The Strategic Spelling Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities: The Results of Two Studies

Journal of Instructional Psychology, March, 2000 by Craig Darch, Soobang Kim, Susan Johnson, Hollis James

The purpose of this descriptive study was to use qualitative research methods to determine the strategies students with learning disabilities use when they are attempting to spell different word types. Intensive interviews were conducted with four students with learning disabilities to identify the strategies they used in spelling. Elementary students with learning disabilities were selected based on recommendations from their teachers. Our interest was also to better understand how these students attempted to make adjustments in their approaches to spelling during observed spelling activities.

Method

Research Design

Qualitative research method (Patton, 1990) designed to identify the spelling strategy skills of the students as well as their perceptions on spelling instruction they received in their classrooms was used in this study. Qualitative data included audio tapes of interviews with the students, written spellings that students produced, and field notes documenting informal conversations with the students' teachers and classroom observations. Qualitative research methods were appropriate for focusing on the primary question for this study which was to find out or understand the strategic spelling skills of students with learning disabilities and their perceptions of instruction they received.

Subjects

The four second grade students with learning disabilities who served as subjects for this study were interviewed in a group and individually to determine their use of spelling strategies and their perceptions about spelling. An "intensity sampling technique," discussed by Patton (1990), was the method to select subjects for this study. In this sampling procedure, teachers were asked to identify students who would be able to provide "information rich examples." That is, teachers identified students who were having difficulty with spelling, both in writing activities and testing situations. Our interest was to conduct interviews with these four subjects to gain a better understanding of (a) students' use of spelling strategies, (b) students' perceptions on the spelling instruction they had received during the school year, and (c) students' attempts to make adjustments in their approach to spelling during observed spelling activities.

The four students with learning disabilities had a mean age of 8.6 years and were completing the second grade. The sample consisted of two males and two females. Each of the four subjects met state and federal guidelines for placement into programs for students with learning disabilities. The mean full-scale IQ (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) was 9 1. All students had been placed in a classroom for students with learning disabilities for at least one year. All subjects were identified by their teachers as having spelling difficulties as compared to their general education peers.

Instrumentation Interviews, Stimulus Materials and Testing

The questions that were developed for the structured and activity-based interviews were patterned after a study by Rabren and Darch (1996). Data were collected by the authors over six weeks. Two types of interviews were conducted with these students. Structured interviews were conducted as a group and occurred before the students were asked to complete specified spelling activities. The senior author conducted the structured 45-minute interviews. The activity-based interviews, which were conducted individually with the four students, were completed at the conclusion of the assigned spelling activities. The activity-based interviews helped us to determine specific strategies these students used while they were completing a series of writing tasks. All interviews, structured and activity-based, were audio taped and transcribed for the analysis. Structured Interview