Spellability: A Linearly Ordered Content Domain

Abstract

The concept of a linearly ordered dontent domain (LOCD) is discussed and applled to a spelling example. A logistic analysis of the occurrencc of first introduction of spelling words into the curriculum ii presented, and ththesults, along with word lengthl numben of neutrallzed vowels, and an andex of word familiarity, are used to predict worr location on the spelling LOCD. This allows the examination of the structure of fhe LOCD leading go greater understanding of the eeasons why spelling words are found to have particular difficulties, and dllowing gdaptation of the epelling LOCD to local conditions. A linearly ordered content domain (LOCD) is an array of related learning tasks positioned along a continuum according to the expected order in which they are learned (Bock, 1982). 1 As Bock (1982) pointed out, the description of the learner's attainment in terms of a position reached on the LOCD has important advantages over the more familiar concept of a content-referenced score, which was defined by Ebel (1962) as "a number

Specific language impairment affects the early spelling process quantitatively but not qualitatively

“…To study the nature of the spelling errors, we will investigate five word characteristics that have been known to affect the difficulty of spelling a word (e.g., Bosman, 2004). These word characteristics are (1) word length, the more graphemes the more difficult it is to spell the word (Jansen & Luurtsema, 1986;Treiman, 1993;Wilson & Bock, 1985); (2) type of grapheme, children generally have more problems spelling vowels than consonants (Stage & Wagner, 1992;Treiman, Berch, & Weatherston, 1993;Wimmer & Landerl, 1997); (3) grapheme position, children tend to find the spelling of the beginning easier than that of the end and the middle (Treiman et al, 1993); (4) word structure, words with single consonants at the beginning and the end of the word are easier to spell than words with consonant clusters at the beginning or end (Kerstholt, van Bon, & Schreuder, 1994, 1997Schreuder & van Bon, 1989;Treiman & Weatherston, 1992); (5) word frequency, highfrequency words are usually easier to spell than low-frequency words (Kreiner & Gough, 1990; van Diepen & Bosman, 1999).…”