1975). Through his research, Perfetti developed what is known as the
Verbal Efficiency Theory which places great emphasis on lower level processing skills, mainly
decoding. Perfetti tested and proved that the automaticity of lower level decoding allows the
reader’s attention to be placed on higher order comprehension processing instead of decoding
words to understand text. The automaticity of decoding words should be an effortless task for
any reader, freeing up their ability to focus on text comprehension instead of word recognition.
The reading process is an interdependent process in which the processors in the brain act
simultaneously or interdependently of each other. When one process is slower at work, it
inhibits the other processors to do their job effectively. If one aspect of the reading process is
requiring too much attention from the reader, the other processes suffer, causing a lapse in the
understanding of what is being read. A reader requires considerable processing capacity to
decode a single word. If he struggles with this process, his comprehension of text will suffer.
Perfetti studied the relationship of decoding skills using high frequency words, low
frequency words and nonsense words. He used a word identification task to measure the
subject’s ability to decode words automatically. He used good readers and readers struggling
with comprehension to compare the rate at which they decode the words in a flashed setting. His
results proved that both struggling and good readers decoded high frequency words at about the
same speed. The big difference was the ability subjects had in decoding low-frequency (rare)
and made-up words. The skilled readers were always significantly higher in decoding lowfrequency and nonsense words. This proved Perfetti’s theory, the more automatic decoding and
spelling patterns are for students; the more they are able to focus on text comprehension. In
summary, a person’s reading comprehension skill affects how well they read words because of
their decoding skill ability. Highly skilled readers will take less time to read known sight words
and non-words while poor readers will need more time. Poor readers may know as many known
sight words, but will struggle with the non-word list due to their lack of decoding ability.
Description of Intervention or Innovation
This is a descriptive study and there is no intervention or innovation.
Data Collection Methods
Quantitative data collection will be used in gathering research data for this study. Pre-tests in the
form of word recognition in isolation, Schlagal spelling inventory, and word recognition in
context assessments will be used to benchmark each subject’s word recognition, spelling, and
contextual reading abilities. Students will be assessed individually with word recognition in
isolation and word recognition in context. The students will be assessed as a whole group for the
Schlagal spelling inventory. After pre-test data has been collected and evaluated, subjects will
be grouped according to their developmental spelling ability. A word study treatment will be
used to teach spelling patterns that are being used but confused by the subjects within word
recognition in isolation and in spelling. The treatment will continue for an eighteen week period.
After the treatment period is completed, the subjects will be assessed using the word recognition
in isolation, contextual reading, and spelling assessments to see if any orthographic gains were
made in these three areas.
Data analysis and Interpretation
This is a descriptive study. There is no data to analyze or interpret at this point.
Action Plan
From the information I have gathered from reading research articles, I plan to implement the
strategies mentioned in the data collection portion of this action research paper. I feel confident,
based on the research I have read, that implementing appropriate word study instruction to my
students will prove to be fruitful and will begin to close the literacy gap among those children I
teach.
References
Larkin, R. F., & Snowlin, M. J. (2008). Morphologic spelling development. Reading and Writing
Quarterly, 24(4), 363 – 376.
Bryant, N. P., & Bindman, M. (2006). The effects of learning to spell on children’s awareness of
morphology. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 19,767-787.
Cassar, M., & Treiman, R. (1997). The beginnings of orthographic knowledge: Children's
knowledge of double letters in words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(4), 631644.
Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. S. (1979). The mnemonic value of orthography among beginning
readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71(1), 26-40.
Perfetti, C., & Hogaboam, T. (1975). Relationship between single word decoding and reading
comprehension skill. Journal of Educational Psychology, 67(4), 461-469.