Learning new vocabulary words in a second language is a challenge for the adult learner, especially when the second language writing system differs from the first language writing system. According to the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2001), there are three constituents to word-level knowledge: orthographic, phonological, and…

This article presents two approaches to determining the goals and methods of instruction in spelling. One approach is to administer a standardized test, document the student's grade- level performance, present lists of words at that grade level to the student, and then test his or her performance each week. The other approach is prescriptive and…

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…

The study outlined here was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of using the Phono-Graphix reading programme with a group of four struggling readers/non-readers. The children selected were in Primary 2 and had already had one-and-a-half years of mixed reading instruction strategies--primarily Jolly Phonics with a 'look and say" approach.…

There is a surprising lack of systematic research evaluating the effects of reading exercises for young deaf children. Therefore, for this article, two computer-based exercises were developed and learning effects were determined by posttests. One (spelling oriented) exercise was to select the correct word among three orthographically similar…

A serendipitous moment, a passing conversation, led to this study. A university professor expressed concern that his second-grade son was "bored" with his weekly spelling lists, homework, and tests. A colleague of his, a former elementary teacher with 30 years experience and currently teaching field-based methods courses in this child's…

English spelling, as well as in many other languages, consists of three elements: morphology, etymology and phonology. Spelling instruction, however, focuses primarily on phonology and there is a dearth of intervention studies that examine the effect of explicitly teaching all three elements to children. We report two studies, which examined 5- to…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate two approaches to teaching spelling and vocabulary to second through fourth graders in two different urban school systems to determine if one program revealed greater growth scores on Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading components. Research question1 posited: Does Word Study, a…

Changes in education policy, the accumulation of research evidence that skilled instruction prevents and ameliorates reading failure, accountability requirements, and a new emphasis on multi-tiered interventions in schools are all causing a growing interest in improving teacher knowledge and skill in reading instruction. Consensus frameworks that…

Writing difficulties are common among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but the nature of these difficulties has not been well studied. Here we relate behavioral, psycholinguistic, cognitive (memory/executive), and graphomotor measures to spelling skills in school-age girls with ADHD (n = 30) and an age-matched group…

The study reported on in this paper investigated the concurrent development of spelling in children learning two languages. The study compared over time and between languages the types of spelling errors made in English as a first language and French as a second. Fortyseven grade one English-speaking children completed an English and French…

Despite the importance of literacy skill training for incarcerated youth, a very limited number of empirically based research studies have examined reading instruction in correctional facilities. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Fast ForWord computer-assisted reading program improved the reading and spelling abilities of…

This article reviews research in the four major school psychology journals: "Journal of School Psychology," "Psychology in the Schools," "School Psychology Quarterly," and "School Psychology Review." The function of the review was to provide school psychologists with a summary of academic interventions published through years 1995-2005, synthesize…

Accurate spelling is a complex act that requires cognitive and linguistic knowledge of the phonological, morphological, syntactical, and semantic principles of our language. Students with disabilities frequently exhibit spelling difficulties related to language learning disorders and inefficient cognitive processing. These difficulties often are…

The author reviews research on working memory and short-term memory abilities of deaf individuals, delineating strengths and weaknesses. Among the areas of weakness that are reviewed are sequential recall, processing speed, attention, and memory load. Areas of strengths include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery, and dual encoding.…