Attention to the assessment and teaching of specific spelling skills seems to have received less attention than many other aspects of writing. A sample of 116 year 4 and 113 year 8 students’ spelling errors that were made in one story writing task in the 2006 NEMP Writing Report were analysed in this study. The analysis included the extent to which the students were able (or prepared) to identify their errors and to subsequently correct them after consulting a Spell Write dictionary. Analysis was also undertaken to identify the particular spelling units that had caused the most problems for the students. The results from this study suggest that teachers could gain useful knowledge about students’ spelling abilities if they use their error responses as an indicator of future teaching needs.
Purpose
The main purpose of this study was to analyse the spelling errors made by a sample of year 4 and year 8 students who had completed an Expressive Writing Task that was part of the 2006 NEMP writing assessment. No analysis of the actual spelling errors was undertaken in the NEMP report yet there was a particularly rich source of data made in these writing samples to allow for such an analysis.
Methodology
Participants
Participants consisted of 116 year 4 and 113 year 8 students who had completed the Expressive writing task titled A Day I’ll Never Forget (Crooks et al, 2007, pp.16-21). This number represented approximately 25% of the national sample of students who had completed this particular task in the 2006 NEMP writing cycle.
Procedures of the NEMP tasks
- The Expressive Writing Task: A Day I’ll Never Forget
- During the NEMP administration this writing task was presented over a three-day period. On day 1 the students were shown a short video clip of still pictures of children taking part in special events. The video clip was used as motivation for the writing task. The following instructions were given for Day 1:
- Today you are going to think about and plan what you will be writing. We’ll start by watching a video which will help you get started. It shows some times that are special to people, and should help you start thinking about times that are special to you. Your writing is to describe a day you’ll never forget.
- The students were given five minutes to record their ideas, after which the lesson was concluded.
- On day 2 the students were given the following instructions:
- Yesterday you started to think about what you will be writing. It is about a time that is very special to you; a day you’ll never forget. I’m going to give you back your booklets and today you will have time to do your writing (Crooks et al., 2007, p.16).
- The students were allowed 20 minutes to write their accounts for this task.
- On the third day the following instructions were given:
- Yesterday you did some writing. Today you are to check it through very carefully and make any changes or improvements that you think should be made. If you want, you can also use a Spell Write. (Crooks et al. 2007., p. 16).
- The students were allowed 10 minutes for the completion of this task
- Note: A Spell Write is a dictionary containing most of the common words that New Zealand children use during their regular writing. The words are listed alphabetically.
- This expressive writing task was a useful activity to analyse because the students were given unrestricted choices for the words that they selected for their accounts. Furthermore, most students would have been able to write a satisfactory and representative number of words within the 20 minute timeframe. It was also assumed that by having access to the Spell Write (Croft & Mapa, 1998) writing dictionary that this would/should also have encouraged the students to correct (during the editing stage of this task) any misspelled words that may have also appeared in the Spell Write text.
- During the NEMP administration this writing task was presented over a three-day period. On day 1 the students were shown a short video clip of still pictures of children taking part in special events. The video clip was used as motivation for the writing task. The following instructions were given for Day 1:
Procedures for this study
Each student’s writing sample was analysed and the following data was recorded for further investigation.
- Total number of words written per story
- Total spelling errors per story
- Total spelling errors identified per story
- Total spelling errors corrected per story
- Total number of spelling errors per story appearing in Spell write
- Total Spell Write errors identified per story
- Total Spell Write errors corrected per story
Further analyses of spelling error types were also undertaken to investigate the occurrence of the positional locations of the spelling error patterns and the main categories of recurring spelling errors.