The Diagnostic Spelling Test – Morphology (DiSTm)

Kohnen et al., 2021. DiST-morphology. V21.08.15 © Macquarie University Reading Clinic 1

The Diagnostic Spelling Test – Morphology (DiSTm)

English is a morphophonemic orthography. Its spellings represent both sound structure (e.g., the spelling heal uses three graphemes to spell three sounds) and morphological structure (see below for more detail). Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning. For example, kicked contains two morphemes kick + ed and means that the action of the base word kick happened in the past. Base words can be combined with affixes (kick, kicks, kicked, kicking; do, redo, undo, etc), and affixes are combined with base words in predictable patterns (e.g., kicked, patted, listed, matched; recycled, redo, reconvene, reproduce). Word spellings can sometimes violate phonological patterns but preserve meaning (e.g., heal, health, healthy). Learning and applying morphological spelling patterns is important because the majority of English words are morphologically complex. Please see Castles, Nation and Rastle (2018; doi:10.1177/1529100618772271) for an overview of the role morphology plays in reading and spelling acquisition. The Diagnostic Spelling Test - Morphology (DiST-m) assesses children’s ability to apply morphological regularities in spelling. The DiSTm assesses the spelling of some of the most commonly used suffixes (e.g., past tense -ed) and some very consistent morphologically-based spelling rules. The test can be used with Primary School (from around Grade 3) and High School students to test which of these commonly occurring spellings they have acquired. It can help determine which morphological spellings to focus on in classroom teaching and intervention. The DiSTm is a spelling to dictation test which consists of 28 morphologically complex nonwords (e.g., trocked – the past tense of the nonword trock). If you want to cite this test, please do as follows: Kohnen, S., Colenbrander, D., Caruana, N., Barisic, K., Badcock, E., & Banales, E. (2021). Diagnostic Spelling Test – Morphology (DiSTm). Available from www.motif.org.au. Please note that copyright of this test sits with the authors and Macquarie University. You can use this test for free, but you cannot alter it and sell it to other parties.


Preparation

1. Print this pdf file. It is recommended that you use double-sided printing, especially for pages 3 – 5, which is the instruction and score sheet.

2. Familiarise yourself with the pronunciations of the nonwords (see audios on www.motif.org.au)

3. The DiSTm Instruction and Record Sheets (pages 3 – 5 of this pdf) should look like this:

Instructions: Score sheet on back of Score overview sheet:

instructions:

4. Ensure you have the following materials: Testing Instructions Score Sheet Score Overview Sheet Response Sheet Clipboard and Pencils Error Analysis and Clinical Notes


Diagnostic Spelling Test - morphology (DiSTm)

Materials Basal Discontinuation Repetitions Feedback Response sheet

N/A None.

Sentences: as few repetitions as possible. Spelling word: 1 repetition (ONLY if child hasn’t started writing yet)

None

Scoring: Circle 1 if the suffix has been correctly spelled and 0 if incorrect (suffix is underlined). For items where application of a morphological rule is required, circle 1 if the rule was applied correctly and circle 0 if incorrect. Use the analysis table to determine the morphological rule that should be applied. Notes: Repetition of items: If a student does not hear a sentence, the test administrator needs to make a judgement whether or not to repeat the sentence, bearing in mind that too much repetition might be disruptive to the testing situation. Initially, the administrator may want to remind the student to listen carefully since items will not be repeated again. Only one repetition of the spelling word is allowed, and repetition is only permitted if students have not started writing yet.

Practice Instructions: Say to the child: “I am going to say a sentence. There will be a made-up word in the sentence that you have never heard before. Of course, you won’t know what it means, but that doesn’t matter. I will say the sentence aloud and then I will repeat the last word. I will then ask you to spell that word. We will do some practice items first so that you can see what I mean. Are you ready? Listen very carefully.” Say: “Today, Sarah will troke. Yesterday, she troked. Write “troked” on the first line of your response sheet, marked P1.”

Do not provide corrective feedback on spelling. Check that student has written the item in the correct line, and, if necessary, remind student to wait until you have said the nonword the second time.

Say: “Here is another practice item. Remember to listen carefully and spell the last word of the sentence. Anna has one grent. Tim has two grents. Write “grents” on the next line of your response sheet, marked P2.”

Do not provide corrective feedback on spelling.

Test Instructions:

Say: “Now we are going to do some more. Just listen carefully, and spell the last word of each sentence. Please wait until I have finished speaking before you spell each word.” Turn over and administer first item as per practise items.


Item Sentence Spelling Suffix Rule 1.

Today, Jessica will yock. Yesterday, she yocked. Yocked. Past tense (-ed)

1 0

2. Ben has one kedge. Claire has twenty kedges. Kedges.

Plural (-s) 1 0

3. This one is quite mog, but that one is much mogger. Mogger.

(-er) comparative 1 0

doub cons 1 0

4. Ellie has one slarf. Tina has many slarves. Slarves.

Plural (-s) 1 0

-f to -v changes 1 0

5. Tara can tond very well. She is very tondy. Tondy.

(-y) 1 0

6. Anne has one trud. Lisa has many truds. Truds.

Plural (-s) 1 0

7. Gary will snive. He will be the sniver. Sniver.

(-er) noun 1 0

8. Tim has one pilf. Annie has many pilves. Pilves.

Plural (-s) 1 0

-f to -v changes 1 0

9. Today, they will nolly. Yesterday they nollied. Nollied.

Past tense (-ed) 1 0

-y to –i changes 1 0

10. The new room is very dripe. It has a sense of dripeness. Dripeness.

-ness 1 0

11. The town had no nidge. The town was nidgeless. Nidgeless.

-less 1 0

12. Tom likes to spide. Today he is spiding. Spiding.

-ing 1 0

drop –e 1 0

13. Nina has one gritch. Pete has two gritches. Gritches.

Plural (-s) 1 0

14. Terry has one grindle. Robin has many grindles. Grindles.

Plural (-s) 1 0

15. Jim was smoddy, but Bob was the smoddiest. Smoddiest.

(-est) superlative 1 0


16. Tony did his work in a very pronky way. He did his work pronkily. Pronkily.

(-ly) 1 0


17. This one is nart, but that one is the nartest. Nartest.

(-est) superlative 1 0

18. Today, they gurry. Yesterday, they gurried. Gurried.



19. She looked at him in a streff way. She looked at him streffly. Streffly.

(-ly) 1 0

20. Today, Tim will gline. Yesterday, he glined. Glined.


21. There was lots of blun today. Today was very blunny. Blunny.

(-y) 1 0

doub cons 1 0

22. Karen feels very trambly. She is in a state of trambliness. Trambliness.

-ness 1 0


23. There was lots of frit today. Today was very fritty. Fritty.

(-y) 1 0

doub cons 1 0

24. Sarah likes to trant. She is a very good tranter. Tranter.

(-er) noun 1 0

25. Ben and Dan like to stom. Today they will go stomming. Stomming.

-ing 1 0

doub cons 1 0

26. Lisa had no mep. She was completely mepless. Mepless.

-less 1 0

27. This one is quite breck, but that one is much brecker. Brecker.

(-er) comparative 1 0

28. Chris likes to prine. Today he is prining. Prining.

-ing 1 0

drop –e 1 0


Suffixes Items Suffix Scores

Past tense -ed as in jumped 1, 9, 18, 20 / 4

Plural -s as in games 2, 4, 6, 8, 13, 14 / 6

-ness as in happiness 10, 22 / 2

Comparative -er as in easier 3, 27 / 2

Superlative -est as in saddest 15, 17 / 2

-ing as in riding 12, 25, 28 / 3

Noun -er as in skater 7, 24 / 2

-less as in helpless 11, 26 / 2

-y as in rocky 5, 21, 23 / 3

-ly as in calmly 16, 19 / 2

/ 28

Morphological Rules Items Rule Scores

doubling consonants as in swimming 3, 21, 23, 25 / 4

changing -y to –i as in dried 9, 15, 16, 18, 22 / 5

dropping final –e as in hiding 12, 28 / 2

change –f to –v as in knives 4, 8 / 2

/ 13

Test Total / 41



Morphological Spelling Response sheet

P1 P2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Total



DiSTm error analysis – Scoring notes

The table below lists all of the suffixes and then all of the spelling rules, relevant test items, and examples of erroneous spellings as well as scoring notes. These notes may be used when scoring test responses. We suggest having the scoring table next to the scoring notes. Please also consider the clinical observations and examples of unscorable responses, listed underneath this table.

On the score sheet, circle items as incorrect where the error relates to the morphological feature (suffix spelling knowledge or morphological rule spelling).

Suffix Relevant test items Erroneous spellings (examples) and Scoring Notes

-past tense (-ed)

1. yock/yocked

9. nolly/nollied

18. gurry/gurried

20. gline/glined

(yockd)

• A correct response includes –ed, in that order, as the final two letters of the word. • A correct response also requires that there is no repetition of these letters. For example, “noleded”

and “glinded” are incorrect. Repetition of the –e is also incorrect (e.g. gureed, and nolleed). • Responses ending in –died (e.g. nolldied) and –ted (e.g yockted) are also incorrect.

-plural s

2. kedge/kedges

4. slarf/slarves

6. trud/truds

8. pilf/pilves

13. gritch/gritches

14. grindle/grindles

(kedgez)

• A correct response requires the addition of either –s or -es to the base at the end of the word • Responses ending in –ss (i.e. gindless, slavess) are incorrect. • Responses ending in –‘s (kedge’s, grindal’s) are also incorrect. • Responses ending in –zs and –zes* (i.e. trudezes, pillezs), are also incorrect.

*If –zes occurs in a response (for f-to-v changes), check across all test responses to see if there are any examples of using a letter -z for a letter -v. If there is at least one example of a –z for –v substitution anywhere in the other test items, then count -zes as correct. If there are no other examples of this substitution then –zes is incorrect.



-ness

10. dripe/dripeness

22. trambly/ trambliness

(dripeniss)

• An item is considered correct if -ness appears in this order at the end of the response. • A correct response also requires that there is no repetition of these letters. For example, “dripeneess”

“tramblinness” and “dripenessness” are incorrect.

-er (comparative)

3. mog/mogger

27. breck/brecker

(moggar, mogga, moggah)

• A correct response requires –er, in that order, as the final two letters of the word. • A correct response also requires that there is no repetition of these letters. For example, “moggeer” and

“moggerer” are incorrect.

-est (superlative) 15. smoddy/ smoddiest

17. nart/nartest

(nartist, nartests, nartes, nartles)

• A correct response requires –est, in that order, as the final three letters of the word. • A correct response also requires that there is no repetition of these letters. For example, “nartesst” and

“nartesest” are incorrect. • For item 17, Nartest: the spelling “nartiest” is incorrect. In order for this response to be correct, the base

word would have to end in -y; ‘iest’ is not a suffix in English.

-ing

12. spide/spiding

25. stom/stomming

28. prine/prining

(spidin, spidink, spidingk)

• A correct response requires –ing, in that order, as the final 3 letters of the word. • A correct response requires that there is no repetition of letters in the suffix (e.g. –inng, iing, ingg). • Responses ending in –ging (for example, “stonging”, “pringing” and “priging” are also considered

incorrect. In order for a response such as this to be considered correct the base would have to contain a –g.



-er (noun) 7. snive/sniver

24. trant/tranter

(trantor, trantar, tranta)

• A correct response requires –er, in that order, as the final two letters of the word. • A correct response also requires that there is no repetition of these letters. For example, “sniveer” is

incorrect. • For item 24, Tranter: the spelling “trantier” is incorrect.

-less

11. nidge/nidgeless

26. mep/mepless

(nidgeles; nigness; meplous)

• For a correct response -less must occur in this order • For a correct response -less must appear as the last 4 letters of the word • A correct response requires that there is no repetition of letters (e.g. –lless, leess)

-y

5. tond/tondy

21. blun/blunny

23. frit/fritty

(tondie)

• Only consonant + y responses are considered correct • –ey responses are incorrect (e.g. tondey, blunney); -ey is used for some words which are not

adjectives, and when it is used for adjectives, the base words typically contain an –e (e.g., smiley).

• Similarly –ie responses are also INCORRECT (e.g., tondie, blunie). • Responses ending in –ly (e.g. blundly) are also incorrect as this represents a different

morpheme.

-ly 16. pronky/pronkily

19. streff/streffly

(Pronkilee, strefley)

• Only responses that end in –ly are scored as correct • Responses ending in -ley are incorrect (e.g. pronkley). –ley is used for names not adjectives/adverbs. • Responses ending in -lly are incorrect (e.g. pronchilly, strefully). Acceptable if base word contains an –l,

however this is not the case in the examples included here.

Responses ending in –fuly or –fluly are also incorrect (e.g. strefluly, strefuly).


Morphological

Rule Relevant test items Erroneous spellings (examples) and Scoring Notes

-doubling consonant

3. mog/mogger

21. blun/blunny

23. frit/fritty

25. stom/stomming

(friddy, frilly)

• A correct response requires that the final consonant in the base appears in the response and is doubled (i.e. bloody and bluddy are incorrect).

• Exception: “stombing” is a correct response for item 25, stomming – in this case it is NOT possible to score this response for this rule. Make a note if this response occurs and score this item out of 3.

-y to i changes

9. nolly/nollied

15. smoddy/ smoddiest

16. pronky/pronkily

18. gurry/gurried

22. trambly/ trambliness

(nollyed)

• There are two ways to consider scoring this rule: identify the final morpheme, or identify the stem in a response.

1) If the final morpheme (-ed, -est, -ly, -ness) is missing, or incorrect/incomplete, but the –i is present in the spelling, score the item correct. E.g. Missing suffix: nollie, gari, snolie. Incorrect/Incomplete suffix: smodist, trampinis, nolided (-i is immediately before incorrect past tense ded).

2) If the spelling of the stem is sufficiently clear to work out what the final consonant is, and –i is represented after this consonant, the item is correct. E.g. nolive, smodinsed.

• A response is incorrect if –y is present (e.g. nolyed, tremlyness). • A response is incorrect if it contains a double –i (e.g. gurriied, smoddiiest).

Note Special Incorrect Rules:

1) Responses ending in –died are scored as incorrect (e.g. knoldied, noledied). 2) For item 16. Pronkily and 22. Trambliness, –ie is incorrect before the final morpheme (e.g. pronkiely,

tramblieness).


Morphological

Rule Relevant test items Erroneous spellings (examples) and Scoring Notes

3) For items 9. Nollied and 18. Gurried, response ending in –id or –ide (e.g. garid, garide, nolid) are incorrect.

-drop e 12. spide/spiding

28. prine/prining

(spideing)

• A correct response requires that there must be no letter –e present before –ing • If there is no –ing at the end of the word and the response has both “i”s represented (e.g., spidink,

spydink, spidig, spading), apply above rule to the final representation of “i”. • If the response does NOT have both ‘“i”s represented (e.g., spingd, spdy, prine, spined, kring, pring), the

item is not scorable, as we do not have enough evidence to decide whether the rule has been applied or not. Make a note if this occurs, and adjust the scoring of this rule to represent how many items were scorable in total.

change -f to -v 4. slarf/slarves

8. pilf/pilves

(slarfs)

• A correct response requires that the response contains a –v, and the –v appears as one of the final four letters of the word.

• A correct response must not contain an –f • Responses with a double –v (e.g. slavvs and slavves) are incorrect. • Note: During standardization, spellings which included –th (e.g. slevthes, slarthves) were given special

consideration as it is not unusual for children to substitute a –th for an –f. When –th was used for -f, scorers scanned all test items to see if there was another example of this type of substitution. If there was at least one additional –th for –f substitution anywhere in the other test items, then –th spellings as described above were scored incorrect for this rule.


Clinical Observations: Here, we specify some observations which are not necessarily captured in the error analysis described above. However, assessors might find that the children they test show similar patterns and hence these observations may be relevant to them.

1) During standardization, it was noted that children sometimes added extra letters which could be extra morphemes (e.g. “spidying” for “spiding” (extra morpheme: y); “pilvers” for “pilves” (extra morpheme: er); and “dripedness” for “dripeness” (extra morpheme: ed). While these extra morphemes (which are not part of the nonword pronunciation) may not violate the morphological rules and the spelling of morphemes actually assessed by this test, they are clinically relevant. There are several possibilities as to the origin of these mistakes, including difficulties in the spoken or written comprehension or production of morphology. This warrants further investigation. We suggest to refer to a speech pathologist.

2) During standardization, it was noted that children sometimes added an extra –e to their spellings (“mepeless” for “mepless”; “streffely” for “streffly”). While the extra –es (which are not part of the nonword pronunciation) may not violate the morphological rules and spellings of morphemes actually assessed by this test, they are clinically relevant. If children are adding an –e, this may indicate difficulties in their knowledge of nonlexical spelling rules (also sometimes called, sound-to-letter, spelling phonics). This issue warrants further investigation (e.g., by administering a nonword spelling test, such as: DiSTn, QUIL nonword spelling, etc).

3) For unusual responses, where it is difficult to judge whether a spelling rule has been violated or whether the individual has trouble with the phonology or orthography of a word, check their responses to other items assessing the rule to see whether or not the child demonstrates knowledge of the morphology elsewhere. This procedure was adopted during standardization. If the student was able to demonstrate correct use of a suffix or demonstrate correct knowledge of a morphological rule elsewhere in the assessment then they were given “the benefit of the doubt” on unusual responses. For unusual responses where it is difficult to determine what part of the word is the stem and what part is the suffix, a decision may be made to class an item as unscorable. Some examples encountered during standardization are included here:

• Item 22. “trammvensise” (for “trambliness”). When scoring the –y to –i rule here it is not clear what letters represent the stem and what the suffix is, therefore it’s not possible to determine where to assign the –i in this response. This response was considered unscorable. However, when looking across the other items where a -y needed to be changed to am –i, the child was correct. These other responses indicate that the child knew the –y to –i rule even though this knowledge was not demonstrated on item 22.

• Item 16. “pronlilie” (for “pronkily). When scoring the –y to –i rule here it is not clear which letters represent the stem and which letter represent the suffix. Therefore, it is not possible to determine where to assign the –i in this response. This response was considered unscorable. When looking across the other items testing the same rule, it was clear that the child did not know the rule.

• Item 18. “gred” (for “gurried”). It is unclear which letters represent the stem and which letters represent the suffix in this response. Therefore, it is not possible to score either the –ed suffix, or the –y to –i rule as the –e could represent an incorrect –y to –i change or the past tense –ed. When looking across the other items testing –ed, the child only represented the –ed correctly once. The –y to –i rule was not represented correctly in any other responses. Hence, both the –ed suffix and the –y to –i rule have not been acquired yet.


4) Other specific Unscorable Items #12. spiding and #28. prining – if the spelling does not include –ing (or -ing misspelled as –ink) as the final morpheme it is not possible to score whether the individual has applied the “drop the –e” rule. #25. stomming - the response “stombing” is also correct for this item. If this response is provided it is not possible to score this response for the ‘doubling consonant’ rule. Make a note if this response occurs because it means that you have less evidence of the child using the rule.

Documents

The Diagnostic Spelling Test – Morphology (DiSTm)