Tier 3 specialized writing instruction for students with dyslexia

Abstract

Two instructional experiments used randomized, controlled designs to evaluate the effectiveness of writing instruction for students with carefully diagnosed dyslexia, which is both an oral reading and writing disorder, characterized by impaired word decoding, reading, and spelling. In Study 1 (4th to 6th grade sample and 7th to 9th grade sample), students were randomly assigned to orthographic or morphological spelling treatment but all students were taught strategies for planning, writing, and reviewing/revising narrative and expository texts. Both treatments supervised the assessment team. Margaret McShane and Doug Stock served as administrative assistants.

The Effects of Morphological Instruction on Literacy Skills

“…Although this number is larger than that identified by Reed (2008), there is clearly need for more studies particularly across age and ability levels. Second, with respect to research design, there were a number of examples of random assignment of individuals to instructional conditions (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;Berninger et al, 2003;Berninger et al, 2008;Kirk & Gillon, 2009;Lyster, 1998Lyster, , 2002Tyler et al, 2003), though many of the other investigators did manage to randomly assign classes. Given that most studies saw morphological instruction as a part of regular classroom instruction and that the instruction usually took place over several weeks or more, the proportion of studies with random assignment of individuals seems reasonable.…”

“…For Berninger et al (2008), effect sizes were calculated from F values. No effect size calculations were conducted for the two studies from Tyler, Lewis, Haskill, and Tolbert (2003) because they reported means and standard deviations of percentage change in scores.…”

A meta-analysis of morphological interventions: effects on literacy achievement of children with literacy difficulties

“…Similarly, interventions with morphological instruction also seem to improve reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Lovett et al 2000) and struggling readers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Vadasy et al 2006). Studies have also shown that morphological interventions result in improved spelling achievement for students with reading disabilities (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;Berninger et al 2008;Henry 1987;Henry et al 1989;Lovett & Steinbach, 1997) and for students with low achievement in spelling (Robinson & Hesse, 1981). Furthermore, research has also shown that morphological instruction improves vocabulary outcomes for students with learning disabilities (Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Carlisle 2007;Harris 2007) and for low achievers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;.…”

“…Morphological instruction has been shown to improve decoding for students with reading disabilities (Abbott & Berninger, 1999;Berninger et al 2008;Edwards 1982;Henry 1987Henry , 1988Henry, Calfee, & Avelar-LaSalle, 1989;Lovett et al 2000;Lovett & Steinbach, 1997) and struggling readers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Vadasy, Sanders, & Peyton, 2006). Similarly, interventions with morphological instruction also seem to improve reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Lovett et al 2000) and struggling readers (Carlisle 2007;Katz & Carlisle, 2009;Vadasy et al 2006).…”

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of morphological awareness training on spelling and reading

“…Recent studies suggest that phonological awareness is not the only meta-linguistic ability that accounts for reading and spelling skills (e.g., Nagy, Berninger, & Abbott, 2006) which has resulted in growing numbers of studies focusing on the training of morphological awareness (Arnbak & Elbro, 2000;Berninger et al, 2008;Elbro & Arnbak, 1996;Lyster, 2002). In the present paper behavioral and neurophysiological effects of morphological awareness training designed by Kargl and Purgstaller (2009) were investigated in two studies.…”