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Period: to
Early Spelling Research
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Culture: Nature of Enlish Vocabulary
The diverse history of the development of American English has created a complex language that is dominated by wordes forme by suffixation, prefixation and compounding. -
Person: Chompsky
Chompsky redefines language as a generative process in which deep meaning is transformed into surface structure representaions through a series of transformations. -
School of thought: Cognitive Psych
Emphasis on mental processes and constructive aspects of information processing -
Person: Piaget and Developmental Psych
Focuses on the processes of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration and on the stage-like characteristics of children's thinking. -
Research: Hanna, Hanna, Hodges, and Rudorph
Spellings become more regular and predictable when syllable position and stress are taken into account. -
Theory: Cognitive processing
During the 1960's there was a clear shift from control of information presented to eye and ear to how the brain processes, organizes, and makes sense of that information. -
Theory: Morphophonemic level for reading
English orthography becomes more sensible and predictable when visual, meaning, and historical patterns as well as letter-sound relationships are taken into account. Making sense of these relationships requires time, experience and a growing understanding of how words work. -
Person: Boder and Delayed Spellers
Boder classified a group of students as dysphonetic, dyseidetic, or mixed spellers. -
Person: Read and preschool children's spelling
Read was able to use his research of preschool aged childrens' spelling to assess how we learn to spell prior to gaining adult "bias" -
Research: Following Read
Analysis of samples of children's writings found results similar to Read, but also saw other patterns as well. The focus was often on celebrating the inventiveness of student spellings. -
School of Thought: Passive --> Active learners
Based largely in Read's findings, our view of children'ts spelling transformed from that of passive learning to an active process in which students create spellings based on their current state of knowledge and their hypotheses about how the system works. -
Theory: Developmental Stages
Over time, a refined definition of the developmental stages of spelling were developed, lead by Henderson. These stages included Prephonetic/Prealphabetic, Semiphonetic/Early Alphabetic, Letter Name/Phonetic/Alphabetic, Within Word Pattern/Transitional, Syllable Juncture, -
Research: How do we learn vocab
Research in the early 1980's demonstrated that the number words that can be effectivly tauhgt in a year through focused vocabulary instruction was quite minimal. Beck asserted that most words learned by students that became literate adults are learned in context through wide reading. -
Theory: The 4th Grade Slump
Chall asserted that as students approached the upper elementary level, students ablity to read/pronounce words far exceeded their ability to understand many of the same words. -
Theory: Word Recognition and Spelling
Morris and Perney found high significant correlations between midyear spelling scores based on a developmental scale and the acquisition of a sight vocabulary by the end of the year for first-graders. -
Instruction: Development of Assessment strategies
Based mostly on the developmental theories of Read, using student writings as an important source of information about student knowledge and ability and as the source of information about students knowledge and ablity and as the source of words for instruction and for rethinking focused, sequential spelling instruction. -
Research: Zutell and Fresch; reading and spelling connection
In both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, there was a strong psoitive correlation among a developmental spelling measure, fluency, and word recognition, both in and out of context. -
Theory: Vocabulary and Poverty
Hart and Risley noted that 30 months of age, the children whose families received welfare had an average recorded vocabulary of less than half as many words as the children in professional families, and the children on welfare were adding fewer numbers of words to already smaller vocabularies. -
Theory: Early Vocabulary Development
Cunningham and Stanovich found a strong relationship between oral vocabulary in first grade and reading achievement at eleventh. -
Instruction: Assessing by stages
A number of researchers have developed assessments organized around stages and levels. Words are chosen for their frequency, familiarity, and relevance to the curriculam but also for features whose spellings reveal studnets' stages. -
Theory: How to make a vocabulary program effective
In 2000, Blachowicz and Fischer suggested four research-supported principles that should be incorporated to make a vcabulary program effective. 1) studetns should be actively involved in word learning, 2) word learning should include a personalized component 3) students should be immersed in words 4) multiple sources and repeated exposures should be incorporated in instruction. -
Instruction: Modern Spelling Instruction
Rather than "one-size-fits-all" students are grouped for instruction according to their knowledge and needs. Instruction is aimed at clarifying understandings consistent with their developmental/instructional levels.
