We examined the oral and written spelling performance on the Treiman-Bourassa Early Spelling Test (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000a) of 30 children with serious reading and spelling problems and 30 spelling-level-matched younger children who were progressing normally in learning to read and spell. The 2 groups' spellings were equivalent on a composite…

The present study assessed the compensatory effectiveness of four assistive software tools (speech synthesis, spellchecker, homophone tool, and dictionary) on literacy. Secondary-level students (N = 93) with reading difficulties completed computer-based tests of literacy skills. Training on their respective software followed for those assigned to…

The question of whether the Black English dialect affects the spelling performance of children who speak Black English is explored in this paper. Evidence is cited from existing research to show that Black English speakers make significantly more dialect-related errors than do non-Black English speakers. The various Black English features which…

This document is a report on a study of errors in spelling which high school students in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada have made in their writing, with special reference to the words most frequently misspelled, their relative frequency, and the kinds of spelling errors which the student made. An analysis of the different words…

Most of the spelling error analysis has been conducted in Latin orthographies and rarely conducted in other orthographies like Arabic. Two hundred and eighty-eight students in grades 1-9 participated in the study. They were presented nine lists of words to test their spelling skills. Their spelling errors were analyzed by error categories. The…

Two studies involved 21 reading disabled elementary students grouped as either dysphonetics (characterized by nonphonetic spelling errors) or dyseidetic readers (characterized by spelling words according to sound rather than appearance). Cognitive strategy differences were noted in visual sequential memory. Findings emphasized the importance of an…

This paper describes an intelligent spelling error correction system for use in a word processing environment. The system employs a dictionary of 93,769 words and, provided the intended word is in the dictionary, it identifies 80 percent to 90 percent of spelling and typing errors. Nine references are cited. (Author/EJS)

Ten dyslexic boys and 10 matched controls were asked to draw a person and write a composition. The two groups are compared on time spent on tasks, number of words written, and proportions of spelling and grammatical errors. (SJL)

First graders listened to the pronunciation of single syllable nonsense words and were asked to spell the words. Results showed that, for nonsense words of the form consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant, in which the consonant following the vowel was a nasal or a liquid, children often omitted the second consonant in their spelling. (BC)

Examines whether dual-route models of spelling account for the misspellings of Spanish children of different educational levels. Finds that second graders relied heavily on phonological mediation, whereas eighth graders seemed to use a lexical strategy, and fourth-grade children showed an intermediate pattern. Finds support for dual-route spelling…

A study of Hans Christian Andersen's diaries from age 20 to age 70 found that his mean error spelling percentages are equal to contemporaries, but between 2 and 15 times lower than individuals with dyslexia. A structural analysis indicates that the proportion of plausible/implausible errors match those of normal achievers. (Contains references.)…

The Malay language has a transparent morphological system and, unlike English, it is written in a very shallow alphabetic-syllabic script. We predicted that beginner spellers (six-to eight-year-olds) of this Rumi script would encode words at the level of the syllable and morpheme, rather than the phoneme. Using the results of a 75-item spelling…

Describes a technique for use in detecting and correcting spelling difficulties. (FL)

Special issue on orthography. (DD)