The Strategic Spelling Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities: The Results of Two Studies

Craig Darch

This study reports the results of two experiments which focused on the use of spelling strategies by students with learning disabilities and the relative effectiveness of two different approaches for teaching spelling. In experiment 1, qualitative research method was employed with four elementary students with learning disabilities to document the spelling strategies used during an structured interview, a formal spelling test and an informal writing activity. The data revealed 4 categories of spelling strategies: (1) rule-based, (2) multiple, (3) resource-based, and (4) brute force. Patterns that emerged from the data suggested that students with learning disabilities mostly used inappropriate spelling strategies (e.g., brute force, multiple, resource-based). Based on the results of experiment 1, experiment 2 compared the effectiveness of two highly dissimilar spelling instructional approaches (i.e., rule-based strategy and traditional method) to 30 elementary students with learning disabilities. The results of the experiment 2 showed that students with learning disabilities learned spelling words more effectively when the rule-based teaching and correction procedures were employed in three different probes and one post-test. This study concludes with a discussion of the instructional implications for students with learning disabilities in spelling.

Although most students with learning disabilities have difficulty with all forms of written expression, spelling problems rank as some of the most difficult to remediate and are common (Cone, Wilson, Bradley, & Reese, 1985; Bruck, 1988). One explanation for why students with learning disabilities have difficulties in spelling is that they are less adept than students in general education in devising and utilizing spelling strategies that allow for the systematic application of spelling rules. As Bailet and Lyon suggest (1985), deficient rule application "either alone or in combination with other processing difficulties, can cause spelling difficulties" (pg. 164). Similarly, Bruck (1988) has argued that disabled spellers "do not use their knowledge of soundletter correspondence rules when spelling unfamiliar words" (p. 66).

To better understand why students with learning disabilities have spelling problems, it is important to identify the strategy use when they attempt to spell words. It is equally important to find the most effective approaches for teaching spelling. There is a growing awareness that for instructional models to be effective with students with learning disabilities, academic programs must be tailored specifically to meet the needs of those students (Darch & Simpson, 1990). Unfortunately, many students in the United States receive very little formal instruction in spelling (Gerber & Hall, 1987) nor has there been extensive empirical research with students with learning disabilities that have investigated and compared different approaches to teach spelling (Seda, 1989; Vallecorsa, Zigmond, & Henderson, 1985).

Presently, very few studies exist that focus on the strategy use in spelling of students with learning disabilities. Horn, O'Donnell, and Leicht (1988) found that high school students with learning disabilities had difficulties correctly using sound-letter correspondence rules in spelling when compared to young adults without disabilities. Among the sample of this study, 50% of the adults with learning disabilities made 60% or more of their spelling errors as phonetically inaccurate errors. Similarly, Carlisle (1987) found that ninth-grade students with learning disabilities were less apt to use morphological spelling rules relative to the fourth-, sixth-, and eighth- grade general education students. For the general education students, knowledge of the morphernic components of words appeared to be used in spelling dictated words. For example, knowing how to spell the base form (e.g., equal) preceded and aided in learning to spell the derived form (e.g., equality). In contrast, ninth-graders with learning disabilities were more apt to spell only one of the pair correctly, be it the base form or the derived form. This indicated that, in some cases, the base word was spelled incorrectly (e.g., glorry), but the derived word was spelled correctly (e.g., glorious). This suggested that students with learning disabilities were more apt to learn derived forms as whole words, without regard for the relationship to the base form or the morphemic transformation. They appeared to lack awareness of the presence of base forms within derived counterparts, and they lacked specific knowledge about how to spell suffixes and how to attach suffixes to base words correctly.

Similarly, Bailet (1990) compared phonemic and morphemic spelling rule usage of sixth-grade students with learning disabilities with that of same-age normally achieving students. Two dictation spelling tasks requiring a written response were developed to assess application of soundletter correspondence rules and morphemic rules (e.g., suffix-adding rules). The results showed that normally achieving students' performance was superior to that of students with learning disabilities on the sound-letter correspondence rule task and the suffix-adding task.

There are few studies that investigated the effectiveness of strategy instruction to teach application of spelling rules. Bailet and Lyon (1985) have reported that a 37-year-old adult with a learning disability displayed initial deficits in suffix rule usage (e.g., -ing, -ion, -al, -ily), and significant improvement after task structure was modified to provide an implicit cue to the critical morphological spelling principle. This showed that increased structure may enabled a speller with learning disability to demonstrate rule knowledge that was not readily apparent in performance on a less structured word list. Darch and Simpson (1990) compared rule-based strategy and visual imagery mnemonic method for teaching spelling to elementary students with learning disabilities. Results of the study indicated that students with learning disabilities who received instruction based on a rule-based strategy approach displayed significant spelling achievement gains when compared to visual imagery method.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of two studies which focused on the use of spelling strategy by students with learning disabilities and the relative effectiveness of two, very different approaches for teaching spelling. Specifically, two research questions guided this study. First, we investigated the use of spelling strategies by elementary students with learning disabilities. We did this with the use of qualitative research methods by conducting intensive interviews with four students with learning disabilities. We felt that this research methodology would not only provide a picture of the type of spelling strategies used by these students but also, would provide insight as to why these students approached spelling as they did. Our second question was to determine effective spelling instructional approaches by comparing two highly dissimilar commercial spelling programs to see if one approach was superior. One method, rule-based strategy instruction, focused on teaching students spelling rules in which they utilized phonemic and morphemic strategies to spell words. The other method, traditional instruction, provided an array of spelling activities (e.g., introducing the words in the context of story, defining the meaning of the words, sentence writing, and dictionary skill training) to teach spelling words.

Our approaches (e.g., qualitative and quantitative study) are supported by Borg, Gall, & Gall (1993) who stated "many educational phenomena are best studied through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research designs. Qualitative research is best suited for initial investigation of a problem. Qualitative studies can produce thick description of an interesting phenomenon, discover relevant variables, and generate hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships between them. Quantitative research then can make rigorous measurements of these variable and test for the presence of the hypothesized relationships" (pg. 202).

Experiment 1: The Strategic Spelling Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this descriptive study was to use qualitative research methods to determine the strategies students with learning disabilities use when they are attempting to spell different word types. Intensive interviews were conducted with four students with learning disabilities to identify the strategies they used in spelling. Elementary students with learning disabilities were selected based on recommendations from their teachers. Our interest was also to better understand how these students attempted to make adjustments in their approaches to spelling during observed spelling activities.

Method

Research Design

Qualitative research method (Patton, 1990) designed to identify the spelling strategy skills of the students as well as their perceptions on spelling instruction they received in their classrooms was used in this study. Qualitative data included audio tapes of interviews with the students, written spellings that students produced, and field notes documenting informal conversations with the students' teachers and classroom observations. Qualitative research methods were appropriate for focusing on the primary question for this study which was to find out or understand the strategic spelling skills of students with learning disabilities and their perceptions of instruction they received.

Subjects

The four second grade students with learning disabilities who served as subjects for this study were interviewed in a group and individually to determine their use of spelling strategies and their perceptions about spelling. An "intensity sampling technique," discussed by Patton (1990), was the method to select subjects for this study. In this sampling procedure, teachers were asked to identify students who would be able to provide "information rich examples." That is, teachers identified students who were having difficulty with spelling, both in writing activities and testing situations. Our interest was to conduct interviews with these four subjects to gain a better understanding of (a) students' use of spelling strategies, (b) students' perceptions on the spelling instruction they had received during the school year, and (c) students' attempts to make adjustments in their approach to spelling during observed spelling activities.

The four students with learning disabilities had a mean age of 8.6 years and were completing the second grade. The sample consisted of two males and two females. Each of the four subjects met state and federal guidelines for placement into programs for students with learning disabilities. The mean full-scale IQ (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) was 9 1. All students had been placed in a classroom for students with learning disabilities for at least one year. All subjects were identified by their teachers as having spelling difficulties as compared to their general education peers.

Instrumentation Interviews, Stimulus Materials and Testing

The questions that were developed for the structured and activity-based interviews were patterned after a study by Rabren and Darch (1996). Data were collected by the authors over six weeks. Two types of interviews were conducted with these students. Structured interviews were conducted as a group and occurred before the students were asked to complete specified spelling activities. The senior author conducted the structured 45-minute interviews. The activity-based interviews, which were conducted individually with the four students, were completed at the conclusion of the assigned spelling activities. The activity-based interviews helped us to determine specific strategies these students used while they were completing a series of writing tasks. All interviews, structured and activity-based, were audio taped and transcribed for the analysis. Structured Interview

The four subjects met as a group in a room adjacent to their classroom. This group interview lasted approximately 45 minutes. The structured interview was designed to foster general discussion among the students and the experimenter about students' use of spelling strategies and their perceptions about the importance of spelling and the type of spelling instruction they had received in school. The students were prompted to discuss in as much detail as possible the strategies they used to spell words, and whether they used strategies whenever they were engaged in writing activities. Our interest was to determine if these students used spelling strategies in all of their writing activities regardless of the content area. Table 1 provides questions that the authors used to guide the structured interview. As can be seen from Table 1, students were probed as to their use of strategies when they were spelling, how they attempted to correct spelling mistakes, and their personal feelings about their spelling difficulties.

Table 1 Questions Used for Structured and Activity-Based Interviews

Structured Interview

1. When you spell words, what kind of things do you do to help you spell correctly?

2. If you are having trouble with a word, what do you do to try and spell it correctly?

3. Why do you think some kids have trouble with spelling?

4. How do you feel if you can't spell words when you are writing?

5. Tell me how your teachers teach you to spell.

Activity-Based Interviews

1. Tell me the words you had trouble in spelling.

2. Why did you spell this word like that (experimenter points to a misspelled word)?

3. How did you come up with this word? (experimenter points to a respelled word)?

4. If a teacher asks you to correct a misspelled word, what kinds of things do you do to spell it correctly?

Activity-Based Interviews

To explore the task specificity of spelling strategies, we used two spelling tasks, a spelling test and a writing activity. The spelling test was a formal assessment of spelling skills. The senior author met individually with each student on consecutive day to conduct activity-based interviews. After a short introduction and explanation as to our intent, the activity-based interviews began with the experimenter asking the student to complete a 15 word spelling test. The words chosen for this test represented words from 4 different word types. The word types tested were (a) phonetically regular words (e.g., did, fast, cup), (b) words with a final e and a long vowel sound (e.g., gave, ride), (c) words comprised of two morphographs (e.g., re-teach), and (d) phonetically irregular words in which one or more letters do not represent their most common sound (e.g., was, your, tall). We were interested in determining the strategies these students used for spelling different words types. The purpose of this activity was to discuss with the students the strategies they used to spell words during this activity.

Next, after 5 minute break, the senior author administered the writing activity individually to the four children. The subjects were presented with a picture taken from an elementary reading text which depicted several animals playing in a field. After presenting the picture, the experimenter began a discussion with the student about what was happening in the picture. After this discussion, which usually lasted about 5-10 minutes, the student was asked to write as many sentences as they could that described what they saw in the picture. The purpose of this activity was to determine whether, when writing sentences, students used spelling strategies and what types of spelling errors they made during this writing activity. For example, after a student completed writing a sentence, the experimenter would point to a word that was misspelled and asked the subject what way he/she used to spell that particular word. Next, the student was told that the word was spelled incorrectly and asked to try and respell it. After the student completed the respelling, the student was asked to describe how he/she came up with the new spelling of the word. Table 1 provides a list of the questions that the experimenter used to identify the strategies used by the students.

Data Analysis

In analyzing individual questions, students' responses were divided into idea units. An idea unit was defined as an unit of comments during which the student described spelling strategy. Our goal was to examine the students with learning disabilities' use of spelling 11 strategies as well as the perceptions of spelling instruction they received. Verbal descriptions of spelling strategies were divided into units for each spelling task. We read the data record of each student several times as different kinds of spelling strategies emerged. We developed and refined a coding system to categorize the kinds of spelling strategies described in the units.

This process yielded four major categories: (1) rule-based, (2) multiple, (3) resource-based, and (4) brute force. Table 2 presents the four categories along with their definition and examples of some of the students' responses to interview questions. Using the transcribed data from the structured and activity-based interviews, we documented the number of times students stated that they used any of the four spelling strategies (e.g., rule-based, multiple, resource-based, and brute force).

Table 2 Spelling Strategy Categories

Strategies

Rule-based
  Comments made that referenced appropriate
  rule-based strategies.

Multiple
  Comments made indicating the use of more
  than one strategy during spelling.

Resource-based
  Indications of the use of prior learning
  experience.

Brute Force
  Reports of less sophisticated procedures
  and recall information. These methods
  indicate tenacity rather than the use of
  systematic strategies.

Examples of Students' Comments
  "I thought of the letter in the word and tried
  to spell it.
  "If you don't know the word, you sound it
  out."

  "I tried to look for other words like the one
  I thought hard."

  "I would get a piece of paper, and ask
  teacher to write down the word I didn't
  know."

  "I keep on trying. I keep thinking about the
  word. Sometimes I guess if I don't know."
  "I just spelled it and did the best I could."

Results and Discussion

The results of this study provide a framework for understanding how students with learning disabilities attempt to spell words. These finding are consistent with other content instruction research (e.g., Simmons, Kameenui, & Darch, 1988; Rabren & Darch, 1996) which shows that students with learning disabilities often fail to use appropriate strategies.

Reported Use of Spelling Strategies: Activity-Based and Structured Interviews

While one of the students discussed using a rule based strategy, almost all of the other comments students made regarding how they attempted to spell words and how they tried to correct misspelled words showed that they used inappropriate strategies almost exclusively. Jean, one of our female subjects almost always used multiple strategies. For example, when asked how she tried to spell words she did not know, she responded "I tried to look for other words like that one and thought hard." Most of the student comments about how they attempted to spell unknown words were categorized as "brute force" strategies. As can be noted from the sample comments from Table 2, students who used the brute force strategy often became impatient during the spelling and writing activities. In fact, we noticed that three of the students who used the brute force strategy almost often showed high levels of frustration while engaged in the writing activities. When we probed one student on how they tried to respell a word if their first strategy was not effective, one student replied, "I guess I'll just stop, I probably won't get it right anyway."

It was also interesting to note that students were most articulate about how they attempted to spell words during the activity-based interviews when discussing the spelling test. Even though they often identified strategies that were inappropriate, we found that they often discussed several attempts using strategies. One of the students said "it was easy for me to spell `hand. I just sounded out,/hhaanndd/, it's how to spell it. However, most students tried to sound out during spelling for irregular words too (e.g., wus for was, tol for tall).

They made fewer comments about spelling strategy use during the sentence writing activity. Their responses were much more vague about their using strategies during the sentence writing activity. There may be two reasons for this outcome. First, the students may have been more motivated when taking the spelling test and the students may have been less motivated when they were writing sentences that described the stimulus picture. The other reason may be that writing sentences for students with learning disabilities is such a difficult process for them, one that includes handwriting, composition, and grammar that correct spelling was the least of their concerns. This analysis is supported by some of the comments student made during the writing activity: "I don't get a sentence, the problem is I can't write a sentence good, you know I don't know where to put period, question marks, that's the problem." Only one of the four subjects discussed using a rule-based spelling strategy when asked how they tried to spell words correctly during writing assignments.

In addition to determining how students with learning disabilities identified strategy use in spelling, we were further interested in their perception on the spelling instruction they received. For the question designed to tap their spelling instruction (e.g., tell me how your teachers teach you to spell), their comments placed greater emphasis on surficial form involved in the instruction than they did on the specific instructional contents. For example, one of the student described the spelling instruction like this: "It was, we did reading, then write. And had extra hard work. We learned from the book, we go back at the back table and had spelling test." Overall, the students failed to pick up details of spelling instruction,

Implications for Developing Spelling Intervention

The results from study I have important implications for teaching spelling to students with learning disabilities. This study is consistent with the results of other researchers who have shown that students with learning disabilities have strategy deficits (e.g., Gerber & Hall, 1987).

The present study extends these results and provides examples of the types of inappropriate spelling strategies students with learning disabilities use when taking tests and writing text. These results suggest that effective spelling programs must teach student to use strategies systematically, across a variety of word types. It is important to point out here that these students were no better applying spelling strategies to easy word types (e.g., phonetically regular words) than they were with difficult word types (e.g., words comprised of two morphographs and irregular words). This suggests that students must be taught specific spelling strategies for various word types. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that students will require intensive instruction to learn to apply spelling strategies.

Students in this study rarely attempted any type of systematic spelling strategies when they were writing sentences during the activity-based interviews. These students seemed overwhelmed with the mechanics of writing sentences and this lead to almost no attempt to use strategic methods when spelling individual words. One possible implication is that when teachers first introduce spelling strategies to students with learning disabilities, instruction should occur with carefully sequenced words in an academic context that does not initially require students to write lengthy sentences.

Experiment 2: Teaching Spelling to Students with Learning Disabilities: The Differential Effects of Two Spelling Programs

The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of two spelling instructional approaches that were quite different. Based on the results of Experiment 1, we were interested in determining which of two spelling instructional programs, Spelling Mastery Program (Dixon & Engelmann, 1990), a program that teaches students to use spelling rules in a direct, uncompromising way, and the Laidlaw Spelling Program (Roser, 1987), a traditional program that utilized writing activities based on word families, practice in spelling words, and motivational activities. We were interested in determining the relative effectiveness of each of these programs for teaching effective spelling to children with learning disabilities. The spelling words were selected on the basis of different word types and level of difficulty (2nd grade) from Spelling Mastery and Laidlaw Spelling Programs.

Method

Subjects and Setting

The subjects for this study were 30 students with learning disabilities. Each of the students who participated in this study were placed in classrooms for students with learning disabilities located in a school system in the Southeastern part of the United States. Five of the students who participated in this study were African-American and 14 of the students of the total sample were female. The mean IQ for the entire sample of subjects was 89. The subjects had been placed in learning disabilities programs based on federal guidelines for the identification of learning disabilities programs. These guidelines required that students demonstrate at least average potential as measured by their performance on a standardized intelligence test and a measured severe discrepancy in one of the major academic areas. In addition, all students who participated in this study were identified by their respective teachers as having spelling difficulties.

Two graduate students who were completing a masters' training program in learning disabilities served as experimental teachers for this study. The experimental teachers were randomly assigned to one of the treatment conditions. Each experimental teacher was trained to use the spelling intervention program that they were assigned to teach. The authors demonstrated the appropriate lessons from each of the instructional interventions to each of the teachers and then requested that the experimental teachers practice implementing lessons in role-playing situations with the authors. The experimental teachers learned to follow the sen-ii-scripted lessons for their assigned treatment group. Training sessions for the teachers was completed individually and was completed in three, one-hour practice sessions. One experimental teacher was 28 years old and the other was 26. Both were female and each had practicum experience teaching students with learning disabilities as part of their graduate program. Instructional Materials and Procedures

In order to determine the relative effectiveness of two different approaches for teaching spelling to students with learning disabilities, subjects were randomly assigned to either a group who received instruction in using rule-based strategies for spelling or another group who received instruction in a commercial program that implemented activities centered around word practice, exposure to spelling rules, and sentence and story writing. The program used to teach students rule-based spelling strategies was the Spelling ,Mastery Level C (Dixon & Engelmann, 1990). The students who were assigned to the alternative treatment group were taught from activities taken from the Laidlaw Spelling Program. Table 3 provides a comparison of the two treatment groups on six critical instructional features.

Table 3 Means, Standard Deviations, and Percentage Correct on Spelling Words on Three Probe Measures

                           Treatment

             Spelling Mastery              Traditional

                          %                     %
Test       M     SD    correct    M    SD    correct   t-test

Probe 1    8.7   1.3     87      6.3   3.1     63      p <.01
Probe 2    8.3   1.4     83      5.0   2.2     50      p < 0.1
Probe3     7.0   1.8     70      4.2   3.1     42      p <.01
Posttest   22    2.2     73      16    4.3     53      p <.01

Probe contained 10 items Post test contained 30 items

To increase the internal validity of this study, critical features of the instructional programs were controlled. Students in both treatment groups received instruction for 12 instructional sessions. The length of these daily instructional lessons was the same for both instructional groups, about 20 minutes. The same spelling words were used in both treatment groups. In addition, lessons for both treatment groups were semi-scripted which ensured that the lessons from each treatment group were taught as they were designed.

Spelling Mastery Program: A Rule-Based Approach. The Spelling Mastery Program Level C (Dixon & Engelmann, 1990) served as one of the instructional programs evaluated in this study. This commercial spelling program contains 137 lessons and is designed to teach students spelling rules in an intensive fashion. Students assigned to this treatment group received instruction based on activities taken from the first 50 lessons of the program. This direct instruction program (Gersten, Woodward, & Darch, 1986) has scripted lessons with scripts that provide to the teacher specific teaching activities. The critical aspect of this program is that it teaches students spelling using carefully sequenced rule-based strategies. Figure 2 provides an example of one of the scripts from this treatment group which is designed to teach students a morphographic analysis.

Students are taught the morphographic units of a series of words. The students are asked to identify these units, learn the meaning and spelling of the presented morphograph. The two other spelling strategies, phonemic analysis and final e rule were presented to students in this group in a similar fashion. For example, when students were taught phonemic analysis, students were taught how to sound out the individual letters in words that were phonetically regular (e.g., cat). Next students practiced using this strategy on a carefully selected group of words.

Laidlaw Spelling Program: An Activity-Based Approach. The alternative instructional approach was based on activities taken from Laidlaw Spelling Program (1990), a popular commercial spelling program used in many classrooms. Students in this treatment group received instruction on the same three word types that were taught in the Spelling Mastery program. However, the teaching procedures for this group differed from the procedures in the Spelling Mastery group. This program contained 3 primary spelling activities. The first feature was that practice words were organized around word pairs (e.g., make, making) with several word types presented at the same time. Students were instructed to look carefully at the various word endings. Next the students were asked to write each word with the ending (e.g., making) and without the ending (e.g., make). Next, the students used the spelling words to complete a story that was presented by filling in blanks with the correct spelling word. Finally, the students were asked to complete a dictionary and sentence writing activities for selected spelling words. All spelling lessons, regardless of the word type introduced were organized around these general spelling activities. Dependent Measures

Probes. Ten item probe spelling tests were administered to students in each of the instructional groups after they had been taught for four consecutive days for each of the three word types evaluated in this study. Probe 1, administered on day 5 of the study, contained 10 phonetically regular words that the students were taught in the four day lesson sequence. Probe 2 focused on words that were taught using a morphographic analysis, while probe 3 contained only words that ended in "e" and contained a long vowel sound (e.g., skate). Probe 2 was administered on day 10 of the experiment and probe 3 was administered on day 15. All probes were administered by the senior author and took approximately 20 minutes to complete. Probes were administered in groups for students in each instructional condition.

Post Test. A 30-item post test was administered the day following the completion of all other experimental activities. This test contained 10 words for each of the three word types taught in this study. No help was provided to any student during post testing. If a student asked for help with spelling a word, the experimenter told the student to just do the best they could. Post testing was completed in groups as lasted approximately 45-50 minutes. Results and Discussion

Table 3 provides the means, standard deviations, and percent correct for the students in each of the two treatment groups, the rule-based approach (Spelling Mastery) and the traditional approach (Laidlaw Spelling Program). As can be seen from Table 4, there are differences favoring the Spelling Mastery group on each of the three probe measures and the post test. While the range of percentage correct for the Reading Mastery group was 87% correct on Probe 1 (phonetically regular words) to 70% correct on Probe 3 (spelling rule words), the scores for students in the Laidlaw Spelling programs were significantly lower on each of the three measures (p [is less than] .01). For example on Probe 1, these students scored 63% correct, and on Probe 3, they scored only 42% correct. Even though the students scored lower on the Post test measure (73% correct) than they did on Probe 1 and Probe 2, they significantly performed higher than the students who were taught with the Laidlaw Program (53% correct).

These results demonstrate the superiority of a rule-based spelling instructional program (Spelling Mastery Program) when compared to the effectiveness of a instructional program that relies on the use of motivational spelling activities and intensive practice writing words and sentences without systematic introduction of spelling rules with carefully sequenced practice. The students taught with the rule-based program became more proficient spelling words-representing each of the three word types.

The results of both experiments provide information regarding students' use of appropriate spelling strategies as well as curriculum designed to teach spelling. The purpose of both experiments was to examine the strategies students use to spell words and the programs designed to teach them. The results of each study provide support for the other. Students with learning disabilities do not use appropriate strategies when spelling words, so they need curricula which provides an intense, systematic method for teaching specific spelling strategies.

Conclusions and Implications

The purpose of the first study was to determine the types of strategies that students with learning disabilities use when they are trying to spell words that they find difficult. As these results show, students with learning disabilities are not effective in using appropriate, rule-based spelling strategies. When these students discussed the methods that they used to spell words, they rarely discussed rule-based strategies, and instead discussed using strategies that were either characterized as brute force, individualized, or multiple approaches, all of which are considered to be ineffective spelling strategies.

The purpose of the second study reported in this paper was to determine which of two highly dissimilar programs for teaching spelling was the most effective in teaching elementary aged students with learning disabilities how to spell three classifications of words. Table 4 provides comparison of the rule-based approach (Spelling Mastery) with a traditional approach (Laidlaw Spelling Program). The results of the intervention study reported here suggest that rule-based programs that are skill-directed intensive, with specified corrections and practice are most effective for children with learning disabilities.

Each experiment has important implications regarding students with learning disabilities and instructional programs designed to teach spelling. Moreover, the findings of the first experiment, which suggests that students with disabilities do not use appropriate strategy (i.e., rule-based strategy), offer support to the second study which favors using rule-based programs to teach students with learning disabilities. These results suggest that students with learning disabilities who frequently experience problems with spelling, benefit from programs that incorporate rule-based strategies that are intensive and skill-directed, and provide specified correction and practice procedures. School administrators and teachers can use the results when planning instruction for students with learning disabilities. Students with learning disabilities often experience difficulty in spelling and often times use inappropriate strategies when engaging in spelling tasks. These studies suggest that rule-based curricula provide teachers with strategies to teach students who experience difficulty in spelling.

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Craig Darch & Soobang Kim, faculty members, College of Education, Auburn University. Susan Johnson, faculty member, College of Education, Columbus State University. Hollis James, faculty member, College of Education, Tuskegee University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Craig Darch, Professor, Department of Rehabilitation & Special Education, 1228 Haley Center: Auburn University, Auburn University, Alabama 36849-5217

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