How and to What Extent Do Two Cover, Copy, and Compare Spelling Interventions Contribute to Spelling, Word Recognition, and Vocabulary Development?

We used an adapted alternating treatments design to evaluate and compare the effects of 2 spelling interventions on spelling acquisition and maintenance, word reading, and vocabulary in three first-grade students. The first intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC), involved having participants look at a word, cover it, write it, then compare the written response with the original stimulus. For the second intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare + Sentence Definition (CCC + SD), CCC was supplemented with the experimenter reading a sentence containing the word and a brief definition of the word. Results showed that both interventions increased participants’ spelling at an equivalent rate, which was greater than a control condition. All participants showed greater gains in word reading in the 2 interventions than the control condition, and only 1 participant was better able to define words learned in the CCC + SD condition relative to the CCC condition.     

A Comparison of the Taped Spelling Intervention and Cover,Copy, and Compare for Students with Learning Disabilities

This study evaluated the effectiveness and compared the efficiency of two interventions on the spelling performance of four fifth-grade students with learning disabilities in reading and writing. The first intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC), is an established, evidence-based procedure, while the second, the Taped Spelling Intervention (TSI), is a new procedure with only one published article establishing its effectiveness at the time of this study. Although both interventions resulted in spelling performance gains, learning speed was higher in the CCC condition and students overwhelmingly reported preferences for CCC over TSI. Spelling gains were maintained on assessments administered approximately two weeks following the final intervention sessions for both interventions. Discussion focuses on the importance of easily implemented, socially acceptable, time- and resource-efficient interventions for increasing the academic performance of students, and the value of comparative analyses for choosing appropriate interventions.     

Efficacy of Two Mathematics Interventions for Enhancing Fluency with Elementary Students

An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate two curriculum-based mathematics interventions designed to enhance fluency with three elementary school students. Results indicate that both the Math to Mastery (MTM) intervention and the Cover, Copy, Compare (CCC) intervention were effective at increasing mathematics fluency, as measured by digits correct per min, for all students. However, MTM was more effective than CCC for two of the three students. Follow-up data taken 6 and 18 days following termination of the intervention phase indicated that all participants achieving mastery performance maintained mastery levels across both interventions.     

Inhibitory processes in young and older adults in a picture-word task

Abstract

The present study examines changes in healthy young and healthy older adults in the ability to inhibit partially activated information in a picture/word interference paradigm. On each trial, subjects received a cue (i.e., the word PICTURE or WORD) indicating which of two stimuli the subject should attend to in an upcoming picture/word display. the display always contained a superimposed picture and word (e.g., a picture of a DEER with the word TEA printed on it). Following display offset, and depending upon the initial precue, either a test picture (e.g., KETTLE) or a test word (e.g., MOOSE) was presented. the subject's task was to determine as quickly and as accurately as possible whether the test stimulus was related to the cued dimension of the earlier picture/word display. the speed to reject an unrelated test item (e.g., picture of a KETTLE when the precue was PICTURE) that was related to the ignored dimension of the picture/word display (e.g., the word TEA in the picture/word display) was used as an index of the efficiency of the inhibitory system. the results indicated that older adults had more difficulty than younger adults inhibiting a to-be-ignored word when it was related to a picture test item, but did not have more difficulty inhibiting a to-be-ignored picture when it was related to a word test item. the results indicate that an age-related deficit in the control of interfering information is dependent upon the fluency of the processing routes.     

Children's and Adults' Acquisition of Spatial Information: Actual and Simulated Environmental Experience

Undergraduate students were presented with word pairs (e.g., egg-yolk) and were timed as they decided whether one word named part of the thing named by the other word. In Experiment 1, “no” responses to nonpart pairs (e.g., fish-flaps) were slowed by the similarity of the stimulus part (flaps) to a part that the stimulus object did possess (fins). This suggested that decisions were made by retrieving parts of the stimulus object from memory and comparing them to the stimulus part. Whereas the parts used as stimuli in Experiment 1 were nonspecific, belonging to several different types of object (e.g., wheel), those selected for Experiment 2 were specific to a single type of object (e.g., thumb). In Experiment 2, “no” responses to nonpart pairs (e.g., foot-thumb) were slowed by similarity of the stimulus object (foot) to an object that the stimulus part (thumb) belonged to (hand). This suggested that decisions were made by retrieving the object to which the stimulus part belonged and comparing it to the stimulus object. The results support a hybrid model of part-whole decisions that includes directed retrieval of relational knowledge from memory and a comparison process.     

Primary and Secondary Control in Achievement Settings: A Longitudinal Field Study of Academic Motivation,Emotions, and Performance1

The present research represents an application of Rothbaum et al.'s (1982) dual‐process model of perceived control to adaptation in achievement settings. This eight‐month longitudinal field study examined how primary and secondary control influenced end‐of‐year academic motivation (e.g., voluntary course withdrawal), emotions (e.g., stress, regret, pride), and performance (e.g., cumulative grade point average) in 703 first‐year college students. For successful students, primary control related to better performance, higher motivation, and more positive affect. For unsuccessful students, the combination of primary and secondary control resulted in optimal academic adjustment. Unsuccessful students who rely on primary at the expense of secondary control risk serious long‐term deficits in motivation and performance. These findings are discussed with respect to academic overconfidence and control‐enhancing treatments.     

Retrieval and comparison processes in part--whole decisions

Undergraduate students were presented with word pairs (e.g., egg-yolk) and were timed as they decided whether one word named part of the thing named by the other word. In Experiment 1, "no" responses to nonpart pairs (e.g., fish-flaps) were slowed by the similarity of the stimulus part (flaps) to a part that the stimulus object did possess (fins). This suggested that decisions were made by retrieving parts of the stimulus object from memory and comparing them to the stimulus part. Whereas the parts used as stimuli in Experiment 1 were nonspecific, belonging to several different types of object (e.g., wheel), those selected for Experiment 2 were specific to a single type of object (e.g., thumb). In Experiment 2, "no" responses to nonpart pairs (e.g., foot-thumb) were slowed by similarity of the stimulus object (foot) to an object that the stimulus part (thumb) belonged to (hand). This suggested that decisions were made by retrieving the object to which the stimulus part belonged and comparing it to the stimulus object. The results support a hybrid model of part-whole decisions that includes directed retrieval of relational knowledge from memory and a comparison process.     

Differential Effects of Two Spelling Procedures on Acquisition,Maintenance and Adaption to Reading

An alternating treatments design was used to assess the effects of a constant time delay (CTD) procedure and a cover-copy-compare (CCC) procedure on three students’ acquisition, subsequent maintenance, and adaptation (i.e., application) of acquired spelling words to reading passages. Students were randomly presented two trials of word lists from their respective curriculum under each condition once daily. Results suggest that both procedures were effective for helping students efficiently acquire spelling words, but the CCC condition resulted in more words learned for all participants, although less pronounced when instructional time was considered. However, the CTD procedure resulted in substantially higher levels of maintenance for Jeremy and Leon, with no significant difference between the two procedures for the Anthony. Adaptation of acquired spelling words to reading was about equal under both conditions for Anthony and Leon, while Jeremy showed higher levels of performance in the CTD procedure. Discussion focuses on discrepant results, matching instructional procedures to specific learning concerns, and directions for future research.     

Not Very Smart,thus Moral: Dimensional Comparisons Between Academic Self-Concept and Honesty

Three studies explored the influence of self-evaluation in one domain (e.g., the academic domain) on self-evaluation in another domain (e.g., morality), assuming a process of intra-personal dimensional comparisons (i.e., comparisons between self-evaluations in two different domains). A pre-study with N = 143 university students replicated the Muhammad Ali effect, that is, the tendency to rate one's own honesty higher than one's own intelligence. As suggested in our assumptions regarding dimensional comparisons, Study 1 (N = 70) then showed that low self-concept students rated their honesty slightly more positive than high self-concept students. More important, in Study 2 (N = 64) participants who just experienced academic failure in an experimental task rated their honesty slightly more positive than students who experienced academic success. Therefore, it was demonstrated that academic outcome influenced self-concept in a non-academic domain. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for the extension of the I/E model.     

Importance of race,gender, and personality in predicting academic performance

Substantial research has demonstrated that African American students tend to perform more poorly than their White counterparts in terms of academic performance (e.g., Bali & Alvarez). However, this knowledge has proven insufficient in highlighting a clear path for countering this gap in academic achievement. The present study (n = 719) provides evidence that race (African Americans and Whites) interacts with personality in predicting academic performance (i.e., grade point average) in a college setting and that the pattern of effects differs for men and women. Agreeableness reduced race effects for women, and extraversion and openness reduced race effects for men. Our results suggest new avenues for educators and policymakers to consider when attempting to reduce this performance gap.     

Academic Remediation: Educational Applications of Research on Assignment Preference and Choice

SUMMARY

Within educational settings students can choose to engage in assigned academic activities or other, sometimes disruptive behaviors. In the current paper recent research on assignment preference, choice, and choosing is reviewed. Results of these studies show how educators can enhance students' academic behaviors (e.g., on-task behavior), decrease disruptive behaviors, and improve academic performance by (a) allowing students to choose assignments, (b) assigning higher preference academic activities, (c) strengthening reinforcement for engaging in academic activities, and (d) altering assignments to make them more acceptable to students.     

Cover-Copy-Compare and Spelling: One Versus Three Repetitions

Cover, copy, compare (CCC) has been used with success to improve spelling skills. This study adds to existing research by completing an analysis of the rewriting component of the intervention. The impact of varying the number of times a subject copied a word following an error was examined with four elementary age students. An adaptive alternating treatments design with counterbalancing was used to compare the effects of two versions of CCC and baseline during acquisition and retention 2 weeks later. During acquisition, performance in both versions of CCC was greater than that during baseline sessions. There was not an appreciable difference between versions of CCC. Retention of performance was similar for CCC1 and CCC3. Results are discussed in terms of the core components of CCC and directions for future research.     

The contribution of prefixes to morphological processing of Spanish words

Three series of priming experiments were conducted to probe the morphological and phonological contributions to visual word recognition in Spanish. Prefixed, e.g., INCAPAZ (incapable), and pseudoprefixed, e.g., INDUSTRIA (industry) target words were presented for recognition following a prefixed, e.g., infeliz (unhappy), or pseudoprefixed, e.g., insulto (insult), prime starting with the same syllable as the target, at masked short or long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). At long SOAs the recognition of prefixed targets was facilitated by prefixed primes and inhibited by pseudoprefixed ones, whereas both prefixed and pseudoprefixed primes facilitated the recognition at short SOAs. In contrast, the recognition of pseudoprefixed targets was unaffected by the kind of prime presented, even when we used pairs of words overlapping in syllables that cannot be prefixes in Spanish. These results support a special status for morphological elements in access to meaning in reading.     

On the dissociation between reaction time and response duration as a function of lexical and sublexical reading: An examination of phonetic decoding and computational models

Neurobiological models of reading account for two ways in which orthography is converted to phonology: (1) familiar words, particularly those with exceptional spelling-sound mappings (e.g., shoe) access their whole-word lexical representations in the ventral visual stream, and (2) orthographically unfamiliar words, particularly those with regular spelling-sound mappings (i.e., pseudohomophones [PHs], which are orthographically novel but sound like real words; e.g., shue) are phonetically decoded via sublexical processing in the dorsal visual stream. The present study used a naming task in order to compare naming reaction time (RT) and response duration (RD) of exception and regular words to their PH counterparts. We replicated our earlier findings with words, and extended them to PH phonetic decoding by showing a similar effect on RT and RD of matched PHs. Given that the shorter RDs for exception words can be attributed to the benefit of whole-word processing in the orthographic word system, and the longer RTs for exception words to the conflict with phonetic decoding, our PH results demonstrate that phonetic decoding also involves top-down feedback from phonological lexical representations (e.g., activated by shue) to the orthographic representations of the corresponding correct word (e.g., shoe). Two computational models were tested for their ability to account for these effects: the DRC and the CDP+. The CDP+ fared best as it was capable of simulating both the regularity and stimulus type effect on RT for both word and PH identification, although not their over-additive interaction. Our results demonstrate that both lexical reading and phonetic decoding elicit a regularity dissociation between RT and RD that provides important constraints to all models of reading, and that phonetic decoding results in top-down feedback that bolsters the orthographic lexical reading process.     

A question of belonging: race, social fit, and achievement

Stigmatization can give rise to belonging uncertainty. In this state, people are sensitive to information diagnostic of the quality of their social connections. Two experiments tested how belonging uncertainty undermines the motivation and achievement of people whose group is negatively characterized in academic settings. In Experiment 1, students were led to believe that they might have few friends in an intellectual domain. Whereas White students were unaffected, Black students (stigmatized in academics) displayed a drop in their sense of belonging and potential. In Experiment 2, an intervention that mitigated doubts about social belonging in college raised the academic achievement (e.g., college grades) of Black students but not of White students. Implications for theories of achievement motivation and intervention are discussed.     

Exploring the time course of semantic interference and associative priming in the picture–word interference task

The picture–word interference (PWI) task is a widely used technique for exploring effects of semantic context on lexical access. In this task, printed words are superimposed over pictures to be named, with the timing of the interfering word relative to the picture systematically manipulated. Two experiments (N = 24 adults in each) explored the time course of effects of associates (e.g., CARROT superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) versus coordinates (e.g., CHIPMUNK superimposed on a picture of a rabbit) on naming latencies. Associates led to faster picture naming than did unrelated words, with facilitative effects occurring at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs, in ms) ranging from –450 to 0. Coordinates led to slower naming latencies, with the interference effect restricted to SOAs of –150 and 0. The overlapping time course of associative priming and coordinate interference provides important constraints on models of lexical access in speech production.     

Criterion bias and search sequence bias in word recognition

Six experiments that were designed to test the adequacy of criterion bias explanations of the word frequency effect and the semantic priming effect are reported. It was found that criterion bias models correctly predicted higher error rates in a lexical decision task for nonwords that were misspelled versions of high-frequency words (e.g., MOHTER), rather than low-frequency words (e.g., BOHTER). Also correct was the prediction of increased error rates for misspelled words preceded by a semantically related word (e.g., NURSE-DOTCOR). However, in a misspelling decision task (in which the subject must decide whether the stimulus is a word, a misspelled word, or a nonword), it can be argued that criterion bias should be inoperative, since correct responses must be delayed until all orthographic information has been checked; this should eliminate both frequency and semantic priming effects. This was found not to be the case; clear frequency and priming effects were obtained for both words and misspelled words.     

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue ocean more memorable than a yellow one?

ABSTRACT

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ocean) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks. However, incidental memory for such words after word reading and colour naming tasks has not been examined. In the current study, participants incidentally recalled colour word associates (e.g., ocean) and neutral words (e.g., lawyer) immediately after naming their font colour (Experiment 1a) or reading them aloud (Experiment 1b). In both tasks, recall was better for congruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in blue) than incongruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in green) or neutral items (lawyer appearing in blue).

This outcome is consistent with the idea that co-activation of a semantic colour code and a lexical representation strengthens the episodic memory representation and makes it more accessible.     

Use of the Self-Concept in Forming Preferences by French Students of Different Levels of Academic Achievement

Abstract

According to the results of recent research in France (D. Martinot & J. M. Monteil, 1995), only high-achieving students possessed well-structured academic self-concepts, which, in academic settings, should facilitate the use of a prototype-matching strategy (i.e., a decision-making strategy in which the self-concept guides one's choices). In 2 studies, the authors examined the tendency among French students of different academic levels to use the prototype-matching strategy. In Study 1, the participants of high and average academic achievement, but not those of lower academic achievement, used prototype matching in forming preferences. In Study 2, all participants in the condition (experimental) that facilitated the accessibility of academic self-concepts used prototype matching; the participants in the control condition did not.     

Transposed-letter similarity effects in naming pseudowords: Evidence from children and adults

There is growing empirical evidence that shows that transposed-letter pseudowords (e.g., relovution) are perceptually very similar to their base words. This is a finding that has important implications for the choice of an input coding scheme in visual word recognition and naming. In the present experiment, we examined the presence of transposed-letter effects for pseudowords by using the naming task in a transparent orthography (Spanish): The pseudowords were created by transposing two letters or by replacing two letters (e.g., relovución vs. retosución). Since it has been suggested that transposed-letter effects may be greater for developing than for adult readers (Castles, Davis, & Forster, 2003), we recruited beginning readers (second graders, i.e., 7-year-olds), intermediate readers (fourth graders, i.e., 9-year-olds), and adult readers (college students). Results showed that developing and adult readers frequently mispronounced transposed-letter pseudowords (lexicalisations, mostly). Interestingly, the difference between the transposed-letter pseudowords and the replacement-letter pseudowords vanished when measuring the correct naming times. We examine the implications of these findings for models of visual word recognition and naming.