Date of Graduation

Spring 2011

Degree

Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Committee Chair

Julie Masterson

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to broaden the theoretical reach of the multilinguistic model of spelling and extend the Spelling Sensitivity System (SSS) of measuring and coding spelling errors in order to examine the English-language spellings of second graders whose first oral language is Spanish. Participants included 21 bilingual second grade students who attended public school in Memphis, Tennessee, and a comparison group of 19 monolingual first, second, third, and fourth grade students who attended a public school in southwest Missouri. Results indicated that the spelling of bilingual students did not contain more errors based on the phonological and orthographic systems of Spanish when compared to a monolingual English-speaking group. The SSS metric of spelling accuracy did adequately represent the spellings of bilingual students, and could be used as a criterion-referenced measure of students' spelling knowledge to inform literacy instruction.

Keywords

spelling, bilingual, cross-linguistic effects, spelling sensitivity scores, literacy

Subject Categories

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Copyright

© Elissa Eileen Fowler

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