The contributions of phonological awareness and decoding on spelling in third grade isiXhosa readers

Through the use of an initial study and a pre-registered conceptual replication study we examined the relations between decoding, phonological awareness (PA), and spelling for third grade readers of isiXhosa, which uses a consistent alphabetic orthography. The initial exploratory study sought to describe the relationships between decoding and spelling, and PA and spelling in a sample of 49 third grade isiXhosa readers. We then conceptually replicated this study to confirm the hypotheses generated from the initial study with a larger sample of 149 third grade isiXhosa readers. We expected that both decoding and PA would be related to spelling and that the strength of the relationship between decoding and spelling, and PA and spelling would vary with spelling ability, due to the changes that occur in the development of spelling. Cross-sectional, quantitative secondary data was used from two different projects to answer the research questions. Tasks of PA, oral reading fluency (as a measure of decoding) and spelling were developed and administered to the participants. The analysis revealed that decoding was a robust predictor of spelling for third grade isiXhosa readers, whereas PA was not a robust predictor of spelling in isiXhosa, after controlling for decoding. Our study thus confirms the association found between decoding and spelling ability in consistent orthographies using cross-sectional data.

English Phonemic Awareness of Students with Visual Disabilities

Most of researches have reported the significance of English phonemic awareness to the success of learning English, but less discussions involving students with visual disabilities. Students with visual disabilities lacks of visual input and form a strong sensitivity to audio input, researches have reported that this condition affect their spelling ability, yet, their ability in recognizing English phonemes has been less explored especially in Indonesia. Thus, this research aims to describe the phonemic awareness of students with visual disabilities who learn English as Foreign Language. The participants of this research are students with visual disabilities whether active or passive braille user. 7 students with visual disabilities participated in an Online English Phonemic Awareness Test. Two independent raters rated the data independently. Interrater agreement was applied to ensure the objectivity of two independent interrater. The findings show that students with visual disabilities are aware of consonants Fricative alveolar, Plosive bilabial, and Plosive alveolar sounds but struggling with Fricative velar and Affricative velar sound, they are also aware of vowels Close mid front vowel, Close front long vowel sounds, Close mid back vowel and Open central vowel but struggling in identifying Open back vowel, Close mid central vowel, and Open mid back vowel. English phonemic awareness is a very important basic thing in language learning. However, it will be very challenging for ESL learners, especially those who learn are blind students because of certain obstacles that blind students have so that strategies are needed in language learning.

Orthographic competencies and phonological awareness in children with developmental coordination disorder

Introduction. Developmental coordination disorder is a disorder of planning and coordination of complex movements during action, without previously diagnosed intellectual disability, neurological or any other sensory impairment. Although it is a relatively common disorder in school-age population, the correlation between phonological awareness and spelling in these children has not been sufficiently investigated. Objective. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between phonological awareness and spelling in children with developmental coordination disorder compared to children without coordination difficulty. Methods. The research included 65 children of the third grade of primary schools in Belgrade. Developmental coordination disorder was observed in 29 children, while 36 children did not have this disorder. The Questionnaire for Developmental Coordination Disorder was used to determine its presence. Phonological awareness was assessed by the Test of Phonological Awareness, and spelling by dictation. Results. The results show significant below-average achievements in the assessment of phonological awareness and spelling in children with developmental coordination disorder. Phonemic substitution was the least developed element of phonological awareness. The largest number of errors was observed at the word level, while substitution was the most common error at the syllabic and letter level. A positive correlation between phonemic segments and achievements in spelling indicates a relationship between the sublexical level and spelling development. Conclusion. Poor phonological awareness and spelling ability lead to learning disabilities during the educational process, which results in an overall poorer educational achievement in these children.

Equine Therapy Interventions in Improving Language Aspects of Dyslexic Children

Animal-assisted therapies are being widely acknowledged for improving the needs of children with various difficulties. One of the many animal-assisted therapies that are known to be beneficial includes equine therapy. The primary aim of this research was to study the improved language aspects of dyslexic children after undergoing five equine therapy interventions. The five equine therapy interventions include friendly introduction to horses, auditory comprehension, phonological awareness, sentence mastery and spelling ability. A randomised study was done by selecting 16 dyslexic children from Malaysia Dyslexia Association in carrying out equine therapy. Results from the study done proved that the dyslexic children chosen has demonstrated vast improvement in the following aspects of language, namely comprehension, phonological, sentence mastery and spelling. The general assumption of this study is that every equine therapy intervention has its own unique objective and outcome on dyslexic children. Further research is required in this domain to study the long-term effects of equine therapy in other areas of special need children.

Below the surface: The application of implicit morpho-graphic regularities to novel word spelling

Previous corpus studies have shown that the English spelling system is ‘morpho-graphic’ (Berg and Aronoff 2017) in that affixes are spelt in a consistent way (e.g., ‹ous› in famous) that distinguishes them from homophonous word endings without grammatical function (e.g., ‹us› in bonus). The present paper investigates if English spellers apply these regularities to the spelling of novel words implicitly and whether the application of those regularities is modulated by experience with the English writing system. Participants with varying degrees of expertise in the English writing system were asked to spell novel words ending in /əs/, which were presented orally in either an adjective context (i.e., biasing towards the affix spelling ‹ous›) or a noun context (i.e., biasing towards an alternative spelling such as ‹us›). The results showed that the adjective context elicited significantly more ‹ous› spellings than the noun context, indicating that participants applied morpho-graphic spelling regularities to novel words to mark the appropriate lexical category. Additionally, there was a modulation by spelling ability: The higher participants’ expertise in the English spelling system was, the more novel words they spelt according to morpho-graphic spelling regularities. In conclusion, English spellers are aware of the morpho-graphic spelling regularities without explicit instruction and apply these to novel words. They gradually induce the regularities from the input, which results in more robust rule application with increased experience and expertise in the English writing system.

The Use of Orthography to Increase Young Learners’ Basic Literacy: Spelling Ability

The mastery of literacy skills of young learners is essential and fundamental which include reading and writing. Literacy skills are closely related to cognitive abilities that provide knowledge, information, and meaning. Spelling ability is one of the essential skills in reading that must be considered. This study aims to examine the use of orthography to improve the ability to spell in reading. This study was conducted with a qualitative approach through a systematical review method with meta-synthesis as the analysis tool. Data obtained from 4 previous research articles with criteria Q1 Scopus index. The results showed that orthography could improve young learners’ spelling ability.Keywords: orthography, literacy, spelling, reading

Using Systematic Synthetic Phonics to Accelerate Rural Indigenous Children’s Acquisition of Early Literacy Skills

Studies focusing on the strategy of phonics in Malaysia have highlighted the insufficiency and ineffectiveness of SBELC phonics training received by teachers, resulting in confusion among them as to what really constitutes effective use of the phonics strategy. On the other hand, systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) has been proven beneficial in accelerating the performance of children in their early literacy. However, few studies have been conducted on English language learners as the majority of those research was focused on native speakers of the English language. Against this background, this article presents a description of a systematic way of teaching phonics that could inform teachers on how the strategy can be optimally utilised to accelerate the performance of students who are possibly at risk of being left behind. It then reports an investigation that compared the efficacy of SSP against SBELC phonics in accelerating the acquisition of early literacy skills with a group of indigenous children residing in the rural parts of Sarawak, Malaysia. Five instruments; (1) productive letter-sound test, (2) free-sound isolation test, (3) reading test, (4) spelling test, and (5) oral-reading fluency test were administered to measure phonemic awareness, decoding, reading, and spelling ability. Data were collected from the pretest and the posttest. The results demonstrate that both groups recorded significant improvement in reading and spelling, but children in the experimental group (SSP) outperformed the control group (SBELC phonics) significantly. Following this, SSP should be implemented in classrooms to help accelerate children’s early reading fluency and spelling ability.

Spelling ability influences early letter encoding during reading: Evidence from return-sweep eye movements

In recent years, there has been an increase in research concerning individual differences in readers’ eye movements. However, this body of work is almost exclusively concerned with the reading of single-line texts. While spelling and reading ability have been reported to influence saccade targeting and fixation times during intra-line reading, where upcoming words are available for parafoveal processing, it is unclear how these variables affect fixations adjacent to return-sweeps. We, therefore, examined the influence of spelling and reading ability on return-sweep and corrective saccade parameters for 120 participants engaged in multiline text reading. Less-skilled readers and spellers tended to launch their return-sweeps closer to the end of the line, prefer a viewing location closer to the start of the next, and made more return-sweep undershoot errors. We additionally report several skill-related differences in readers’ fixation durations across multiline texts. Reading ability influenced all fixations except those resulting from return-sweep error. In contrast, spelling ability influenced only those fixations following accurate return-sweeps—where parafoveal processing was not possible prior to fixation. This stands in contrasts to an established body of work where fixation durations are related to reading but not spelling ability. These results indicate that lexical quality shapes the rate at which readers access meaning from the text by enhancing early letter encoding, and influences saccade targeting even in the absence of parafoveal target information.

A Comparative Analysis of Boys’ and Girls’ Spelling Errors in Kiswahili Functional Writing in Secondary Schools in Kenya

The purpose of this study was to establish whether or not there were gender specific spelling errors committed by boys and girls in Kiswahili functional writing. The study adopted a triangulation approach in its theoretical framework. As a result, three theories were used: Error Analysis by Corder, (1976), Interlanguage by Selinker, (1972) and Gender Social Role by Eagly, (1987). The study was carried out in Nyamira County, Kenya. The sample comprised 326 Form Four participants of equal gender distribution drawn from eight public secondary schools. Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the study participants. The participants wrote a Kiswahili functional essay whereby spelling errors were identified and typified for comparison guided by proportion study criterion. The data for this study were analyzed qualitatively using measures of central tendencies that involved use of means, frequencies and percentages. The study revealed that there were no gender specific spelling errors. The finding would be central to curriculum developers in underscoring teaching of phonological awareness phonemic understanding, and phonics to both genders. The finding also necessitates mounting of remedial phonological information, phonemic awareness, and phonics for the boys using information and communication technology systems and appropriate gender destereotyping instructional methods to bridge gender spelling gaps. Finally, boys should be taught nonsense words with a view to improving their spelling ability.