Spelling Remediation for Dyslexic Children: a Skills Approach

The main applied theme of this chapter is an exposition of the 'SelfSpell' computer-based environment for children learning to spell. In long-term research on the causes of dyslexia we had built up a panel of dyslexic children, and we developed SelfSpell mainly as a 'thankyou' to them for their unstinting support of our experimental programme over a period of years. Although SelfSpell was initially developed for this remediation purpose, we later used the system to investigate theoretical issues in spelling. In writing this chapter we have attempted to bring in as wide a range of theoretical ideas and approaches as seem relevant to the remediation of spelling problems. Consequently we have gone beyond the traditional confines of linguistic theory and reading analyses and included the much broader literature on skill acquisition and computer-aided skill remediation. This chapter should therefore be seen as complementary to the other chapters in this volume, which typically take a more focused approach to spelling. It should also be stressed that the approach adopted represents only a preliminary attempt at applying a cognitive instructional approach to the analysis and remediation of spelling. We wrote the chapter partly in the hope that readers might be able to develop it further. The organisation of the chapter is as follows. First we review the well-established problems that dyslexic children have in learning to spell, and note briefy the theoretical issues resulting from these difficulties. We then step back, and review the relevant literature on acquisition of skill and computer-supported skill remediation, moving towards a specification for a good system for helping children with spelling. The SelfSpell system provides a partial fulfilment of these requirements, and we next present two studies of the use of SelfSpell with dyslexic children. In both studies the children showed significant and lasting improvements in spelling ability, and the second study is of considerable theoretical and applied interest, in that dyslexic children with severe spelling difficulties benefitted both from a mastery-based approach and from a mnemonic-based approach. Specific developmental dyslexia is normally characterised by unexpected problems in learning to read for children of average or above average intelligence. There is still considerable debate over diagnostic methods, but a standard criterion for dyslexia is that provided by the World Federation of Neurologists (1968) — " a disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spelling commensurate …