Is writing affected by spelling performance and beliefs about spelling?

This study examined relations between self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs and spelling and writing performance. Perceptions about spelling and writing were assessed in 258 collegeage participants. Spelling performance was measured through a 50-item spelling test and writing performance by a holistically scored writing sample. The most highly correlated variables included spelling outcome expectancy and writing outcome expectancy, spelling selfefficacy and writing self-efficacy, spelling performance and spelling self-efficacy, and spelling and writing performance. A causal model relating perceptions, spelling performance, and writing performance was proposed and its appropriateness estimated. Direct effects on spelling were found for spelling self-efficacy, while spelling self-efficacy had indirect effects on writing performance and spelling had a direct effect on writing performance. The causal model was discussed in terms of changing conceptions of writing instruction and traditional views of the role of spelling as a necessary component of good writing.     

THE EFFECT OF NOTE TAKING ON NINTH GRADE STUDENTS' COMPREHENSION

This study examined factors affecting motivation for reading, writing, and spelling in primary grade students using a new measure, the Early Literacy Motivation Survey (ELMS). First-graders (198) responded to questions measuring attributions, self-efficacy, and perceived competence. The ELMS uses scenarios and short tasks to contextualize the questions for young children. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the motivation constructs investigated. A structural equation model produced a good fit for the data and indicated that literacy attributions in young children mediated between achievement and self-efficacy and perceived competence. Findings showed that first-grade students differentiate among their self-efficacy for reading, writing, and spelling.     

What spelling tells us about the orthographic development and word study instruction with emergent bilingual secondary students

Educators need ways to assess orthographic knowledge and differentiate word study instruction for secondary, emergent bilingual learners. In this study, the spelling of 199 students in grades 7–12 across eight features and four spelling stages was examined to understand students' orthographic development; all but two were learning Spanish and English. Spelling data were collected three times over a nine-month period. There were significant changes across the time periods that show students progressing across four stages of spelling development, with a large effect size (partial eta squared = .498). Data from a standardized assessment of language proficiency were examined to study the relationship between students' orthographic knowledge and their language scores. This study suggests ways to use spelling assessments to plan differentiated vocabulary and word study instruction.     

Automaticity in spelling competence

Two studies examined the speed with which good spellers and poor spellers spell easy and difficult words. At both the elementary school (Grades 3 and 4) and undergraduate levels, good spellers spelled words more quickly than poor spellers. This difference appeared even for very easy words that all subjects could spell. Implications for the importance of automaticity in spelling competence are discussed.     

Gender, Female Traditionality, Achievement Level, and Cognitions of Success and Failure

Differences in ratings of initial expectancy of success, perceived scholastic ability, and causal attributions were assessed for male and female high school students for a simulated academic test. Subjects were also differentiated on their achievement level (i.e., under- and overachievement) and the traditionality of their career aspirations. As predicted, higher expectancies were found for high performance achievers and nontraditional females. Males generally made more attributions to lack of effort for failure, as did low performance achievers. Females and high performance achievers attributed success more to effort. Hypotheses concerning differential usage of luck and ability attributions were not supported. Although there was an overall trend for females to be more external, traditionality also mediated causal attributions for females.     

EARLY AND CURRENT READING AND SPELLING PRACTICES OF GIFTED SPELLERS

This study continued investigating the early reading and spelling experiences as well as the spelling practices of the finalists in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, specifically the 1987 spellers who were considered gifted spellers. Two open-ended questionnaires were used: one for the parents of the spellers and one for the spellers. A follow-up telephone interview was conducted with a random sample of respondents. Results indicated that gifted spellers showed an early interest in language arts activities with 86% of the parents reporting that their children could read prior to formal schooling. The spellers considered themselves avid readers and indicated sophisticated metacognitive awareness whether reading or spelling. Results that suggested the spellers passed through developmental spelling stages far earlier than average children and relied on visual memory strategies, word meanings, and saying/writing words to master the orthography replicated findings from an earlier study.     

Visual memory in a spelling matching task: comparison of good and poor spellers

The role of visual memory in learning to spell words was investigated through a matching task on which one nonsense word was presented, then a second word identical in spelling or differing in one letter was presented. Ten pairs of 9th and 10th-grade students, matched for intelligence and sex but of different spelling ability, were asked to indicate whether word pairs were spelled the same or differently. The two words of a pair were either the same or different in print size or letter case. Significant effects were obtained for spelling ability, print size (same or different), and letter case (same or different), and the interaction of size X case, providing evidence for the use of visual memory by both good and poor spellers in learning to spell words. Good spellers were equally able to identify matched and mismatched pairs, while poor spellers showed greater difficulty in identifying mismatches than matches, supporting Frith's (1980) "partial cues" explanation of poor spelling performance.     

Spelling development in the Spanish language

This study focused on spelling development in Spanish children from elementary grades. A sample of 1045 was selected from 2nd to 6th grade belonging to four schools in Tenerife Island with an age range between 7 and 12 years old (M = 113.8, SD = 17.6). We administered a standardized writing test that includes diverse subtests to assess spelling, ruled and not ruled, and various written composition tasks (i.e., writing a story based on vignettes, describing a character and writing a story). We calculated the average of correct spellings in each variable and school level, and we also analyzed the type of misspellings that children made across different writing tasks. We found that spelling is acquired by 4th-grade children when it is not ruled, whereas the spelling of ruled words is acquired by 5th-grade children. When we analyzed the misspellings in a dictation task, we found that the children confused spelling of the graphemes c/s/z/x. Across different writing tasks, we found that students committed more misspellings with the graphemes b/v, h y c/s/z/x before they finished the 4th elementary grade.     

The role of linguistic and visual information in spelling: a developmental study

This study investigated the processes that elementary school children use for spelling. Good and poor spellers in grades 3 through 6 spelled words and nonwords that differed in the types of information (phonological, orthographic, morphological, or visual) that could be used to produce their correct spelling. A multiple choice spelling recognition task was also administered. Error rates on words and nonwords were related to the type of information that could be used to determine the correct spelling. Words that could be spelled on the basis of linguistic information were easier than words that could be spelled only on the basis of visual information. While children were sensitive to the linguistic properties of the stimuli, their use and knowledge of various sources of linguistic information was not uniformly developed. Children had the most difficulty with spellings based on morphological information and the least difficulty with those based on invariant sound-spelling relationships. On the dictation and the nonword tasks, younger children and poorer spellers differed from older children and better spellers in the overall level of their knowledge, but all children showed a similar pattern of results suggesting that they did not use different processes to spell words. However, the data from the recognition task suggested that poor spellers may rely more on visual information than good spellers.     

Reading, spelling, and recognition of briefly exposed words and nonwords.

Four groups distinct in terms of English reading comprehension and spelling skills were identified among 141 Japanese college students: 5 good readers and spellers, 6 good readers but poor spellers, 3 poor readers but good spellers, and 4 poor readers and poor spellers. They were then tested on instantaneous recognition of words and nonwords. Analysis showed that the recognition performance was more strongly associated with spelling than with reading comprehension. Immediate memory and "sophisticated" guessing, which were associated with spelling, were considered to be critical for the recognition task, but the hypothesis that a common processing mechanism is involved in instantaneous word recognition and spelling was rejected.     

Providing grade one students with multiple spelling strategies: Comparisons between strategy instruction,strategy instruction with metacognitive information,and traditional language arts

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether providing first-grade students with multiple strategy instruction plus metacognitive information would improve their spelling performances relative to providing them with strategy instruction or traditional language arts activities alone. Students in the strategy conditions received explicit instruction in the use of phonetics, imagery, and analogy. Students in the strategy condition with metacognitive information were also provided with information about when and where to use each spelling strategy. The remaining students completed traditional language arts activities. Students' spelling performances were assessed prior to, immediately after and 14 days after instruction using a dictation test, the Developmental Spelling Test, and a writing sample. For the dictation test, students who received multiple strategy instruction with metacognitive information out-performed those who received strategy instruction alone or completed language arts activities, with no differences between students' performances in the latter conditions. All students' performances improved on the Developmental Spelling Test and writing samples as a function of time. The authors concluded that even young students are able to acquire a repertoire of effective spelling strategies if they are provided with explicit instruction that includes metacognitive information.     

Effects of spelling errors on the perception of writers

The authors investigated the perceived relationship between spelling errors and cognitive abilities in a series of 3 experiments. Specifically, they examined whether college students' ratings of an author's intellectual ability, logical ability, and writing ability were affected by the presence of spelling errors. In the 1st experiment, the presence of 4 spelling errors in a short essay did not significantly affect the ratings. The spelling ability of college students, as measured by a standard oral dictation spelling test, was moderately conelated with a brief test of intelligence. In a 2nd experiment, college students rated the author of a short essay as having lower ability when there was a large number of spelling errors. The effect was more pronounced on the ratings of writing ability than it was on the ratings of logical ability or intellectual ability. This finding was replicated in a 3rd experiment, in which the essay contained misspellings actually made by writers. The results suggest that spelling errors can affect how people perceive writers, particularly when there are many spelling errors. College students appear to attribute spelling errors more to writing ability than they do to general cognitive abilities such as intelligence and logical ability.     

Determinants of spelling ability in deaf and hearing adults: Access to linguistic structure

The extent to which ability to access linguistic regularities of the orthography is dependent on spoken language was investigated in a two-part spelling test administered to both hearing and profoundly deaf college students. The spelling test examined ability to spell words varying in the degree to which their correct orthographic representation could be derived from the linguistic structure of English. Both groups of subjects were found to be sensitive to the underlying regularities of the orthography as indicated by greater accuracy on linguistically-derivable words than on irregular words. Comparison of accuracy on a production task and on a multiple-choice recognition task showed that the performance of both deaf and hearing subjects benefited from the recognition format, but especially so in the spelling of irregular words. Differences in the underlying spelling process for deaf and hearing spellers were revealed in an analysis of their misspellings: Deaf subjects produced fewer phonetically accurate misspellings than did the hearing subjects. Nonetheless, the deaf spellers tended to observe the formational constraints of English phonology and morphology in their misspellings. Together, these results suggest that deaf subjects are able to develop an appreciation for the structural properties of the orthography, but that their spelling may be guided by an accurate representation of the phonetic structure of words to a lesser degree than it is for hearing spellers.     

Book review

Long-standing beliefs about one's self-efficacy and learning ability accumulate over the school years. Attributions, or causal perceptions and interpretations, of behavioural outcomes are also based on a person's learning history. And, it is evident from research on attributional bias and self-esteem that the perceived causes of success and failure have consequences for academic success. An important perspective on attributions, frequently neglected in educational research, pertains to content-specific beliefs about one's competence. We set up a field study in which students from the first form of secondary education were asked to report their causal attributions of regular school examinations in three school subjects: history, native language, and mathematics. The results suggest that students generate different causal attributions for successful or unsuccessful examinations, belonging to different school-subjects. Perception of specific examination conditions may or may not urge students to generate specific attributions. There is evidence for both school-subject specificity and examination-specificity in the observed causal attributions. But, the effect of school-subject seems to be more pronounced than the effect of examination. Information at the momentary level (examination conditions) interacts with information at the middle level (school-subject). Closer analyses of the observed causal attributions vis-à-vis perceived success and failure in the three school-subjects displayed marked differences, especially in relation to the effort attributions.     

Parent perceptions and attributions for children's math achievement

From junior high school on, girls report lower estimations of their math ability and express more negative attitudes about math than do boys, despite equivalent performance in grades. Parents show this same sex-typed bias. This paper examines the role that attributions may play in explaining these sex differences in parents' perceptions of their children's math ability. Mothers and fathers of 48 junior high school boys and girls of high, average, and low math ability completed questionnaires about their perceptions of their child's ability and effort in math, and their causal attributions for their child's successful and unsuccessful math performances. Parents' math-related perceptions and attributions varied with their child's level of math ability and gender. Parents credited daughters with more effort than sons, and sons with more talent than daughters for successful math performances. These attributional patterns predicted sex-linked variations in parents' ratings of their child's effort and talent. No sex of child effects emerged for failure attributions; instead, lack of effort was seen as the most important, and lack of ability as the least important, cause of unsuccessful math performances for both boys and girls. Implications of these attributions for parents' influence on children's developing self-concept of math ability, future expectancies, and subsequent achievement behaviors are discussed.This paper is based on a master's thesis by the first author. This research was funded by grants to Jacquelynne S. Eccles from the following agencies: the Foundation for Child Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.We wish to express our thanks to Linda Buford, Sandra Hamman, and Samuel D. Miller, who helped collect and code these data, and especially to the parents, students, and teachers in the Ann Arbor Public School district, whose cooperation made this project possible.     

Sometimes spelling is easier than phonemic segmentation

Poor spellers from the Netherlands segmented and spelled the same words on different occasions. If they base their spellings on the segmentations that they produce in the segmentation task, the correlation between segmentation and spelling scores should be high, and segmentation should not be more difficult than spelling. The predicted correlation was found, but spelling proved to be easier than segmentation, particularly for postvocalic consonant-clusters. Correct spellings despite incorrect segmentation were also more frequent than would be expected on the basis of unreliability of segmentation. Ways in which writing may facilitate and improve segmentation are therefore discussed. These findings raise doubts about the validity of segmentation test and about the efficiency of teaching children to segment without using letters.     

Homophonic forms of regularly inflected verbs have their own orthographic representations: a developmental perspective on spelling errors

In previous research (Sandra, Frisson, & Daems, 1999) we demonstrated that experienced writers of Dutch (18-year-olds) make spelling errors on regularly inflected homophonic verb forms. Intrusion errors, i.e., spelling of the homophonic alternative, occurred more often when the low-frequency homophone had to be written. In the present article we report error data for three groups of less experienced spellers, who have not yet fully mastered the rules for verb suffix spelling: 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 14-year-olds. Younger spellers obviously make many more errors than experienced ones. Whereas this is in part due to inadequate rule mastery/application, their error patterns are also clearly influenced by the frequency relationship between the homophonic forms, i.e., the same factor accounting for the errors of experienced spellers. The conclusion of our present and past research is that homophonic forms of regularly inflected verbs have their own orthographic representations in the mental lexicon and that these representations cause interference in writing (spelling errors), whereas they might cause facilitation in reading (a claim made by dual-route models of reading).     

The role of teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in the development of teacher-student relationships

Prior literature has suggested that teachers who are confident in their abilities to teach, assess, and manage classroom behavior may be more likely to engage in practices that lead to supportive and secure relationships with students. The current study investigated the trajectories of teacher-student relationships, examining the extent that teacher self-efficacy beliefs predicted ratings of conflict and closeness for 885 students from second to sixth grade. The trends of teacher-student closeness and conflict were modeled using a parallel curve of factors approach, controlling for student demographics and teacher-student racial and gender alignment prior to examining the extent that teacher self-efficacy beliefs influenced closeness and conflict across grades. Results from the parallel trajectories suggested that teacher-student conflict was stable from second to sixth grade, whereas teacher-student closeness demonstrated a declining curvilinear trend. The relationship between teacher-student conflict and closeness suggests that students with relatively high levels of conflict in second grade were likely to exhibit sharper declines in closeness over time. Across grades, teachers rated closer and less conflictual relationships with females but after controlling for gender and race (β = 0.083–0.328 for closeness; β = −0.118 to −0.238 for conflict), teacher-student racial and gender alignment associations with teacher-student relationship quality were less consistent. Teachers who reported higher self-efficacy beliefs were more likely to report higher ratings of closeness and lower ratings of conflict with students across all grades (β = 0.195–0.280 for closeness; β = −0.053 to −0.097 for conflict). These findings contribute to the literature regarding the role of teacher self-efficacy in teacher-student relationships. We discuss how teacher self-efficacy beliefs can be developed and leveraged to improve relationship quality in the classroom from a social cognitive perspective.     

Spelling and Writing Self-efficacy of Indo-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian Early Adolescents

Most studies of academic self-efficacy have been conducted with culturally Western populations, with very few studies exploring the self-efficacy beliefs of South Asian or South Asian immigrant populations. This study examined the spelling and writing self-efficacy beliefs of 151 South Asian (Indo-Canadian Punjabi Sikh immigrants) and Anglo-Canadian early adolescents. Domain-specific self-efficacy was a strong predictor of spelling and writing performance for both cultural groups. Male Indo-Canadians scored significantly lower than female Indo-Canadians on most measures of performance and self-efficacy. The findings were situated in relevant cross-cultural self-efficacy research and the current multicultural social context.