Differential Effects of Two Spelling Procedures on Acquisition, Maintenance and Adaption to Reading

• Published in: Journal of behavioral education Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 71 - 82
• Main Authors: Cates, Gary L, Dunne, Megan, Erkfritz, Karyn N, Kivisto, Aaron, Lee, Nicole, Wierzbicki, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Science and Business Media, Inc 01-03-2007; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Decision making; Elementary Secondary Education; Experimentation; Individual Differences; Instructional Effectiveness; Learning disabilities; Learning procedures; Learning rate; Reading; Reading Achievement; Reading Instruction; Retention (Psychology); Special education; Special needs students; Spelling; Spelling Instruction; Stopwatches; Teachers; Teaching Methods; Time Factors (Learning); Time on Task; Word Lists
• ISSN: 1053-0819; 1573-3513
• DOI: 10.1007/s10864-006-9019-5

An alternating treatments design was used to assess the effects of a constant time delay (CTD) procedure and a cover-copy-compare (CCC) procedure on three students' acquisition, subsequent maintenance, and adaptation (i.e., application) of acquired spelling words to reading passages. Students were randomly presented two trials of word lists from their respective curriculum under each condition once daily. Results suggest that both procedures were effective for helping students efficiently acquire spelling words, but the CCC condition resulted in more words learned for all participants, although less pronounced when instructional time was considered. However, the CTD procedure resulted in substantially higher levels of maintenance for Jeremy and Leon, with no significant difference between the two procedures for the Anthony. Adaptation of acquired spelling words to reading was about equal under both conditions for Anthony and Leon, while Jeremy showed higher levels of performance in the CTD procedure. Discussion focuses on discrepant results, matching instructional procedures to specific learning concerns, and directions for future research.