Lexical Analysis of Words on Commonly Used Standardized Spelling Assessments

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the morphological characteristics (i.e., number of morphemes in each word, degree of transparency between a derived morpheme and its root word) and frequency data (i.e., the standard frequency index; SFI) of six commonly used standardized spelling assessments and their alternate forms (when available). Results indicate high variability among the assessments and their alternate forms on the use of multimorphemic transparent and opaque words. Variability based on the SFI index between tests and their alternate forms was relatively low. Findings are discussed in regard to providing researchers and practitioners with a deeper understanding diagnostically of the morphological and frequency requirements and complexities of these standardized spelling assessments.

Evaluating the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT): a tool for the concurrent assessment of spelling and handwriting

“…Moreover, learners need to be sensitive to the distributional properties of the letters and letter patterns occurring in printed words, many of which have no clear connection to phonology or morphology, but instead reflect archaic or foreign pronunciations (Treiman & Kessler, 2014). Therefore, conventional spelling competence requires the integration of higher-order knowledge about the morphological (Nunes et al, 1997;Treiman et al, 1994) and orthographic (Cassar & Treiman, 1997;Calhoon & Masterson, 2011) structure of words as well. Over the primary years, English children learn specific contextualized spelling patterns, such as contexts for short and long vowel spellings, consonant doubling, and letter sequencing regularities that reflect the morpho-phonemic as well as the historical nature of the spelling system, both through explicit spelling instruction, and to some extent, through incidental exposure to print during reading practice.…”

“…In the English tradition, spelling ability is usually measured in one of three test administration methods: by producing spellings of single words to dictation, by spellings obtained from samples of children's free writing, and by the recognition of correctly spelled words from incorrectly spelled alternatives. The first of these methods is arguably the most frequently used, with numerous reliable, standardised, single-word spelling tests being available for clinical and educational use (see Calhoon & Masterson, 2011). Typically, the tests are graded in difficulty spanning a broad age range, and item selection is based on spelling patterns that present a learning challenge because they do not adhere to basic (canonical) sound-letter mappings that can be derived by "sounding out" the words' phonemes.…”