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The spelling strategies of francophone dyslexic students

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Abstract

The development of spelling skill is a very difficult task for students with dyslexia. Spelling in French involves the consideration of various types of knowledge, procedures and strategies. This study aims to describe the spelling strategies of 32 dyslexic students (DYS) aged from 8 to 12 years and to establish links between spelling strategies and spelling skill. Students had to spell 24 dictated words and provide comments on the strategy employed for each word. The performances of DYS were compared to 25 children of the same chronological age (CA) and of 24 children of the same reading age (RA). The results show that phonological strategies are the most commonly used by all groups of participants. If no particular strategy is related to the spelling skill of DYS, visuo-orthographic strategy generally accounts for the spelling skill results of CA and RA.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from FQRSC (Grant #136836) to the second author.

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  1. Département de didactique, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada

    Noémia Ruberto, Daniel Daigle & Ahlem Ammar

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  1. Noémia Ruberto
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  2. Daniel Daigle
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Correspondence to Noémia Ruberto.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendix: 24 dictated words of the Spelling dictation task

Appendix: 24 dictated words of the Spelling dictation task

 

Length

Short words

Long words

Minimal complexity

maman

ami

lire

robe

aviron

animal

petite

salade

Medium complexity

saumon

vilain

pomme

quinze

contente

agenda

arrive

quatorze

Maximum complexity

habit

oignon

femme

chlore

haricot

examen

seconde

orchestre

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Ruberto, N., Daigle, D. & Ammar, A. The spelling strategies of francophone dyslexic students. Read Writ 29, 659–681 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9620-x

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