Teaching Spelling to Singaporean Chinese Children with Dysorthographia in English Language: Lexical Versus Lexical Phonological Approach

Singaporean Chinese children diagnosed with dysorthographia in English language undergo an intensive spelling intervention program that teaches them to use either of the two spelling methods: lexical and/or phonological spelling strategies. Nevertheless, many of them continue to perform poorly in their spelling. A pretest-posttest experimental design was used to determine whether 20 children ages 9 to 10 years old diagnosed with dysorthographia who were taught both lexical and phonological spelling strategies would improve in spelling more than a matched control group of 20 children, also diagnosed with dysorthographia who were taught lexical spelling strategies alone. Both groups of children received five lessons per week over seven weeks. The results showed that while both groups improved in spelling performance significantly from pretest to posttest, the experimental group which was taught both lexical and phonological spelling strategies improved significantly more than the control group which was taught lexical spelling strategies alone.