Abstract
In order to investigate what issues might be important for experimental training research, a group of experienced remedial teachers was asked to evaluate the potential effectiveness of various spelling exercises. After addressing some general questions about spelling exercises for Dutch poor spellers, they made rankings of several sets of exercises on the basis of the expected effectiveness. The teachers had to give their responses based on their own experiences and with a specific child with poor spelling in mind. The results show that the teachers emphasize the importance of providing rules in spelling exercises, but also agree that poor spellers often have serious difficulties in applying these rules in spelling. Furthermore, the rankings show that exercises with a combination of rule-based strategies and showing the whole orthographic pattern of the word are considered to be most effective. Learning to memorize the word without showing the spelling of the word was considered to be the least effective. Surprisingly, individual characteristics of the children did not seem to have any influence on the ranking of the exercises. It is concluded that exploiting the experience and knowledge of teachers may be good, but is only the first step for further research on the effectiveness of exercises for poor spellers.
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Bos, M., Reitsma, P. Experienced teachers’ expectations about the potential effectiveness of spelling exercises. Ann. of Dyslexia 53, 104–127 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-003-0006-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-003-0006-4