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Effects of Error Correction on Spanish Spelling Words for Students Whose Primary Language is Spanish Maria Alvarado-Gomez, M.S.,1 and Phillip J. Belfiore, Ph.D.2,3
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an error correction strategy on the spelling accuracy of Spanish words by elementary school students who come from a bilingual home environment, where the home language is Spanish. In the error correction strategy students wrote the word, viewed an accurate model of the word, and self-corrected any errors. In the traditional strategy students wrote each word three times on a paper after viewing an accurate model. All words and examples were presented in the student’s home language (Spanish). Results showed that students spelled more words correctly under the error correction strategy. KEY WORDS: academics; spelling; Spanish language; error correction; self-correction.
A constant flow of Spanish-speaking families from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other countries where Spanish is the dominant language have entered the United States seeking employment due to political and socioeconomic realities these countries share. Given this, Hispanic students represent the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, increasing from 6% of the total school enrollment in 1972 to 14% in 1995 (Sable & Stennett, 1998). In addition to the increase in the number of Hispanic students enrolling in public education, Rhine (1995) indicates that the number of Limited English Proficient (LEP) or CulturallyLinguistically Diverse (CLD) students is steadily increasing. The CLD population
1 The School District of the City of Erie. 2 Education Division, Mercyhurst College. 3 Correspondence should be directed to Phillip
J. Belfiore, Education Division, 501 East 38th Street, Erie, PA 16546; e-mail:
[email protected]. 213 C 2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 1053-0819/00/1200-0213$18.00/0
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for the 1994–95 school year showed a 4.8 increase from the previous year’s numbers (National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1996). With Hispanic students representing the largest CLD group, educational focus has rightly fallen on the growing achievement gap among Hispanic-American, African-American, and Anglo-American students (Walters, 1998). Classroom composition and achievement disparity have instructional implications for the classroom teacher. For example, Gonzalez, Brusca-Vega, & Yawkey (1997) stressed if a student is required to operate in the less developed (i.e., second) language, in this instance English, without academic support, academic functioning is likely to suffer across all academic areas in which the second language is required. Alternatively, Cummins (1989) noted children who come to the United States with good literacy skills in their native language, learn a second language faster than those students who have not yet developed literacy skills in their first language. The priority of academic success when using English may be contingent on present, or current mastery of Spanish. Success with CLD students’ first language may set the occasion for success in the second language. For some students the difficulties they experience learning literacy skills may be related to their bilingual (in)abilities, and instructional strategies may work differently for students depending on their level of first language proficiency (Cummins, 1989). To meet the academic needs of CLD students, researchers suggest the educational community (a) provide meaningful activities, (b) require active rather than passive participation, (c) require joint or peer production activities, (d) value the native language of the student in high level academic activities, (e) emphasize problem solving, and (f) emphasize enrichment and challenge rather than remediation (e.g., Baca & DeValenzuela, 1994; Gonzalez, et al., 1997; Orfield., 2000; Reimers, 2000; Rueda, Ruiz, & Figueroa, 1995). More specifically, in the academic area of spelling, Vargas, Grskovic, Belfiore, and Halbert-Ayala (1997) suggested best practice would employ active student participation, incorporate small group settings, and utilize student-relevant content. If, for CLD students, second language mastery is essential for academic success in American schools, then, researchers should develop and validate interventions targeting first language mastery that highlight those strategies suggested by Vargas et al. (1997), Gonzalez et al. (1997) and others. One intervention that includes strategies suggested above, error correction, has been shown to be successful in the academic area of spelling (Gettinger, 1993; Grskovic & Belfiore, 1996). Grskovic and Belfiore (1996) targeted English spelling words with non-CLD students and Vargas et al. (1997) targeted English spelling words (although English words were translated to Spanish as assessed as well) with CLD students. The current study extends this research to students whose first language is Spanish and whose spelling requirements would be only in Spanish, and who are enrolled in a large urban elementary school.
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METHOD Participants and Setting Two boys and one girl, attending a third grade classroom in a large urban elementary school, participated in the study. All students were of Puerto Rican decent, and from bilingual-bicultural homes with Spanish being their primary language at home. Pablo and Luis scored average to above average across all academic subject areas based on their teachers’ academic reports. In addition, the teachers provided reports of Pablo and Luis both exhibiting good behavior in the classroom. In addition to her third grade placement, Julia received additional academic support for literacy in a part-time resource room placement. All three students participated in a bilingual, minority student after-school enrichment program.
Spelling Words The Carson-Dellosa (CDBB-104) Reading Series for third grade served as the source for all spelling words. From the original lists of vocabulary words in the text, 12-word lists were translated into Spanish by the first author. Words were randomly assigned to either the error correction or traditional condition. Words selected for the traditional condition were copied onto 21.5 cm (8.5 in) by 14 cm (5.5 in) pieces of white, unlined paper. Four word sets, of 12 words each were created for all three students. The 12 words were then randomly assigned to either the traditional word list (6 words) or the error correction word list (6 words). The assignment of 6 words to either condition was carried out for each of the 4 word sets.
Procedures Instruction was provided to all three students at the same time. Assessment and intervention sessions were conducted at tables in the Art room. This room served as the center for the after-school enrichment program, in which the three students were enrolled. A new word set (2 lists of 6 words each) was introduced weekly. Each 40-min assessment session began with a spelling test, followed by snack, snack clean-up, then intervention. Both interventions were run Monday through Thursday, with the order alternated each day. A 10-min break was provided between the end of intervention one and the beginning of intervention two. This test-teach procedure was employed each day of the week, with the exception of Friday in which no intervention was provided.
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Spelling Test Tests were administered 5 days a week (Monday–Friday). The Monday test served as a 1-day pretest. The rest of the week served as next-day tests. All tests (except Monday tests) began when the first author verbally (a) cued the class (“Remember how you wrote the words yesterday in practice.”), and (b) presented each word (12 words total), using the word in a sentence or phrase, and repeating the word (e.g., “Maestro. El maestro es un hombre alto. Maestro.”). As the teacher presented the cue for each word, students wrote the words in pre-numbered notebooks. Students had 15 s to write the word, before the next word from the test set of 12 was presented. No feedback was provided for correct or incorrect responses on the test. At the end of the test the teacher thanked the class for participating. Intervention Intervention was provided 4 days a week (Monday–Thursday). In the Traditional condition, the teacher began each intervention session by placing a numbered word list, with 6 words listed vertically down the left side of the paper, on the table in front of the three students. Horizontally, alongside each of six words were three lines for the student to copy each word three times. The six words were copied three times each following this paper and pencil format. Feedback (“Muy Bien hecho”) was provided at the completion of the entire page. In the Error Correction condition, words were presented orally, one at a time. As the teacher orally presented each word, students wrote that word with a black dry-erase pen on a 22.9 cm by 30.5 cm white, mylar, dry-erase lap board. At the end of spelling each word, the teacher showed the student the correct spelling on her mylar board. The students compared the correct model with their spelling, and self-corrected any mistakes by erasing only the error, replacing it with the correct letter(s). After all students had the correct spelling on their board, they were instructed to erase the word, and listen for the next word. The six words were presented three times each following this mylar board format. No teacher feedback was provided until the end of the sessions, and at that time the feedback was identical to the Traditional condition.
Dependent Measure, Reliability, Design The dependent measure was the number of words written correctly on the daily tests across the two instructional conditions. Inter-rater agreement on the dependent measure was conducted by a second observer on all spelling tests. Agreement on the dependent variable was 100% on all tests scored. In addition, treatment integrity data was collected on all components of instruction (initial
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teacher cues, teacher wait time, and teacher feedback) for both conditions by a second observer on 25% of all intervention sessions. Treatment integrity was 100% across both intervention conditions for all sessions. An alternating treatment design was used to assess the effects of the error correction and traditional strategies across four word lists. Each week one half of the students spelling words were practiced with error correction (six words) and one half with the traditional method (six words). The presentation order of the interventions was counterbalanced across sessions.
RESULTS Results showed all students spelled more Spanish words correctly using the Error Correction strategy. During the Error Correction strategy, the total Spanish words learned across the four word lists were 17, 23, and 11 for Pablo, Luis, and Julia, respectively. During the Traditional strategy the total words learned across the four word lists were 13, 17, and 8 for Pablo, Luis, and Julia, respectively. More importantly, when assessing improvement gains from Monday test score to Friday test score, the total number of words gained during the Error Correction strategy, across the four word lists was 13, 11, and 11 for Pablo, Luis, and Julia, respectively. The total number of words gained during the Traditional strategy, from day 1 to last day tests, across the four word lists were 6, 6, and 7 for Pablo, Luis, and Julia, respectively. When using the Error Correction strategy, Pablo showed an improvement gain of 53% across all four word lists, Luis showed an improvement gain of 55%, and Julia showed a gain of 36%.
DISCUSSION The results of this study replicate and extend previous research on the effectiveness of error correction on spelling word acquisition. Whereas previous research targeted English spelling words (e.g., Grskovic & Belfiore, 1996; Vargas, et al., 1997), this study demonstrated similar effects with CLD students in urban classrooms when the target words are Spanish. In the Vargas et al. (1997) study, once learned, English word lists were translated into Spanish, and the Spanish word list results showed no difference in learning between error correction and traditional approaches. Vargas et al. (1997) suggested that one reason for the undifferentiated learning across conditions was word length (i.e., number of letters per word). During translation from English to Spanish word length varied greatly, potentially confounding results. Our study used words and word lists of similar length. With word length equated across treatments [X = 5.67 (range per list, 5.5–5.8) letters per word under error correction condition, and X = 5.62 (range
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Fig. 1. The number of words correct for three students across four spelling word lists.
Pablo Luis Julia
EC +3 +2 +2
+2 +2 +4
+1 0 +3
TR +2 +3 +3
EC
List 2 +1 +1 0
TR +4 +2 +2
EC
List 3 +2 +3 0
TR +4 +4 +4
EC
List 4 +6 +6 +7
TR +13 +11 +11
EC
Total Gain (Mon–Fri) TR
+53% +55% +36%
EC
% Gain
Combined Scores
13 17 8
17 23 11
EC
Total Words TR
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TR
List 1
Individual Improvement Score
Table I. Summary of Spelling Tests Scores Across the Four Word Lists Comparing Traditional (TR) and Error Correction (EC) Approaches
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per list, 5.1–6.0) letters per word under traditional condition] the error correction strategy resulted in greater learning, similar to previous works. Several issues emerge as to why error correction resulted in more word spelled correctly. In general, error correction requires active student participation resulting in an increase in the saliency of the error and the correction of any errors within the context of the instructional stimuli. Specific to this study, in the error correction strategy students were required to (a) attend to the teacher-delivered word, (b) write the word, (c) self-evaluate from the written model, and if errors were made, (d) self-correct, [e.g., erase errors in their word, and write the correct letter(s)]. In theory, the traditional strategy also requires students to complete the same general steps, albeit additional self-regulation (e.g., step a. becomes “attend to the printed word on the page”). However, two differences exist between the two strategies. First, the error correction strategy requires students to respond initially to the teacher-delivered word (step a), and later to the teacher-delivered model (step c), whereas the traditional strategy requires students to self-manage the entire four-step routine (steps a–e). Error correction is much more teacher-directed, even though students selfcorrect spelling errors when necessary. For acquisition in new academic tasks, the benefits of teacher-delivered prompts and teacher surveillance during instructional time may be necessary. Second, during the error correction strategy students were required to spell the word independently first, whereas in the traditional strategy the correct spelling was already available to model. Self-correction was teacher-observed in the error correction strategy, but never observed in the traditional strategy. Self-correction, the modification of performance to more closely approximate the standard (Mace, Belfiore, & Hutchinson, 2001), may also be a necessary component for effective academic acquisition strategies. Self-correction has been shown to be an effective component for increasing academic performance (Grskovic & Belfiore, 1996; McGuffin, Martz, & Heron, 1997; Vargas et al., 1997). Essentially, students using error correction had the opportunity to write, and then given the correct model, re-write each word. This was also available in the traditional strategy, but with the correct spelling already given, no errors were made when writing the word three times, therefore re-writing the word was never observed. Thus, the error correction strategy provided the opportunity for students to make spelling errors, and then correct the errors, resulting in an opportunity to respond that was unique under this condition. This additional opportunity to self-correct only the errors may have resulted in an increased saliency to those errors. The quantity and the quality of the opportunities to respond varied under the error correction condition. In addition, as a result of the error correction method, students were exposed to a similar testing procedure during practice (e.g., listen to the teacher deliver the word, then write the word on the mylar board).
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Given the demonstrated success of the error correction strategy in this study, future researchers should investigate parallel increases in second language spelling and other language arts skills. Although two of the three students in this study were at or above grade level, if researchers suggest that first language mastery enhances second language mastery, then more systematic, classwide implementation of Spanish spelling error correction for CLD students may have educational merit. CLD students receiving additional support in language arts may benefit from behavioral strategies that target first language mastery, especially in the elementary school years. REFERENCES Baca, L., & DeValenzuela, J.S. (1994). Reconstructing the bilingual special education interface. NCBE Program Information Guide Series. Cummins, J. (1989). A theoretical framework for bilingual special education. Exceptional Children, 56, 111–119. Gettinger, M. (1993). Effects of error correction on third graders’ spelling. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 39–45. Gonzalez, V., Brusca-Vega, R., & Yawkey, T. (1997). Assessment and instruction of culturally and linguistically diverse students: With or at-risk of learning problems. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Grskovic, J.A., & Belfiore, P.J. (1996). Improving the spelling performance of students with disabilities. Journal of Behavioral Education, 6, 343–353. Mace, F.C., Belfiore, P.J., & Hutchinson, J.M. (2001). Operant theory and research on self-regulation. In B. Zimmerman & D. Schunk (Eds.), Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 39–65). Mahwah, NJ: Lawerence Erlbaum. McGuffin, M.E., Martz, S.A., & Heron, T.E. (1997). The effects of self-correction versus traditional spelling on the spelling performance and maintenance of third grade students. Journal of Behavioral Education, 7, 463–475. National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education (1996). Executive summary. www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ ncbepubs/seareports/94–95/summary.htm. Orfield, G. (2000). Policy and equity: Lessons of a third of a century of educational reforms in the United States. In F. Reimers (Ed.), Unequal schools, unequal chances (pp. 401–426). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Reimers, F. (2000). Unequal schools, unequal chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Rhine, S., (1995). The challenge of effectively preparing teachers of limited-English-proficient students. Journal of Special Education, 46, 381–389. Rueda, R., Ruiz, N.T., & Figuero, R.A. (1995). Issues in the implementation of innovative instructional strategies. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 1, 12–22. Sable, J., & Stennet, J. (1998). The educational progress of Hispanic students. The Condition of Education. www.nces://ed.gov/pubs98/conditions98/c98004 Vargas, A.U., Grskovic, J.A., Belfiore, P.J., & Halbert-Ayala, J. (1997). Improving migrant student’s spelling of English and Spanish words with error correction. Journal of Behavioral Education, 7, 13–23. Walters, L.S. (1998). Latino achievement revisited. The Harvard Education Letter, (Sept/Oct), 4–6.
