A Remediation Program for Increasing the Spelling Achievement of Elementary and Junior High School Students

Abstract

The present study evaluated four procedures designed to help poor spellers improve their achievement on weekly tests: (1) a pretest over the week's spelling words followed in two days by the regular weekly test; (2) a positive practice procedure in which students were required to correct any misspelled word on the weekly test by writing out its (a) correct spelling, (b) part of speech, (c) phonetic spelling, (d) complete definition, and (e) correct usage in five different sentences; (3) a pretest, positive practice of the pretest, and the weekly test; and (4) a pretest, positive practice of the pretest, weekly test, and positive practice of the weekly test. The pretest/positive practice/test/positive practice procedure was the most effective, producing a 14 percentage point increase in spelling achievement. The pretest/positive practice/test (11 percentage point increase) and positive practice (10 percentage point increase) procedures were of near equal effectiveness. The pretest procedure produced no increase.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Chadwick, B. A. , & Day, R. C. Systematic reinforcement: Academic performance of underachieving students. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1971, 4, 311-319.

Evans, G. W. , & Oswalt, G. L. Acceleration of academic progress through the manipulation of peer influence. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1968, 6, 189-195.

Fox, W. H. , & Easton, M. T. Analysis of the spelling proficiency of 82,833 pupils in grades 2 to 8 in 3,547 teaching units of the city schools in Indiana. Indiana University Bulletin, School of Education, 1946, 22, 1-50.

Foxx, R. M. Increasing a mildly retarded woman's attendance at self-help classes by overcorrection and instruction . Behavior Therapy, 1976, 7, 390-396. (a)

Foxx, R. M. The use of overcorrection to eliminate the public disrobing (stripping) of retarded women . Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1976, 14, 53-61. (b)

Foxx, R. M.

The use of overcorrection avoidance to increase the eye contact of autistic and retarded children.

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1977, 10, 489-499.

Foxx, R. M. , & Azrin, N. H. The elimination of autistic, self-stimulatory behavior by overcorrection. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6, 1-14.

Foxx, R. M. , & Martin, E. D. Overcorrection as an effective treatment of the scavenging behaviors of coprophagy and pica. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1975, 13, 153-162.

Hall, N. The letter mark-out corrected test . Journal of Educational Research, 1964, 58, 148-157.

10.

Harris, R. J. A primer of multivariate statistics. New York: Academic Press, 1975.

11.

Horn, E. Spelling. In C. W. Harris , (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational research. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

12.

Horn, T. O. Handwriting and spelling . Review of Educational Research, 1967, 37, 168-177.

13.

Lovitt, T. C. , & Curtiss, K. A. Academic response rate as a function of teacher and self-imposed contingencies. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1969, 2, 49-53.

14.

Lovitt, T. C. , Guppy, T. E. , & Blattner, J. E. The use of a free time contingency with fourth graders to increase spelling accuracy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1969, 7, 151-156.

15.

McLaughlin, T. F. , & Malaby, J. E. Development of procedures for classroom token economies. In E. A. Ramp & B. L. Hopkins (Eds.), A new direction for education: Behavior analysis, 1971. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1971.

16.

Siegel, S. Nonparametric statistics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956.

17.

Sulzer, B. , Hunt, S. , Ashby, E., Koniarski, D. , & Krams, M. Increasing rate and percentage correct in reading and spelling in a fifth grade public school class of slow readers by means of a token system. In E. A. Ramp & B. L. Hopkins (Eds.), A new direction for education: Behavior analysis, 1971. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1971.

18.

Weber, L. W. The effects of overcorrection on spelling performance of sixth and seventh grade students. Unpublished thesis, Southern Illinois University, 1974.