According to the Integration of Multiple Patterns hypothesis (IMP; Treiman & Kessler, 2014), the spelling difficulty of a word is affected by the number of cues converging on the correct answer. We tested this hypothesis in children's regular past tense formation in Dutch. Past tenses are formed by adding either-"de"…

Spelling error patterns of 30 disabled readers (grades 3 through 6) were compared to error patterns of 40 younger able readers (grades 1 through 3), and 37 able readers of the same age. Discriminant analyses indicated distinguishing patterns, primarily between the disabled readers and the older able readers. (Author/SEW)

This paper analyzes a typical school spelling task in terms of an information processing model of spelling performance. Based on principles embodied in a computer simulation program previously reported (SPEL by Simon and Simon) the model proposed here has been expanded to try to account for many more kinds of student error than were possible with…

The purpose of this investigation was to identify patterns of spelling errors among first grade children by classifying these errors in terms of their orthographic structure. The children were equally divided into low, middle, and high ability groups according to the number of words in their individual word banks as produced in their written…

An exercise in the evaluation of errors in Spanish (second language) composition is reported. The exercise, based on J. M. Hendrickson's "discovery" approach to learning, concerned correction of three error types: lexicon; grammar; and spelling. Subjects were 13 native English-speaking university students in a Spanish language program. In the…

Children's spelling errors were examined to determine the relationships between linguistic cues used (phonetic, graphemic, and morphophonemic), grade level, reading proficiency, and spelling proficiency. The standardized reading and spelling test scores of 180 second, third, and fourth grade students were used to randomly select 22 good…

This paper describes studies conducted in Saudi Arabia that: (1) investigated the effect of the number of orthographic alternatives of English consonant sounds on the spelling responses of 48 first-year secondary students studying English as a foreign language (EFL); and (2) compared the use of two spelling mechanisms of these first-year secondary…

A study examined patterns of English usage in 52 Japanese university freshmen's written compositions, particularly in the use of the subordinating conjunction "because." It was found that students often fragmented sentences when "because" was involved, or used a comma to separate a trailing dependent "because" clause…

The influence of mother-tongue interference is examined on the basis of data from two tests at different levels of English proficiency: a commercial-college level, covering 4-5 years of English studies, involving a composition and translation test, and a preuniversity level, covering 7-8 years of English studies, with a multiple-choice test. A…

The reflections in this paper represent part of a study of disadvantaged 13 to 15 year-old children of immigrants in Switzerland. This section deals with the process of learning spelling. In order to observe the students' learning, the same dictation was given four times during the school year. The results were studied intuitively and…