Spelling in the Middle School: The Testing of Three Teacher Approaches

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate three current practices in the teaching of spelling to see if these approaches were effective. These approaches were the teaching of spelling rules, the practice of independently assigned word lists, and the teaching of syllabication to aid in the memorization of list words. Each method was also compared to see if any one approach was more effective than another. The subjects of this study were 51 twelve year olds heterogeneously grouped into three seventh grade classes. Data were collected from identical teacher-made pre and posttests. Posttests were administered six weeks after direct instruction was concluded. An analysis of variance was used to determine the statistical difference between each treatment's pretest and posttest means, and a secondary analysis was used to determine which pairs of pretest and posttest means were significant across groups. The statistical evidence indicated that there was a significant difference between pre and post tests for all three treatment groups. A significant difference was also found to exist between the syllabication and list groups for both the pretest and posttest means. There was no significant difference for either pre or post between syllabication and rule, or between list and rule. This difference between syllabication and list groups seemed to indicate that the list group's knowledge was higher at the pretest level. Therefore, it was concluded that all three treatments were statistically effective, but no single treatment was more effective than another.