A Cognitive Theory of Orthographic Transitioning: Predictable Errors in How Spanish-Speaking Children Spell English Words

Fashola, Olatokunbo S.; Drum, Priscilla A.; Mayer, Richard E.; Kang, Sung Hoon

doi:10.2307/1163417

Cited by 22 publications

(61 citation statements)

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“…This awareness alone had a positive impact (Helman, 2004). Acquiring literacy in English is tied to and builds upon literacy in Spanish (Fashola, et al, 1996). Also, the intervention was strategically planned to scaffold students learning of the sounds by first focusing on perception, then assigning the correct grapheme to the sound, and finally producing the correct grapheme.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sixteen analyses of variance were conducted with language and grade as variables. Fashola et al (1996) found that students who spoke Spanish produced more than four times as many predicted errors than their English counterparts. Predicted errors included using "j" for the /h/ sound and "i" for /ee/ sound.…”

Section: Orthographic Errors Made By Spanish Speakersmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…For example, there are symbols that exist in one language but not the other (e.g., ñ, á, é…). Additionally, there are symbols that exist in both languages but represent two different sounds, such as "j" which represents the sound [j] in English but [h] in Spanish (Fashola, et al, 1996) and "a" which represents [o] in English but [a] in Spanish (Bear et al, 2007). English orthography has 26 letters that represent at least 44 phonemes.…”

Section: B Orthographymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers investigated the "errors" students make as they transition between Spanish to English (Fashola, Drum, Mayer & Kang, 1996). A total of 72 second, third, fifth and sixth grade students were classified into two groups: those who spoke Spanish at home and those who spoke English at home.…”

Section: Orthographic Errors Made By Spanish Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Perception Training on ELL Spelling: Preventing L1 Phonetic Transfer

Gonzalez-Bueno

Shaw²

2011

JLTR

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Abstract-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether teaching English unfamiliar phonetic distinctions to Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELL) would impact their spelling of the corresponding graphemes. Eleven third graders in a Midwestern inner city school who were Spanish-speakers participated in 20 training sessions. The 20-lesson intervention treatment focused on auditory discrimination, word and sentence identification, and grapheme training of minimal pairs of words containing "d" and "th" (when representing the phoneme /ð/). The treatment consisted of exposing learners to strategically controlled listening exercises that required their active attention to the aural input and its assigned meaning (e.g., the concept of "wordy" versus that of "worthy,") so they could differentiate between phonemes and learn the associated graphemes "d/th". Analysis of the pre-post test data showed a significant improvement in students' ability to spell words with the targeted sounds after 20 lessons. When the targeted sound was in initial position, students improved in all tasks, but minimal improvement was found when the targeted sound was in medial or final position. Recommendations for classroom teachers to incorporate similar interventions are included. Index Terms-spelling, phonology, ELL, L2 transferAccording to a quantitative meta-analysis evaluating the effects of phonemic awareness instruction on learning to read and spell, conducted by the National Reading Panel (Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh & Shanahan, 2001), the effect of such instruction was large and statistically significant, with a moderate, statistically significant impact on reading and spelling. However, Ehri et al. (2001) recognized that the factors of whether English was the first or second language of students was neglected in their analysis. This is important, since the non-English-speaking population is an ever-growing one in American schools, and faces its own language-specific challenges in reading and spelling in English.For example, Spanish-speaking children who are learning English as a second language have difficulty discriminating between similar sounds in English that do not have counterparts in their native language (Ehri et al, 2001, Helman, 2004. The English phonemes /ð/ (represented by the diagraph "th" as in "they"), /ʃ/, (as in "she"), or /Z/ (as in "measure") present challenges to Spanish speakers because these sounds are not found in their language. Research has shown that students use graphemes from their native language which most closely resemble the English sounds (Bear, Helman, Templeton, Invernizzi & Johnston, 2007). For example, they would write the word "together" as "*togeder" since the sound represented by the "th" ([ð]) is just an allophonic variation of the phoneme /d/ in Spanish that occurs in specific phonetic contexts but it is still spelled "d" (see Appendix I). In addition, there are linguistic contexts in which the mispronunciation or misspelling of such sound might lead to miscom...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Orthographic Errors Made By Spanish Speakersmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: B Orthographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Orthographic Errors Made By Spanish Speakersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Perception Training on ELL Spelling: Preventing L1 Phonetic Transfer

Gonzalez-Bueno

Shaw²

2011

JLTR

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“…The Spanish alphabet consists of thirty letters, including the twenty--six letters of the English alphabet and four unique letters. Spanish only contains ten vowel sounds, as opposed to the twenty vowel sounds found in the English language (Barlow, 2005;Hegde & Pomaville, 2008;Fashola, Drum, Mayer & Kang, 1996;Coe, 2001). …”

Section: Item Characteristics By Language Groupmentioning

confidence: 94%

Identifying Sources of Differential Item Functioning on an English Language Proficiency Assessment

Clark¹,

Kingston²

2012

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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This paper examines the degree of DIF detected on an English language proficiency assessment and the extent to which item characteristics may be identified as sources of DIF for Vietnamese--and Spanish--speaking students. Logistic regression was used to determine the extent of DIF for each item. Of the 45 items individually analyzed, 27 items were flagged for evidence of containing uniform or nonuniform DIF, the majority of which favored Vietnamese--speaking students. Effect sizes reflecting the magnitude of DIF for each item were correlated with item characteristics to determine the extent that item characteristics could explain variability in proficiency. Both multisyllabic words and unique--to--English sounds were significantly correlated with effect size, indicating these variables may partially explain the difference in item proficiency between language groups.

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Threats to the validity of science performance assessments for English language learners

Shaw

1997

J. Res. Sci. Teach.

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In recent years, at the same time that performance assessments in science have become more popular, the number of English language learners (ELLs) (i.e., students whose native language is other than English) served by the U.S. educational system has also increased rapidly. While the research base is growing in each of these areas independently, little attention has been paid to their intersection. This case study of the use of a science performance assessment with 96 ELLs in five high school science classes investigated the face, construct, and consequential validity of this intersection. Qualitative and quantitative data analyses showed that both teachers and students had an overall favorable response to the assessment, although students' English comprehension and expression skills were determining factors for certain items. While most responses were reliably scored, ELL spelling and syntax on certain responses were significant sources of error. The degree of specificity of teachers' guidance also significantly affected students' scores. Recommendations from this study include increasing the clarity of an assessment's design, allowing ELLs more time to complete assessments, and scoring by raters who are knowledgeable about typical patterns in written English for this student population. Furthermore, it is recommended that the use of performance assessments with ELLs be exploratory until such time as their validity and reliability with this population can be more adequately established.

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A Cognitive Theory of Orthographic Transitioning: Predictable Errors in How Spanish-Speaking Children Spell English Words

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

The Impact of Perception Training on ELL Spelling: Preventing L1 Phonetic Transfer

The Impact of Perception Training on ELL Spelling: Preventing L1 Phonetic Transfer

Identifying Sources of Differential Item Functioning on an English Language Proficiency Assessment

Threats to the validity of science performance assessments for English language learners

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