Misspelling Analysis in Dyslexia: Observation of Developmental Strategy Shifts

Louisa Cook

Doctora l C a n d i d a t e H a r v a r d Unive r s i ty G r a d u a t e School o f E d u c a t i o n

Poor spelling is an inevitable concomitant of dyslexia (Critchley 1975; Naidoo 1972; Rutter 1978). Poor spelling is difficult to remediate even in those dyslexic persons who are able to profit from intensive instruction in reading. However, in spite of the common observation that low spelling achievement is a hallmark of dyslexia, the phenomenon has been studied little, and our knowledge of both the disability and how to remediate it remains extremely limited.

Although there is little well designed spelling research in the literature, it has been commonplace for clinicians and educators to characterize dyslexia by reference to aspects of spelling performance. Not only is poor spelling achievement cited, but a higher frequency of several types of spelling errors are attributed to the dyslexic population. Those most often described are: (a) letter order reversals or confusions (Boder 1973; Critchley 1975; Johnson and Myklebust 1967; Orton 1937); (b) "bizarre" misspellings resulting from poor audiophonic analysis of words and poor ability to learn and apply phonic correspondences (Boder 1973; Ingrain, Mason, and Blackburn 1970; Nelson and Warrington 1974; Sweeney and Rourke 1978); and (c) failure to remember sight words in reading and spelling because of poor visual memory for language (Boder 1973; Ingram et. al. 1970; Johnson and Myklebust 1967). While letter order errors have generally not been associated with a specific subgroup of dyslexics, both the audiophonic difficulties and the verbo-visual memory difficulties have been attributed to specific subgroups of dyslexics defined on the basis of their reading and spelling patterns (Boder 1973; Camp and Dolcourt 1977; Ingram et. al. 1970). Evidence based on neuropsycholog- ical assessment in favor of these subgroup classifications has come from the work of Denckla (1978) and Mattis, French, and Rapin (1975).

Bulletin of The Ormn Sooety, Vol. 31, 1981. Copyright O 1981 by The Ormn Sooety, Inc. ISSN 0474 7534

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Although the literature contains many references to qualitative differences in spelling performance, most notably differences in error types, few systematic studies of spelling errors exist to verify this impression. In fact, some investigations of spelling errors have found no differences between poor readers and normals (Holmes and Peper 1977; Nelson 1980). The paucity of reliable findings in this performance domain may be attributed in part to the lack of uniformity in subject selection and other problems common to dyslexia research. The replicability of the findings regarding spelling errors may also be diminished by the use of analyses which lack sufficient reliability or validity. The purpose of this paper is to offer a rationale for spelling error analysis and to demonstrate its applicability to spelling protocol review.

A Rationale for Misspelling Analysis

The approach to misspelling analysis presented here is process oriented; it aims to assess what cognitive-linguistic information the child prefers to use or has access to while spelling. It assumes that children vary in the degree to which they use auditory perceptual-analytic information, verbo-visual information, and grapho-motor information in spelling. It assumes as well that the pattern of spelling errors produced is usually indicative of processing strengths and weaknesses, and the child's tacit knowledge of oral and written language structure. Misspellings are regarded as a better source of information than correctly spelled words because it is hard to attribute a correct spelling to its cognitive origin-- phonic rule application, visual memory, spelling rule application, analogy to a known word, etc. Spelling error analysis is also regarded as potentially more revealing than the comparison of performance on vocabulary which has been divided into "regular" and "irregular" words. Such a dichotomy is viewed as artificial and not consonant with the complex nature of both the correspondence system for reading (Venezky 1976) and the corre- spondence system for spelling-(Hanna et. al. 1966), which have been shown to be different in significant ways (Cronell 1978).

The perspective just described is based on the work of Charles Read (1971; Schreiber and Read 1980) and others of similar outlook (Beers and Henderson 1977; Bissex 1980; Chomsky 1971; Gerritz 1974). The specific implications of this view for scoring and interpreting misspellings follow.

Phonetic vs. Phonic Spelling An important characteristic of spelling errors is the degree to which

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they represent the phoneme sequence in the word. Phonetic spelling is a spelling attempt which successfully represents a sequence of speech sounds, although the graphemes employed for the spelling are incorrect. Phonetic spelling is probably diagnostically and educationally significant. For example, the phonetic speller may be less severely language impaired than the nonphonetic speller (Nelson and Warrington 1974; Sweeney and Rourke 1978) and may need a different approach to instruction (Johnson and Myklebust 1967).

Some phonetic spellings, however, are d i~cuh to recognize because their visual appearance departs drastically from the conventional spelling of the word. Recognizing phonetic spelling requires the observer to distinguish between phonetic and phonic errors (listening errors and graphomotor symbolization errors). While phonically inaccurate errors result from the speller's ignorance of the conventional and most probable grapheme correspondents for given phonemes, phonetically inaccurate errors represent faulty auditory perception, memory, or retrieval func- tions. Accurate phonetic spellings most difficult to recognize are those that depart widely from conventional phonic rules; sounds are heard and represented by the speller but with unconventional symbols. The observer may be misled unless he or she is able to view the spelling from the perspective of a child who does not know the conventional spelling. The spellings most likely to be deceptive in this respect are those that have been associated to date with young children's "invented" spelling (Beers and Henderson 1977; Chomsky 1971; Read 1971).

Preconventional Phonetic Spelling "Invented" spelling, the spelling of preschool children who write

words before they read and who write before they acquire phonic knowledge, has been described in detail by Read and the authors cited above. Invented spellings are apparently derived on the basis of careful articulatory phonetic analysis of the spoken word. Letter symbols are generated from the children's knowledge of the written alphabet and letter names. It has become evident through the invented spelling studies that these early spellings are indicative of children's phonological perceptions and the understanding of spelling principles. Normal children have been shown to progress through a roughly predictable sequence of steps (Beers and Henderson 1977; Bissex 1980). In the process they relinquish the notion that written words are one-to-one phonetic renderings of speech, and they assimilate the variant correspondence system and the multilevel system of linguistic constraints which governs phoneme-grapheme rela- tionships (Hanna, Hodges, and Hanna 1971).

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The spelling strategies of young children described in the invented spelling studies can frequently be observed in the misspellings of older dyslexic children. The method of spelling analysis proposed here recog- nizes certain phonetic spellings as preconventional or developmental ly immature; it also recognizes these spellings as creditable efforts to represent the phonetic features of speech. Briefly, these error categories are as follows?

I. Consonant Phonetic Spellings (Preconventional) A. Nasal omitted before a final stop consonant, as WET/

went; DOT/don' t . B. Use of letter whose name contains the phoneme, as Y for

/ w / a n d H for /ch/ :YOH/watch; YEL/will. C. Spelling i n i t i a l / d r / a s JR (JRS/dress) and in i t i a l / t r / a s

CHR (CHRAN/train). D. Representation of surface phonetic detail, such as the

reduction of m e d i a l / t / , as in LIDL/little. II. Vowel Phonetic Spellings (Preconventional)

A. Letter name for long vowel sound, as in MAK/make; FEL/feel; SNO/snow.

B. Short vowel sound spelled with letter name articulated in same place, such as BAD/bed; KIT/cut; SET/sit; JRO/ draw.

C. Representation of elongation, rounding, or glide on vowels, such as BOE/boy; GOW/go; MEE/me.

III. Syllabic Phonetic Spellings (Preconventional) A. Letter name used for syllable or part of syllable, as

RGU/argue; XPRS/express. B. Final syllables (vowel-consonant segments) as in ENTR/

enter, MITN/mitten, LIDL/little.

Conventional Phonetic Misspellings Several more error categories complete the list of phonetic misspell-

ing types. These are a) consonant doubling errors; b) consonant grapheme substitutions that fall within the conventional correspondence system; c) misspellings of the reduced vowel or schwa sound; and d) vowel grapheme substitutions that are within the conventional phoneme-grapheme cor- respondence system.

1 The preconventional error types are described in much greater detail in Read's (1971) original article, as well as Ihe Chomsky (1971) and Beers and Henderson (1977) articles.

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The consonant and vowel substitution categories are the broadest, but they identify as phonetic any spelling (grapheme) which can represent a phoneme when the constraints of sound position and letter envi ronment are not imposed. For example, the child who writes CKOK/cook has used the CK grapheme for t h e / k / s o u n d but has not apparently learned the position rules that govern t he /k / co r r e spondences . The spelling LITE/ light indicates the child's knowledge of the i-e g rapheme for the vowel.

It is important to notice here that this way of viewing spelling efforts places little emphasis on whether letters are omit ted or added. Such surface alterations of the written word produced are viewed only in the context of whether the spelling corresponds to the phonemes, and how it occurs. Letter omissions, for example, may occur in preconventional phonetic misspellings (LIT) or in conventional phonetic misspellings (LITE) or in nonphonet ic misspellings (LGTH).

Nonphonet ic Misspellings Spelling errors which are nonphonet ic include the following four

categories:

A. Omission of a phoneme in the spelling (AVICE/advice; NY/enter).

B. Use of a letter or letter combinat ion which is not a conven- tional grapheme option for the phoneme (NOWT/must).

C. Addition of extraneous letters which correspond to no pho- neme (EGAR/edge; GRONX/grown).

D. Letter order confusion (LIHGT/light).

Nonphonet ic misspellings are those that are not plausible representations of a phoneme, or phoneme sequence, or phonetic feature.

Before determining that a spelling is nonphonet ic , the scorer must consider the possibility that a preconventional strategy is being used by the speller.

Quantifying the Misspelling Analysis The author has used a Phonetic Spelling Rating Scale 2 to systematize

observations of spelling error types. Each misspelled word f rom a dictated spelling test (the WRAT in this instance) is analyzed, and misspellings are

2The research version of the Phonetic Spelling Rating Scale, with a more elaborated description of error classifications and scoring, may be obtained by request from the author. Send requests to Fairlee, Vermont 05045.

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assigned to error categories on a phoneme-by-phoneme basis. Two ratios are then calculated: a) percentage of phonetic errors to total errors (misspelled phonemes) and b) percentage of preconventional phonetic errors to total phonetic errors.

Application of the Analysis to Longitudinal Case Studies

Fifteen cases were located by the author of dyslexic students who had been tested at least three times over several years at the Tufts-New England Medical Center Neuropsychology Clinic. All of these students had Full- Scale IQ, scores of 90 or above (mean IQ-103) on the WISC-R. Severe reading and spelling disability had been diagnosed with a full battery of neuropsychological and educational tests and many of these students had been tested annually to monitor their educational progress. Because the intervals between tests were not equivalent and because testing had been accomplished at different grade levels, statistical analysis of group data would not have been possible. Nevertheless, the developmental changes observable in the spelling of these children are most interesting.

Wide variation in the children's spelling difficulties were apparent. Phonetic spelling competence in these dyslexic students ranged on a continuum from extremely low to extremely high. (The range for ten 5th graders tested was 28 percent phonetic spelling to 89 percent. The normal adult speller's errors are approximately 75 percent phonetic, according to Simon [ 1976]). Some students developed phonetic spelling ability over the first five grades, while others had not reached even a moderate proficiency level by Grade 6. Some began spelling in 2nd grade using a highly phonetic approach.

These observations should not be surprising in light of the existing studies on variability of reading/spelling styles in dyslexia. What the case studies contribute, however, is clear evidence of developmental strategy shifts that in half the cases occurred without significant concomitant shifts in spelling achievement level. Both the ratio of phonetic misspelling and the ratio of preconventional errors provide a quantification of spelling strategy that allows us to perceive significant changes of performance over time. Four cases representing the larger sample are presented to illustrate these findings.

Case #1: J. D. (See Table I.) Over the 3.7 years thatJ . D. attended school he gained one year in

spelling achievement. Retardation in reading and spelling were severe.

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MISSPELLING ANALYSIS IN DYSLEXIA

Table I Case Study ofJ .D. (WISC FSIQ 98)

Test I Test II Test III Test IV

Grade 1.3 Rep. 2.0 2.4 3.7 Age 7-9 8-5 8- ! 0 10-0 WRAT Reading 1.7 1.9 2.5 2.7 WRAT Spelling 1.2 1.4 1.7 2.0 Gates-MacGinitie

Comprehens ion 1.4 2.6 Phonetic Sp. Ratio .29 .23 .50 .22 % of Preconventional

Phonetic Spelling .25 .33 .66 .00

Given Word Examples of Child's M i s s p e l l i n g s

in in cot in in boy by bov boy boy and hinaa ab an and will wli wonml y will make mik rook make make him m me H m hm say sie sain sa sale cut k kiat kit calt cook k kiol ka coke light lait lit litte must mat marte dress sas dalles reach racr

The low proport ion of phonetic spellings on the first two spelling tests administered indicate thatJ. D. was not able to spell phonetically in these beginning stages. The third testing, however, p roduced a much higher propor t ion of phonetic misspellings, the majority of which were precon- ventional. For example, J. D. spelled t h e / w / s o u n d with the letter whose name contains the sound (Y), used letter names for the tong vowels in say and light, and appears to have spelled t h e / u / s o u n d in cut by pairing the short sound with the letter name articulated in the same place (Test I). The final test recorded, however, indicates thatJ. D.'s approach to spelling has changed significantly. The propor t ion of phonetic errors is very low (22 percent) and none of these are preconvent ional .J .D, appears instead to be generating graphic patterns that are word-like, tacking on final "e" and

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doubl ing some letters. In the transition to a more visual strategy, j . D. appears to have abandoned the more sound oriented approach evident at the t ime of Test III . The integration of auditory and visual information

necessary for successful spelling does not appear to have occurred. Because we do not know precisely what had been occurring inJ. D.'s

instructional env i ronment pr ior to any evaluation, we cannot definitely attribute the strategy shifts to either environmental or congitive develop- mental influences. Nevertheless, we can speculate that the child's emerg- ing phonological awareness at Test III might have provided a foundat ion for successful instruction at the time, or might have been the sign that instruction was succeeding more than the spelling achievement score was indicating.

Table II Case Study of R.J. (WlSC FSIQ 97)

Test I Test II Test I I I

Grade 2.2 Age 7-11 WRAT Reading 1.4 WRAT Spelling 1.5 Phonetic Sp. Ratio .69 % of Preconventional

Phonetic Spellings

Given Word

go goo and ann will yel make mac him hme say cio cook coc light lot l n u s t m u s t

dress jrs

reach rek order ot watch yok enter ntr grown gro nature nach explain

.76

Examples of

3.0 5.3 (Spec. Ed.) 8-8 10 10 1.5 2.5

2.0 2.0 .65 .89

.82 .65

C_hi_ld's Misspellings

go go and and wel well make mack hem hem say say

coc cok lit lite I l l U S t n u s t

bres dres reh rech r n r ordr

yoh woch nt netr r o 1l gTO n

nar nachr axpl

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Case ]/2: R.J. (See Table II.) R.J . represents a child with chronic, severe dyslexia who, from the

beginning, approached spelling phonetically. On the first and second tests, over half of her phonetic misspellings were generated with precon- ventional spelling strategies. She used letter names to derive both consonant and vowel sounds. At testing III, her phonetic spelling skills were significantly better than at testing II (Phonetic Spelling Ratio up to 89 percent from 65 percent), but there has been no corresponding improve- ment in her spelling achievement score. The increase in Phonetic Spelling Ratio reflects her abili~ to render all the sounds in a word. Further, on Test III she was no longer using the letter names " H " and "Y" to derive the spellings for the p h o n e m e s / c h / a n d / w / . This observable maturation in her spelling ability was achieved after two years of individualized help, however. At Grade 5.3, R.J. is still very limited in her knowledge of the rules and constraints governing sound-symbol correspondence (e.g., MACK for make; use of syllabic r; use of vowel letter names for long vowel sounds). This child is a good example of a dyslexic who is quite capable of sound-by-sound rendering of words but who has been extremely slow to internalize the more complex and abstract rules of phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

Case Study #3: J.A. (See Table III.) This boy obviously made no significant improvement in reading or

spelling achievement between Grades 1.8 and 3.9. However, spelling error analysis does yield evidence of positive change between Tests III and IV. Half the misspelled words are spelled phonetically, a change from the previous test where for many words,J.A, could represent only one prom- inent phoneme or phonetic feature. (Note the "g" spelling for initial dr in dress, and "h" spelling of t he / ch / f rom the letter name "H" , used in reach.) Whether this growth was stimulated by instruction or not, J.A. apparently had improved in his abili~ to segment, remember, and represent the speech sound sequence, even though he showed no change in spelling achievement level.

Case Study #4: G.D. (See Table IV.) G.D. is a very bright youngster who at Grade 4 was placed in a private

school for dyslexic children. He was a good phonetic speller from Grade one. However, the Phonetic Spelling Ratio at Test III reflects a temporary across-the-board regression in academic growth; while the WRAT reading score remains the same and the WRAT spelling score declines, the per- cent of phonetic spellings also declines at the end of Grade 2, and the num- ber of words he was willing to attempt on the test decreases.

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Table III Case Study ofJ.A. (WISC FSIQ 106)

Test I Test II Test III Test IV

Grade Age WRAT Reading WRAT Spelling Gray Oral Rd. Phonetic Spelling

Ratio % of Preconventional

Phonetic Spellings

Given Word

1.8 2.0 2.5 3.9 7-3 7-7 8-0 9-3 1.2 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.I

.26 .50

.80 .64

Examples of Child's Misspellings

cat cat tit in an in boy b boy witl m wel make h he say sa is cut cit kit cook k krt light li lint I n u s t I n BISt

dress g das reach h rech

By the middle of Grade 4, after the benefit of specialized help, G.D. maintained achievement scores near grade level. He is still severely handi- capped if one uses his highly superior IQscore as a predictor. His spellings are generally good phonetic equivalents that use conventional grapheme options, but it should be noted that for two long vowel words, reach and brief, G.D. employs a preconventional long vowel spelling, RECH and BREF. Perhaps the inability to internalize the constraints of correspon- dence such as those which govern long vowel spellings, and the persis- tence of a tendency to spell sound-by-sound, are part of this boy's learn- ing handicap.

Summary and Conclusion

Misspelling analysis is a potentially fruitful assessment device for ex- ploring what knowledge and strategies children bring to the spelling task.

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MISSPELLING ANALYSIS IN DYSLEXIA

Table IV Case Study of G.D. (WISC FSIQ 121-130)

Test I Test II Test III Test IV

Grade Age WRAT Reading WRAT Spelling Gates-MacGinitie

Comprehens ion Phonetic Sp. Ratio % of Preconventional

Phonetic Spellings

Given Word

1.9 2.5 2.9 4.6

6-6 7-2 7-9 10-5 2.7 2.7 5.0

1.7 2.6 2.2 4.5

.71 .86 .47 .65

.70 .79 .50 .13

Examples of Child's Misspellings

and ned and and and will well will wall will make mk make make make say sa say sac say cook cuc cock cuke cook light lit lit lite light must must must mute must dress dres bres bese dress reach reh rech rach rech order otr ottr order watch woth woch woch watch enter netr enter grown gron gon nature nachr nach explain xplan explain kitchen kittion surprise sarprise brief bref

The validiw of inferences made f rom spelling errors will be enhanced if the developmental level of the child's approach to spelling is considered. The case studies have illustrated how shifts in the degree to which spelling is phonetically derived can be observed independent ly of spelling achieve- ment level, and how these shifts are associated with transitions f rom pre- conventional to conventional spelling strategies. The influence of environ- mental variables on spelling strategies and the differences between dyslexics and normal learners in spelling development are areas for future research.

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