how can primary special education students working at a ... · web viewresults of the study showed...

Journal Writing and Phonemic Awareness

The Effect of a Journal-Writing ProgramEncouraging Invented Spelling on the

Phonemic Awareness and Writing LevelOf Primary Special Education Students

Eleanor ParchemOrchard Elementary

4200 Bailey Ave.Cleveland, Ohio 44113

[email protected]

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Abstract

This project was implemented to discover if a journal-writing program which encouraged

developmental (invented) spelling could influence the phonemic awareness and writing level of

primary special education students. Nine students worked individually with a teacher to write a

sentence about a picture they had drawn, then worked with the teacher during mini-lessons

drawn from the sentence. Testing results and observations indicated a significant improvement

in letter identification and letter sound matching, reading and writing vocabulary, and level of

writing development over the course of the study.

Introduction

How can primary special education students working at a preschool to kindergarten level

develop their ability to write? This project looked at a primary cross-categorical (mixed

disability) K-2 classroom in an urban elementary school in the mid-western United States.

There were eleven students in the class in September 2008, aged six to eight years old. One

student moved in November, and three more entered in winter 2009. Only the ten students from

the original class were included in the study; however, one student moved one week before final

data collection began, reducing the study sample to nine students. Six students were labeled

learning disabled and three were developmentally handicapped. Eight of the students also had

attention or behavior goals. Five students were Caucasian, two were African American, and two

were Hispanic. Their writing and reading levels ranged from readiness (preschool) to mid-

kindergarten level. Students in past years in this class made progress in letter/sound awareness

and sight word knowledge, and made some progress in increasing their reading level; however,

students did not apply this knowledge to decoding new words, and writing skills were poor. The

ability to write increases special education students’ independence-it is a survival skill in class

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and life.

The teacher in this classroom has taught for 27 years in the district. She taught in an LD

resource room in a private school in the same district, self-contained LD rooms, regular first

grade, Reading Recovery (one-on-one reading instruction for at-risk first graders), and has been

teaching in a cross-categorical classroom, mostly to primary students, for the last five years.

During her years in Reading Recovery, she observed students move from at-risk of failure to

grade level by building students’ reading and writing simultaneously.

The research question: To what degree will using a journal-based writing program which

encourages the use of developmental spelling impact the phonemic awareness and writing

developmental level of primary special education students?

Literature Review

An initial review of the literature on writing and special education found mostly

information on handwriting, not writing content, and spelling instruction which seemed geared to

older students. However, there was a great deal of literature discussing early writing

development with young nondisabled children. The following is a sample of research on this

topic.

Rieben, Ntamakiliro, Gonthier, and Fayol (2005) compared the effects of different

methods of spelling instruction on letter knowledge, phonological awareness, reading, and

spelling of five-year olds in France. The study is pertinent because French spelling has some of

the same difficulties (silent letters, blends, and vowel combinations) as English. They placed

145 five-year olds into one of four groups. All four groups were taught thirty-six words in 18

instructional sessions over a six month span. One group practiced invented spelling with the

words, one group copied the words with correct spelling, and the third group practiced invented

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spelling, but with individual feedback. A control group drew pictures for the words. The

invented spelling with feedback group had a higher mean on all assessments, although only the

orthographic tasks were statistically significant. The authors noted that practice with invented

spelling had no negative impact on students’ ability to spell conventionally in post testing. They

pointed out two factors when considering the lack of statistical significance for invented spelling

with feedback and phoneme detection. Instruction only occurred for six hours over the school

year, and students only received feedback about orthographic features, not phonemic elements.

This study leads to the question of how invented spelling combined with both phonemic and

orthographic feedback, with more sessions over a length of time, might affect writing and

reading development.

Nixon and Topping (2001) evaluated the impact of a paired writing program on the

writing development of a group of five-year old students in Scotland. The authors trained a

group of eleven year old struggling students to conduct individual writing sessions with ten first

year students. Tutors used a lesson flow chart as a guide. They had their tutees draw a picture,

crafted and wrote a sentence with varying levels of support, and read the product. The tutor then

made a good copy of the sentence for the younger child. Students in the paired writing group

scored statistically higher than peers on a writing assessment tool developed by the authors. This

study suggests the importance of one-on-one interactions with a more knowledgeable person for

emergent readers and writers.

Ouellette and Senechal (2008) conducted a four-week long study on the effects of an

invented spelling intervention on phonological/orthographic knowledge and word learning of a

group of Canadian kindergarten children. Sixty-nine children were placed in one of three

groups: the invented spelling group, a group trained in phonological awareness, or a picture

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drawing group. All three groups were taught the same twenty words, composed from a set of

thirteen letters. For the target group, words were presented one at a time, and children were

asked to write the words as best as they could. The instructor then talked to children individually

and provided feedback which praised their work, then suggested another spelling which was

slightly more advanced. In pre-post test comparisons, the invented spelling group performed

slightly better, but with statistical significance, than the control groups in decoding, reading

familiar words, phonological awareness, and permissible letter sequences. The authors

concluded that encouragement of invented spelling combined with feedback designed to support

development toward conventional spelling is a procedure that can be used in the classroom.

Craig (2006) conducted a 16 week study comparing an adapted interactive writing

program with a program of metalinguistic games in four half-day kindergarten classrooms.

Eighty-seven children from a mostly white middle-class rural-suburban public school were

randomly placed into one of two groups, which were divided into intervention groups of four or

five. Each group received four twenty-minute lessons per week for sixteen weeks. The

interactive writing group engaged in shared, interactive, or guided reading followed by

interactive writing and word building using words taken from the writing. The comparison

group worked with the program Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom

Curriculum by Adams et al. (1998). The program consisted of a sequenced series of language

games emphasizing phonological awareness and alphabetic training. Results of the study

showed no statistical difference in phonological awareness spelling and pseudoword reading

between the two groups; however, the interactive writing group scored statistically higher on real

word identification, passage comprehension and word reading development, a scale based on

Ehri’s (1995, 1998) four phases of word reading development. Craig concluded that evidence

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showed a link between early writing development and reading comprehension and word reading.

She stated that the contextualized approach of interactive writing allowed teachers to

differentiate instruction, enabling students to advance in competence in phonological awareness,

reading, and spelling. She suggested a need for a broader definition of explicit, systematic

instruction than that provided by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000), and questioned

whether teachers following a scripted program would be able to meet learners’ differing needs.

The article points to the possibility of using writing as a pathway to reading development for

young children.

O’Connor and Jenkins (1995) investigated the effects of spelling instruction on five

developmentally delayed kindergarteners in Washington State. Students received twenty

individual spelling sessions lasting ten minutes. The children spent eight minutes constructing

target words with magnetic letters, and two minutes writing the words. If a child had trouble

spelling a word, the instructor modeled the correct spelling. The authors found that students who

received spelling training outscored a control group on reading real words and phonetic

nonwords. They suggested that the students had generalized insights from the spelling

instruction, and applied them in reading. They did not discover a significant difference between

the sample and control groups in auditory blending or segmenting, which they attributed to the

small sample and the reading program used in the class, which emphasized sound blending with

all children. The authors analyzed the spelling development of students in the sample and

control groups, and found that all of the students in the sample had moved from a prephonetic to

a phonetic spelling stage, while the developmental level of the control group remained

unchanged. O’Connor and Jenkins concluded that students with disabilities need more explicit

explanation of the alphabetic principle than phonics instruction alone can give. This article did

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not explore the possibility of writing instruction using invented spelling, but it did use a

developmental scale to evaluate the program. This suggests the possibility of individualizing

special education students’ literacy program to provide an understanding of the reading process

through writing as well as reading instruction.

The previous research studies presented evidence that supporting developmental spelling

instruction has a positive impact on both the reading and writing abilities of young children.

Rieben, et al (2005), Nixon and Topping (2001) and Ouellette and Senechal (2008) discussed the

need for an older student or teacher to support emergent writers with feedback to support further

development. O’Connor and Jenkins (1995) talked about writing with special education

students. None of these studies discussed using journals to teach writing and reading

concurrently to special education children.

Kid Writing, by Eileen Feldgus and Isabel Cardonick (1999), appeared to address the

research question, although they did not explicitly include special education students. During a

Kid Writing lesson, students use any phonemic and letter-writing knowledge they have to write a

sentence about a picture they have drawn. The teacher works with the students and uses the

writing sample to make a few teaching points. At the end of the lesson, students share their

work, and the teacher presents whole group minilessons based on that day’s writing.

Minilessons can include letter/sound work, sight vocabulary development, and/or analogy work.

It was decided to use Kid Writing as the journal-based program to explore the research question.

Methods

The study took place in a large, mid-western urban elementary school where 100% of the

children receive free lunch. Participants were 9 students in a mixed-disability special education

classroom, grades K-2. Disabilities represented in the study were Other Health Impaired (mainly

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ADHD), Learning Disabled, and Developmentally Handicapped. The group was racially

diverse, with 50% Caucasian, 30% African American, and 20% Hispanic. There were three girls

and six boys.

Students were given the following assessments related to letter/sound knowledge and

writing: Letter Identification Test (Clay, 93), a sight word test using words taken from the

district’s reading series, Clay’s Writing Vocabulary Test (Clay, 93), Hearing Sounds in Words

(Clay, 93), and The Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale (Feldgus, 2003).

Clay’s Writing Vocabulary Test is supposed to be administered individually; however,

due to time constraints in the classroom, it was presented to two students at a time. Students

were encouraged to write as many words as they could in ten minutes. They were given prompts

if necessary. One point was given for every word students could write, including their names.

In the Hearing Sounds in Words sentence dictation task, students were read a sentence with 37

phonemes, one word at a time. One point was scored for every reasonable phoneme/letter match.

For example, if a student wrote ‘k’ for the /c/ in ‘car’, it was scored as a correct match because

the student heard the phoneme correctly.

Tests were administered in September 2008 and April 2009. Pre- and post-test scores

were then compared for statistical significance. The researcher also kept a log of interactions

with students during journal writing sessions recording students’ compositions, what the students

wrote, and teaching points chosen by the researcher. The log sheet had sections to record the

students’ sentences, which were marked above the words to show what students wrote, teaching

points that were always presented on a whiteboard, letters or words the students wrote

independently, and teacher comments. In addition, student work samples were collected

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monthly, and analyzed for changes in sentence content and signs of emerging phonemic

awareness.

Beginning in late September 2008, students participated in daily journal writing using the

Kid Writing format (Feldgus, 2007).

1. The student draws a picture and tells the story or information to the teacher.

2. The student writes the story using “kid writing.” The teacher assists the child in

articulating the words slowly enough to write letters for as many phonemes as they can.

3. The teacher underwrites the student’s story with “adult writing”; i.e., conventional

spelling, in order to provide the child with a model of conventional spelling. The

teacher praises both the student’s correct spellings and attempts at phonetic spelling.

He/she then chooses one or two teaching points to present to the child on a whiteboard.

4. Students share their writing, and the teacher chooses several teaching points to present

to the whole class.

Lessons ran one 50 minute class period daily, and the teacher was usually able to work

individually with three students in this time period. While the teacher was working with a

student, the other children worked at literacy centers including computer, listening, letter/word

work, and free choice book reading.

Results

A significant relationship was found between pre-and post-test scores for all assessments.

The Letter Identification Test has a possible score of 54 points; 26 upper and lower case, plus g

and a that are found in many texts. In the Letter Identification Test, the mean pre-test score was

37.5, and the post-test mean was 49.8. The T-Test showed a significant relationship between

pre-and post test scores at p = .004. All students showed growth in letter identification

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knowledge. Student 2 was repeating kindergarten and therefore was receiving letter

reinforcement in the classroom as well as in the special education resource room where the study

took place.

TABLE 1 Comparison of pre/post test letter identification scores

Letter Identification

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Students

Scor

es PretestPosttest

In the Sight Vocabulary Test, the mean pre-test score was 2.4 words, and the post-test

mean was 18.9 words. The T-Test showed a significant relationship between pre-and post test

scores at p = .007. All students showed growth in sight word knowledge. Students 1 and 2

could read no words on the pretest.

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TABLE 2 Comparison of pre/post test sight vocabulary scores

Sight vocabulary

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Students

Scor

es PretestPosttest

In the Writing vocabulary Test, the mean pre-test score was 3.3 words, and the post-test mean

was 18.9 words. The T-Test showed a significant relationship between pre-and post test scores

at p = .0004.

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TABLE 3 Comparison of pre/post test writing vocabulary scores

Writing Vocabulary

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Students

Scor

es PretestPosttest

The mean pre-test score in the Hearing Souncs in Words sentence dictation task was 3.3

sounds recorded , and the post-test mean was 18.9 sounds. The T-Test showed a significant

relationship between pre-and post test scores at p = .0005. Student 1, who showed the smallest

difference between pretest and posttest scores on this test, has been diagnosed with a possible

hearing loss. Student 7 is in a first grade homeroom where much attention is given to

letter/sound knowledge.

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TABLE 4 Comparison of pre/post test scores on hearing Sounds in Words Test

Hearing Sounds in Words

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Students

Scor

es PretestPosttest

The mean pre-test score on the Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale was 3.2,

and the post-test mean was 4.6. The T-Test showed a significant relationship between pre-and

post test scores at p = 5.02E-09.

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TABLE 5 Comparison of pre/post test scores on The Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale

Developmental Writing Assessment

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Students

Scor

es PretestPosttest

Sentence content improved in length and complexity of subject matter for eight students.

Fall writing products were an average of 7.6 words, while spring products averaged 12.2 words.

All but one student improved their ability to record the sounds they heard in words, as

well as showing an increase in sight vocabulary and use of classroom resources (word wall, class

lists, etc.). Students recorded an average of 42% of the sounds in their writing products from a

sample taken in September 2008. In March 2009, the average was 74%. Student 1 recorded

fewer sounds in words in March.

Discussion

This study explored the effect that a journal based writing program that encouraged

invented spelling would have on the phonemic awareness and writing level of special education

emergent readers and writers. Results of pre-and post-testing showed significant improvement in

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letter recognition, sight vocabulary, writing vocabulary, sound-letter matching, and writing level.

Students were observed to increase their ability to write sight words over the course of the study,

although they required a great deal of repetition to take on new letters and words. Some students

who focused on letter learning in the fall were taking on words by March. By the end of the

study, all but one student were consistently writing the first letters of words, most were recording

ending sounds, and six students were writing some correct vowels and blends. Several students

learned to use classroom resources to assist them in their writing; the word wall, alphabet chart,

and name chart (students’ first names next to their photos). As the study progressed, several

students wanted to write their stories independently, but they had difficulty because they couldn’t

hold a sentence in their memories long enough to write a sensible sentence. Sentences were

written with words skipped or repeated, and students were unable to read back their work. To

assist the students, the teacher brought the students to her to compose a story together, which was

repeated several times before they went back to their seats to write. She also modeled and

encouraged students to reread after writing every word. Most students continued throughout the

study to need to sit with the teacher to compose and write. The teacher taught mini-lessons to

individuals and the group based on student’s writing. She taught letter formation and sight word

fluency. She also used analogy to help students use known words to write new words. For

example, one student was shown how to use ‘is’ to write ‘his’. The teacher also used Elkonin

boxes to teach hearing sounds in words in order, as described in Clay (1993).

What are elements of this program which make it so successful? Rieben, Ntamakiliro,

Gonthier, and Fayol (2005) found that encouraging invented spelling in emergent writers has no

negative effects on the development of standard spelling. Results of the Writing Vocabulary

Test in this study, which scored only correctly spelled words, agree with those findings. Nixon

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and Topping (2001) discussed the importance of having novice learners work with an expert, in

their case, older children. A key element of the Kid Writing program used in this study is the

interaction with the teacher during and after writing. During writing, the teacher assisted

children with articulating words, emphasizing phonemes as needed. This aspect of the program

was particularly helpful for this special education class where all nine students receive speech

language services. Children who could not articulate sounds in words could hear the teacher say

them slowly and clearly. After the children wrote their story or information, the teacher wrote

under their product using conventional spelling, providing a correct model while at the same

time valuing the students’ efforts. Finally, the teacher supported the students’ learning with

individual and class mini-lessons to scaffold their learning at a higher level. Ouellette and

Senechal (2008) found that encouragement of invented spelling, combined with feedback leading

toward conventional spelling, could be a powerful strategy in the classroom. Kid Writing

appears to be an effective way to do both.

How might the Kid Writing program have influenced test results? Students were taught

unknown letters during individual mini-lessons, as they were needed, so children saw

immediately how the knowledge could be applied in their writing. They also saw the teacher

model correct letter formation as she wrote the corrected sentence under the students’ work. The

same process was at work for learning to write new sight words. Once could expect from this an

increase in letter knowledge and writing vocabulary, as was the case. Similar scores in the sight

vocabulary test, a reading task, and the writing vocabulary test reflect a possible relationship

between reading and writing vocabularies for early literacy learners. An increase in the ability to

record sounds in words was expected, given the procedures in kid writing for articulating words

and emphasizing phonemes through the word as the student writes. The teacher also made use of

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sound and letter boxes during mini-lessons, which may have contributed to an increase in the

Hearing Sounds in Words test. The Kid Writing program supplied the structure and modeling

that enabled all children in the study to move up a full level in their development. The

Conventions of Writing Developmental Scale places students’ writing on a continuum from

emerging, scribbling, to conventional. In the fall, students at level 2, pictorial, where students

draw and tell about a picture and imitate writing, and level 3, precommunicative, where students

use letters, print their own name or a few known words, and attempt to read what they wrote. In

the spring, all students had moved to level 4, semiphonetic, and six students were moving into

level 5, phonetic writing. In level 4, students match some letters to sounds, usually write the

beginning letters of words, write with correct directionality, spell some sight words correctly,

and write one meaningful sentence. At level 5, students write reasonable beginning and ending

sounds, include some vowels, write two meaningful sentences, and space words, although

spacing may vary. Three students would probably have scored at level 5 if the tester had

provided time to write two sentences, but this was not practical due to time/classroom

management constraints.

Kid Writing took up a considerable amount of the literacy period; forty-five minutes to an

hour daily. Is it worth the investment in time? Craig (2006) noted in her study a link between

developmental writing and reading. Although not included in this study, Student 7, who had the

highest posttest scores on most evaluations presented here, was also reading at the highest level

in the class by March, approaching grade level in his oral reading ability. O’Connor and Jenkins

(1995) also found a link between writing and reading, specifically for special education students.

They concluded that special education students need more explicit explanation of the alphabetic

principle than phonics instruction alone can give. Perhaps they also need the relationship

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between reading and writing highlighted more specifically. Students with behavior, attention,

and learning deficits were engaged during one-on-one interactions with the teacher.

Differentiation of instruction for different abilities was not an onerous additional step in

planning, but a natural part of working with individuals. Whole class follow-up teaching points

(mini-lessons) were chosen to address a variety of needs, using several ways of learning about

words and letters; visual analysis of sight words, articulation of phonetically regular words, and

analogy between known and unknown words.

Several factors limit the significance of this study. The sample group of nine students

was very small. Illnesses, suspensions, and school events all interrupted regular lessons at some

point. There was no control group, so it is impossible to tell if test increases are a direct result of

the program, or some other aspect of instruction. No record was made of teaching points the

teacher addressed during whole class mini-lessons. This record is important to make sure the

instructor is presenting a balanced program of letter/word work over the course of a year. For

example, the teacher may have done less analogy work than she thought, and an accurate log of

mini-lesson topics would make it easy to spot such oversights. Finally, the teacher had no in-

service in using the Kid Writing program; she developed her classroom routine based on the

book and information provided by Dr. Feldgus in e-mail correspondence.

Although the results were very encouraging for this small group of special education

emergent writers, future research could investigate results for a larger sample, using a control

group. Researchers might also investigate the degree of effect the program has for specific

disability groups.

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References

Adams, M., Foorman, B. Lundberg. I., & Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic awareness in young

children: a classroom curriculum. Baltimore: Brookes.

Clay, M. (1993). Reading Recovery: A guidebook for teachers in training. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

Clay, M. (1993). An observation survey of early literacy achievement. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

Craig, S. (2006). The effects of an adapted interactive writing intervention on

kindergarten children’s phonological awareness, spelling, and early Reading

development: a contextualized approach to instruction. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 98, 714-731.

Ehri., L. (1995). Phases of development in learning to read words by sight. Journal of Research

in Reading. 18, 116-125.

Ehri., L. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential for learning to read words in

English. In J. Metsala & L. Ehri (Eds.). Word recognition in beginning literacy (pp. 3-40).

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Feldgus, E. & Cardonick, I. (1999). Kid writing: a systematic approach to

phonics, journals, and writing workshop. Chicago IL: Wright Group/McGraw-

Hill.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National

Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific

research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication

No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

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Nixon, J. & Topping, K. (2001). Emergent writing: the impact of structured peer

Interaction. Educational Psychology, 21, 41-58.

O’Connor, R. & Jenkins, J. (1995). Improving the generalization of sound/symbol

Knowledge: Teaching spelling to kindergarten children with disabilities. The

Journal of Special Education, 3, 255-275.

Ouellette, G. & Senechal, M. (2008). Pathways to literacy: a study of invented

Spelling and its role in learning to read. Child Development, 79, 899-913.

Rieben, L., Ntamakiliro, L., & Gonthier, B. (2005). Effects of various early writing

practices on reading and spelling. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 145-166.

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Appendix A. Observation form for recording student/teacher Interactions during kid-writing lessons.Date Sentence Whiteboard Work Writing Vocab. Comments

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Appendix B:Snapshot of Kid Writing Workshop January 1, 2007

Eileen G. Feldgus, Ed.D. [email protected] www.kidwriting.com

Steps in Kid Writing Workshop:

Child draws picture and tells story or information to teacher. This is the planning stage – “Draw your story!” or “Draw your information!” – sometimes referred to as “thinking picture.”

Child writes the story using "kid writing." The teacher helps the child stretch through words the child does not yet know how to spell (I hrd a lt v ld fundr and thr wz ltng). The teacher stretches through with a “moving target” – making the consonant sound that she is up to louder and longer while keeping the sound in the context of the word.

Teacher underwrites the child's story in "adult writing" using conventional spelling so that the child has a model of correct spelling. (I hrd a lt v ld fundr and thr wz ltng / I heard a lot of loud thunder and there was lightning). The teacher (1) Praises the child's conventional spellings - "You remembered how to write and" (2) Praises the child's logical attempts to spell words phonetically - "You figured out the h sound at the beginning of the word heard and the rd sound at the end!" and (3) Teaches one or two new points - "The word was does sound like it has a z at the end but it's really an s; thunder really begins with a th (even though children sometimes say “funder.”

Teacher teaches mini-lessons about writing to the class based on students' work and needs - "I noticed a lot of children are saying the word thunder with an f sound - Watch my mouth, it's really th!" and "It's easy for me to read Tamika's writing because she remembered to leave spaces between her words." Teacher ALWAYS uses a white board or highlighting tape for emphasis of the key teaching points while teaching mini-lessons. Typically three children a day; three teaching points per child – “featured authors”

Sometimes children "publish" their work by rewriting it or typing it on a computer. Kindergarten children usually do not publish their work.

Why encourage children to use PHONICS-BASED SPELLING for words they have not yet learned? Children move through stages of spelling development more rapidly because they must

think about the sounds and letters in words. Children's reading ability develops more rapidly because children are focusing on the meaning of writing and on phonics.

The content of children's writing improves because children can maintain their train of thought. They don't have to make long stops to find spellings; once they learn how to "sound out" or “stretch through” words, they will not need constant assistance with each word.

Children's writing vocabulary improves because children can use their rich oral vocabulary while writing.

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