CHAPTER 10


WRITING AND SPELLING


  1. WRITING DEVELOPMENT: SIX STAGES
    1. Imitation - preschool to 1st grade
      1. Prewriting and fanciful attraction
      2. Attempts to mimic true writing
      3. Awareness of spatial arrangement of letter groups and lines
      4. Acquisition of letter and numbers formations
      5. Beginning appreciation of spelling accuracy and use of invented spelling
      6. Susceptibility to cultural and family influences
      7. Establishment of hand preferences
      8. Lack of highly precise graphomotor function and variable utensil grasp
      9. Prewriting behaviors are important. A young child tantalized by the imaginary appear of writing is likely to be more responsive to subsequent writing challenges. Early experiences of being read to and looking at books are also important stimulants to interest in writing and words and early writing development.
    2. Graphic Presentation - 1st and 2nd grade
      1. Preoccupation with visual appearances
      2. Discovery of conventions of capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure
      3. Growing self-consciousness
      4. Increasingly precise and distal fine motor regulation
      5. Rapid increase in spelling ability
      6. Use of unsophisticated language
      7. Children's capacities for attention usually exceed the demands imposed by early writing. The major emphasis for this age group is on visual processing and production
    3. Progressive Incorporation - late 2nd grade to 4th grade
      1. Awareness of writing as a synthetic process
      2. Integration of conventions (punctuation, capitalization) with language (morphology, syntax, narrative organization)
      3. Written language less sophisticated than speech
      4. Little emphasis on well-planned writing
      5. Awareness of spatial formats (paragraphs, letters)
      6. Beginning of rewriting
      7. Start of cursive writing
      8. This is not the time for highly deliberative writing, as there are too many mechanical matters and new rules to attend to
    4. Automatization - 4th grade to 7th grade
      1. Writing with less expenditure of conscious efforts
      2. Growing capacity to write and think or write and remember spatially
      3. Attainment of cursive writing fluency
      4. Ability to produce larger volumes of writing
      5. Written language approximates speech
      6. Greater stress on planning and draft writing
      7. Early development of report and expository writing and research skills
      8. Young writers begin to develop metacognitive awareness and the ability to read and assess the effectiveness of their own writing, an aid to the process of revision. Writing is not used as an end, a process in itself, or means of problem solving. It is strictly for communication, for putting forth ideas for others to read.
    5. Elaboration - 7th grade to 9th grade
      1. Writing used to establish and express a viewpoint\
      2. Written language exceeds complexity of everyday speech
      3. Problem-solving and idea development occur through writing
      4. Summarization through writing becomes a common task
      5. Organization and use of information from multiple sources
      6. Extensive use of transitions and cohesive ties (e.g., finally, for example, therefore, or but)
      7. Students no longer must devote all their cognitive energy to learning to write, but can begin to write to learn and to influence others
    6. Personalization and Diversification - 9th grade and beyond
      1. Development of individual writing styles
      2. Use of different writing styles and formats appropriate to subject matter and purpose (lab reports, research papers, expository essays, poetry)
      3. Simplification and greater variation of language use
      4. Sophistication of vocabulary and user of figurative language, irony, symbolism
      5. Writing as a medium for experimentation
      6. Writing as a medium for taking notes
      7. Writing as a facilitator for learning and remembering
      8. Writing as a method of reasoning, problem solving and persuasion
      9. Students who are averse to writing or who find such output unrewarding or too difficult may never reach the stage of Personalization and Diversification
    7. Implications of the Writing Stages
      1. A model of writing stages implies that certain abilities must be acquired and consolidated before a child can progress to more advanced stages of performance. This stagewise process involves accumulating layers of writing subskills.
      2. Cognitive, language, motor, organization and metacognitive skills develop independently of writing stages.
      3. These two areas of development (writing subskills and cognitive abilities) combine to produce development in writing.
      4. If a child is having difficulty with a particular subskill he will have problems introducing newly acquired language or organization into what he is writing
      5. If a child has mastered a stage of writing, she is eager to display the skills she has learned


  2. DEVELOPMENTAL DYSFUNCTIONS OF WRITING
    1. Effects of Developmental Dysfunctions on Writing
      1. Writing represents a synchronization of all developmental functions
      2. Dysfunctions in one or more areas of functioning will affect writing in several ways:
        1. Complexity
        2. Effectiveness
        3. Fluency
    2. Attention
      1. Legibility problems are well-documented
      2. Student may not be able to write as fast as the thoughts are coming
      3. Attendant problems with memory of how to write letters and words - illegible writing is like a tracing of erratic recall
      4. Children with attention problems have problems with feedback - which is an ongoing requirement of writing
      5. Writing requires simultaneous demands across several thought processes - children with attention problems have problems effectively dividing concentration between them
      6. As length demands increase, the cumulative effect of problems causes wiring to deteriorate
      7. Since many have other associated problems (language, spatial or sequential production) they quickly exhaust their limited attention
    3. Spatial Production
      1. Stage 2 (graphic presentation) students having spatial problems will have trouble at this stage with formation of
        1. Words
        2. Numbers
        3. Letters
      2. Stage 3 (Progressive Incorporation) Students may have problems in the following skill areas:
        1. Spacing
        2. Left-right progression
        3. Margination
        4. Cursive letter formation
        5. Writing formats
          1. letters
          2. page headings
          3. question responses
        6. Paragraphing
        7. Proper use of a page
      3. Stage 4 and 5 (Automatization, Elaboration) Problems with spatial production will manifest themselves at these stages in the following ways:
        1. Problems with planning
        2. Difficulties in organization
      4. Stage 6 (Personalization-Diversification) Problems with spatial production would impact the writer at this stage by interfering with the ability to differentiate the conventions of
        1. Report writing
        2. Poetry
        3. Essays
        4. Book Reports
    4. Sequential Production
      1. Students may have difficulty with the chain of motor movements required to form letters
      2. Spelling (order of letters)
      3. Poor sentence construction with awkward phrasing and syntax
      4. Story writing - disorganized sequence of events
      5. At Stage 4,5, and 6 children have trouble with the flow of ideas:
        1. Using words to show temporal order
        2. Not knowing where to begin
        3. Not knowing what is beginning, middle or end
      6. Students may be challenged by tasks that require several serial steps:
        1. Difficulty with the writing process - drafting, editing, final copy
        2. Trouble with management of long-term assignments due at particular intervals in a particular order, e.g., science fair project
    5. Memory - writing demands smoothly synchronized rapid retrieval memory
      1. Dysfunction with memory will impact Stage 4 (Automatization) in several significant ways:
        1. Visualization of correct spellings
        2. Association of sounds with written words
        3. Recall of rules of punctuation, capitalization, grammar, spelling
        4. Retrieval of words
        5. Recall of ideas or facts
        6. Memory for serial flow of ideas (beginning, middle, end)
      2. Problems will also manifest themselves when the later stages of writing require organization
        1. Students must be able to write and think at the same time. With memory problems students are not coordinating effectively
        2. Students with memory problems may forget where they are going with a particular thought while they are writing, resulting in disorganization
    6. Language - Writing is considered the highest form of language
      1. Students may have word-finding problems - locating vocabulary
      2. Students may not be able to select the exact word required for a given situation
      3. Students may not have good morphological awareness (word ending and prefixes)
      4. Syntax problems
        1. Construction of sentences
        2. Uses of clauses
        3. Meaning is lost because of vague pronoun references
      5. Metalinguistic weakness will lead to difficulty evaluating their own writing
      6. Students may be unable to alter their style to fit the demands of the assignment
      7. May be unable to express a viewpoint
      8. Students may have trouble discerning the needs of their audience
    7. Higher-order Cognition
      1. Students will not effectively use writing as a medium for development of new ideas
      2. Difficulties with argument presentation or point of view
      3. Writing will not contain
        1. Sophisticated ideas
        2. Abstract language
        3. Persuasive content
        4. Supportive detail
      4. Writing will be characterized by
        1. Concrete writing
        2. Lack of abstract concepts
        3. Lack of generalizations
        4. Lack of symbolism
    8. Graphomotor Problems - student's writing will be impacted by difficulties with
      1. Eye-hand coordination
      2. Motor planning
      3. Motor memory
      4. Kinesthetic feedback


  3. ASSESSMENT OF WRITING
    1. Observation
      1. Observe the student while writing and also the written product
      2. Assess the following:
        1. Affect
          1. apprehension
          2. enthusiasm
          3. interest
        2. Attention and self-monitoring
        3. Graphomotor facility
          1. pencil grip
          2. writing speed
          3. letter formation
          4. legibility
        4. Planning and organization
          1. Use of space
          2. Allotting time for planning
          3. Organizational scheme, flow of ideas
        5. Memory
          1. Children who have recall problems may struggle to find a specific words, retrieve the correct spelling of a word, or a specific writing rule
          2. Children with active working memory problems make errors when writing in context that they don't make in isolation
        6. Language
          1. Children with syntax problems omit conjunctions, insert superfluous words, omit word endings, substitute ungrammatical forms
          2. Written product is often choppy, abbreviated and simple.
      3. For a list of questions that can guide assessment of the above areas see Levine, p. 364-372
    2. Diagnostic Instruments
      1. Formal, standardized tests have limitations
      2. Writing tests have been developed recently
        1. WIAT
        2. Picture Story Language Test
        3. Test of Written Language
        4. Survey of Educational Skills
        5. Writing Process Test
      3. Always compare standardized tests to spontaneous samples of written language because standardized tests can often underestimate a child's writing ability
    3. Case History
      1. Important pieces of information
        1. The child hates to write
        2. Reluctance to do homework
        3. Comparative skill or talent with other manual tasks
      2. Data can be collected from
        1. Parents
        2. Teacher/ School
        3. Child's self-evaluation


  4. MANAGEMENT OF WRITING PROBLEMS
    1. Bypass strategies - For a list of bypass strategies see Levine p. 376-377 and also 383-384
    2. Direct Intervention - For a list of intervention suggestions see the following:
      1. Steps in the writing process - p. 378-379
      2. Content (Ideas and Fluency) - p. 379
      3. Organization - p. 379-380
      4. Vocabulary - p. 380-381
      5. Syntax - p. 381-382
      6. Conventions, Rules, Format - p. 382
      7. Reviewing and Revising - p. 382-383
      8. Spelling - p. 385-397
      9. Graphomotor function - p. 384-85


  5. SPELLING
    1. Introductory comments
      1. Levine's definition: A multifaceted linguistic skill that integrates and depends on phonological, morphological, semantic, and orthographic knowledge
      2. Spelling skills are less responsive to intervention
      3. The analysis of patterns of spelling errors can indicate underlying information-processing and memory deficiencies
      4. The inability to spell is not a major handicap, but it can have an impact when the spelling deficiency is part of a cluster of academic problems
    2. Decision-making in Spelling -spelling involves a process of decision-making that uses clues from several sources that aid in deciding on the correct spelling of a word. These clues include:
      1. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence
        1. The awareness of the relationship between visual symbols and the sounds
        2. Auditory analysis os the ability to separate a word into component phonemes
        3. Phonetic analysis is the ability to hypothesize the spelling of a word
        4. Children learn that they cannot rely on phonetic spelling due to common irregular words in English
      2. Language knowledge
        1. Vocabulary - familiarity with specific words, meanings, and uses
        2. Morphology - tenses, prefixes, suffixes
        3. Syntax - words might be spelled differently in different grammatical contexts
        4. "deep-structure" of language
          1. Use of underlying relationships to aid spelling rather than superficial characteristics such as pronunciation or visual appearance
          2. Some words are related even though they have different pronunciations, e.g. history, historical
          3. Some words have phonetic consistency even though the meaning is different e.g., brought, thought, bought
        5. Rote memory - visualizing the appearance of a word
    3. Automaticity
      1. Vocabulary becomes quickly accessible with little consciousness
      2. Before children reach automaticity they may favor one spelling clue over another depending on what reading approach they were taught
        1. Phonetic approach - may favor phonics
        2. Whole word approach - may favor rote memory
        3. Linguistic approach - may favor linguistic cues
    4. Spelling Development - Six Acquired Insights
      1. Preconventional Spelling
        1. Children become aware that words are the end product of a message
        2. Occurs around the same time preschoolers begin to imitate writing
        3. Inventive spelling seems unusual to adults. For example, the name of a letter may be substituted for its sound (bgan for began)
      2. Growing awareness of grapheme-phoneme relationships
        1. Spelling becomes phonetically correct as children master the alphabet and begin to read
        2. Spelling errors make sense in terms of grapheme=phoneme correspondence
        3. This stage can be seen in preschool through second grade
      3. Integration of language
        1. The awareness and development of language contributes to spelling ability
        2. Linguistic clues integrate and enhance spelling words accurately
      4. Application of rules
        1. The ability to infer spelling rules and integrate them to spell accurately
          1. Self-taught rules
          2. Rules taught by formal teaching
        2. Cross-referencing between clues is used to establish accurate spelling
      5. Enhanced visualization
        1. Children who are good spellers are able to recall the visual configurations of words of increasing length and complexity
        2. Visual sequential memory and spatial memory become important in spelling
          1. A child with good visual recognition memory is able to determine if a printed word looks right. This skill is important to have when proofreading and taking multiple-choice spelling tests
          2. Visual retrieval memory is the ability to visualize the correct sequence or accurate spelling of a word after thinking of that particular word
      6. Automaticity
        1. The objective is to spell correctly while doing other tasks that require memory, attention, and cognition
        2. An increasing number of words are stored for automatic retrieval


  6. DEVELOPMENTAL DYSFUNCTIONS OF SPELLING
    1. Dysorthographia - spelling disability
      1. Poor spelling is often associated with reading and/or writing problems
      2. It can exist alone
    2. Three types of disabled spellers
      1. Dyseidetic spellers - rely heavily on the phonological encoding strategy and fail to make use of visualization. This causes the inability to recall what words look like.
      2. Dysphonetic spellers - rely heavily on visualization and have poor phonetic encoding ability
      3. Both dyseidetic and dysphonetic - mixed pattern of spelling errors (both dyseidetic and dysphonetic). This type of speller is more severe and less responsive to intervention.
    3. Developmental dysfunctions that impede spelling
      1. Attention
        1. Inconsistent spellers due to impulsiveness and lack of self-monitoring, inattention to fine detail and fluctuations in retrieval memory
        2. May spell the same word different ways in the same paragraph
        3. Spelling may deteriorate with time such as at the end of a paper
        4. Spelling may deteriorate in writing due to focused attention on ideas, words, and sentence construction
      2. Spatial/Sequential Ordering
        1. Visual-spatial processing problems may interfere with the ability to develop an image of a written word
        2. The effect of sequential problems on spelling are questionable because children with sequencing problems make use of other spelling cues
        3. Sequential memory and organization problems can interfere with the ability to spell complex multisyllabic words that have not been memorized. The process of dividing and reassembling multisyllabic words for reading and spelling can be difficult for them
      3. Memory
        1. Memory is an essential part of spelling. Children with poor retrieval memory usually have spelling difficulties
        2. Frith found that children with reading disabilities and spelling problems had difficulty with both phonological and visual memory.
        3. Frith also found that children with good reading skills but poor spelling have adequate phonological memory but poor visual memory
      4. Language
        1. Language processing and production problems may interfere with phonological memory
        2. Research indicates that children with reading and spelling problems have greater difficulty with particular phonological patterns, such as blends, r-controlled vowels, vowel digraphs, and unstressed vowels
        3. Children may lack the metalinguistic awareness necessary to spell words
      5. Higher-Order Cognition
        1. Children may fail to apply their knowledge of morphology which involves verbal cognition and cognitive flexibility
        2. Children may have difficulty understanding and using spelling rules.
      6. Graphomotor Function
        1. Children with difficulty in motor production usually will have problems in spelling
        2. Difficulty with graphomotor function and visual memory will effect writing and spelling
        3. Children with a motor memory problem may have poor recall of visual configuration of a word and poor recall of letter formation
        4. Frith found that children with writing and spelling difficulties tend to have problems with visualization (motor memory) while students with reading and spelling difficulties tend to have problems with phonological memory
    4. Patterns of Spelling Errors and Possible Developmental Contributors
      1. Close visual approximations but phonetically inaccurate (pople for people) - poor appreciation and/or recall of grapho-phonemic relationships, weak sound segmentation skills, and deficient selective attention and self-monitoring
      2. Good phonetic approximation but visually inaccurate (bott for bought) - weak visual retrieval memory and poor attention to visual detail and letter patterns
      3. Letter and/or syllable omissions (bogt for bought) - difficulty maintaining linear sequences, weak sound segmentation skills, diminished active working memory, weak sequential recall
      4. Letter transposition (aminal for animal) - problems with active working memory, impulsiveness, lack of attention to detail and/or attention eclipsed by other task production components
      5. Trouble with "linear chunks" of data (inaccuracy in the middle of long words) - weak sequential memory and poor retrieval of linear data
      6. Incomplete appreciation of spelling rules and regularities (pill for pile) - Poor understanding and memory of rules, weak pattern recognition, deficient attention, weak higher order cognition
      7. Poor sense of word structures and derivations (rite for right) - poor semantic appreciation, Language deficiencies, weak higher order cognition
      8. Inaccurate spelling of homophones (they're, their, there) - poor semantic awareness and lack of appreciation of context, inattention, and overreliance on rote memory
      9. Spelling that violates rules of English regularities (rowghte for wrote) - lack of linguistic appreciation, weak higher order cognition, poor pattern awareness, inadequate rule understanding and recall
      10. Better recognition of spelling than recall - weak retrieval memory, superficial learning and registration
      11. Accuracy with isolated words, but not in paragraphs - weakness with simultaneous recall and active working memory, erratic attention, possible fine motor difficulties, multiple function eclipse
      12. Random/inconsistent errors - attention inconsistency, lack of self-monitoring, multiple function eclipse, deficient motor memory
      13. Mixed spelling errors (dyseidetic/dysphonetic) multiplicity of developmental dysfunctions, significant attention deficits


  7. ASSESSMENT OF SPELLING
    1. Evaluation of spelling ability
      1. Requires several different sets of observation
      2. They should include graded dictated spelling lists that require the use of all clues and that tap into phonological recall, have access to visual storage, use of language experience, application of rules, and mobilization of motor engrams for writing words
      3. Spelling should also be examined within the context of written expression
    2. Standardized spelling lists
      1. Provides an indication if a child is spelling at grade level
      2. Performance is usually measured by the number of words spelled correctly and not the difficulty of words
    3. To identify processing strengths and breakdowns, it is necessary to describe the predominate patterns of error
    4. Questions to ask when inspecting a spelling list
      1. What proportion of misspellings are phonologically correct?
      2. To what extent are errors consistent?
      3. Are many errors orthographically illegal (violate rules of spelling)
      4. What proportion of misspellings is phonological inappropriate but visually close to the correct versions?
      5. Are there frequent errors of letter sequences?
      6. Is there such a distribution of spelling errors that is impossible to characterize any predominant pattern?
    5. Spelling should be assessed in a variety of contexts. Day-to-day observations of spelling in context should be combined with results of standardized tests.


  8. MANAGEMENT OF SPELLING DELAYS
    1. Spelling remedation should be done in conjunction with remedial reading (decoding) instruction
    2. Remediation should be based on error patterns uncovered during evaluation
    3. For a list of suggestions for remediation, see Levine, p. 396-97
    4. Remedial instruction should require recognition of correct spelling before demands for recall of how to spell the words
    5. Emphasize proofreading
    6. Use a progression of initial exposure and association, recognition, retrieval, spelling in context, and proofreading
    7. Use bypass strategies while remediating spelling
      1. Personal log of hard to spell words
      2. Spell check
      3. Minimize criticism for misspellings
      4. Give some assignments that are not graded on spelling