EFFECTS OF SPELLING STRATEGIES, DERIVED FROM HEMISPHERIC PROCESSING PATTERNS, ON WRITTEN SPELLING PERFORMANCE
Abstract
It was the purpose of the present study to develop effective spelling instructional strategies based on research in hemispheric processing patterns. Specifically, the instructional designs incorporated three basic features characteristic of right hemispheric, or non-verbal processing: visual imagery, bimanual involvement, and attention to word shape. These methods were developed to examine their effects on learning how to spell irregular, sight words. Effective adaptation of the cerebral research to public school education, as well as effective instructional methods for spelling irregular, sight words had not been demonstrated. Subjects consisted of fifty seventh-grade junior high school students in an urban school environment. The subjects were randomly selected from the entire seventh-grade student body not receiving special education of any form. Subjects were then randomly assigned to four treatment groups and one control group with ten subjects in each. The treatment groups consisted of four different instructional techniques based on non-verbal hemispheric processing. One was a tri-skill strategy using all three features mentioned earlier. The other three strategies each trained a single feature from the tri-skill strategy: one taught the words through visual imagery, another through drawing of the word shapes, and the last by writing the words with one hand one week and the other hand the next week. It should be noted that in this hand manipulation strategy, the non-writing hand was always manipulating, simultaneously, large wooden beads. The ANOVAs computed on the pretest measures revealed that there were no significant differences in written irregular spelling ability prior to the intervention period. The ANOVA computed on the posttest raw score mean revealed a significant F-ratio (p = < .05). Post-hoc comparisons indicated that the tri-skill and hand manipulation strategy yielded significantly different means compared to control group. Several instructional techniques were developed for learning to spell irregular sight words. Based on these results it was concluded that research in hemispheric processing can be effectively adapted to design instructional strategies that facilitate learning in the pubic school setting. Right hemispheric, or non-verbal processing was specifically effective in realizing significant learning gains for these types of spelling words.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
Recommended Citation
MCNELIS, BARBARA ANN KING, "EFFECTS OF SPELLING STRATEGIES, DERIVED FROM HEMISPHERIC PROCESSING PATTERNS, ON WRITTEN SPELLING PERFORMANCE" (1983). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8308480.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8308480
