J Behav Educ (2006) 15:163–170 DOI 10.1007/s10864-006-9017-7 ORIGINAL PAPER

Enhancing Spelling Performance in Students with Learning Disabilities Keith A. Nies · Phillip J. Belfiore

Published online: 11 August 2006
C Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Abstract The present study, using a single subject adapted alternating treatments design, compared the effects of two spelling strategies (cover, copy, compare, and copy-only) used to enhance spelling performance in 2, third-grade students with learning disabilities. The cover, copy compare (CCC) method required the students to say the word, point to the word, repeat the word, cover the word, print the word, compare the word to the correct model, and correct errors if necessary. The copy-only method required the students to say the word, point to the word, repeat the word, and print the word. Overall, the CCC strategy was more effective in words learned and words retained. Results are discussed in light of CCC requiring a self-evaluation/self-correction component not required in the more traditional method of instruction. By incorporating a simple, self-management component to spelling instruction, teachers may improve spelling performance in the classroom. Keyword Error correction . Learning disabilities . Spelling . Cover-copy-compare . Self-evaluation Spelling is an essential and complex skill involving multiple components, including visual memory, phoneme-grapheme awareness, as well as, orthographic and morphophonemic knowledge (van Hell, Bosman, & Bartelings, 2003; Alber & Walshe, 2004). And, although important in connecting numerous components in a language arts curriculum, the repetitive practice of mastering new spelling words has been characterized by teachers and students as boring, and one of the least favorite of the academic areas (Belfiore & Grskovic, 1996; Bos & Reitsma, 2003). The perception of spelling practices as un-attractive creates a potentially critical situation in the classroom, in that learning difficulties in spelling performance may impact (a) clarity in writing, (b) verb morphology, (c) writing fluency, (d) early reading development, (e) perceptions of writing ability, and (f) written expression (Alber & Walshe, K. A. Nies Fairview School District, Fairview, PA, USA P. J. Belfiore (
) Department of Education, Mercyhurst College, 501 East 38th Street, Erie, PA 16546 e-mail: [email protected] Springer

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2004; Boynton Hauerwas & Walker, 2003; Graham, Harris, & Fink-Chorzempa, 2003) to name just a few related academic skill areas. This perception is further compounded when teachers on one hand seek to develop strategies that increase opportunities to respond and time on task, while being fearful that repetitive practices or difficult task assignments may result in increased escape from demand behavior by students (Winterling, Dunlap, & O’Neill, 1987; Roberts, Marshall, Nelson, & Albers, 2001). Teachers working with students with identified learning disabilities must walk a fine line between developing and implementing pedagogically sound methodologies designed to overcome spelling deficits, while being careful to avoid excessive repetition that may decrease academic engagement with this essential academic subject material. In response to this line teachers walk, Bos and Reitsma (2003) also caution that educators must be wary of appealing strategies that may seem to motivate children, but do not have a research history or data-base for improving spelling performance. For example, Matz (1994) suggested oral spelling games, although fun and exciting ways to memorize, do little for learning to spell effectively. Strategies for spelling must be motivating, as well as effective and efficient. One such strategy, cover-copy-compare (CCC), is a practical, research-based method that has been shown to be effective across many academic areas. McLaughlin & Skinner (1996) define steps for CCC as (a) looking at the academic stimulus, (b) covering the academic stimulus, (c) making an academic response, (d) uncovering the original academic stimulus, and (e) evaluating academic response in reference to the academic stimulus. If the academic response is correct, students can move on to the next academic stimulus (e.g., when a spelling word is written and checked as correct, move on to the next spelling word). If the academic response is incorrect, or there is no response, a correction of the error or no response is required by observing the correct model and making the necessary changes. In addition, van Hell, et al. (2003) characterizes CCC as part of visual-dictation training where such instructional components as writing from memory, kinematics of writing, whole word practice, immediate feedback, and self-correction play significant roles in the effectiveness of the strategy. Immediate feedback provides cues to the learner following each response as to the accuracy of the response (i.e., correct, incorrect, or no response), whereas self-correction is only implemented if an error or no response occurs. Cover-copy-compare has been employed with success across several academic subject areas, including mathematics (Stading & Williams, 1996), geography (Skinner, Belfiore, & Pierce, 1992), and spelling (McLaughlin, Reiter, Mabee, & Byram, 1991). CCC has also been shown to be effective with students identified as having behavior disorders (Skinner, et al., 1992), learning disabilities (Stading & Williams, 1996), and mild mental retardation (McLaughlin, et al., 1996). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a CCC and copy-only strategy on the acquisition and retention of spelling words for two, 3rd-grade students identified with learning disabilities. At the heart of the intervention comparison was the impact of immediate self-correction used as a component of the CCC strategy, but not of the copy-only strategy.

Methodology Participants and setting Two, 3rd-grade students (one boy, one girl) attending a pull-out learning support classroom for language arts participated in this study. Both students were identified as having a learning disability by the school district’s special education department. Determination of Springer

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students’ educational needs was made by a team of educators and administrators, including the school psychologist. When major discrepancies, as defined by the school district, were noted between IQ and achievement scores, each student qualified for the school district’s Learning Support program. The two students spent the majority of the academic day in the general education classroom, which contained a total of 11 students. Each of the students was enrolled in the general education curriculum for Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, and Physical Education. Both students also received daily 2-hour pull-out learning support for direct instruction in Language Arts and Mathematics. Each student was at least 2-years below grade level in reading, with greatest difficulties in decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension. Spelling instruction was included as part of the Language Arts instruction. Prior classroom spelling instructional activities included copying words multiple times, alphabetizing words, peertutoring, and unscrambling words.

Materials and experimental design Spelling words used in this study were selected from the Trophies Harcourt Spelling 4th Grade (Harcourt, 2005) series. Each weekly word list contained a total of 12 spelling words, randomly divided into two sets of six words each. Three different 12-word spelling lists were used over three weeks, one list per week, so each word list represents one comparison of treatment per student. One set of six words was assigned to the copy-only spelling method, and the other set of 6 words was assigned to the cover-copy-compare (CCC) spelling method. Both students used the same word lists. A total of three word lists (36 total words) were used throughout this study, a new word list each week for three weeks. Each set of 12 word lists followed a basic spelling pattern as outlined by the Harcourt (2005) spelling series (e.g. “er,” “ar,” “or”). To assess the effects of the CCC and copy-only strategies, an adaptive alternating treatment design (AATD) was used (Sindelar, Rosenberg, & Wilson, 1985). An AATD requires (a) two equivalent, yet functionally independent, sets of instructional items, with (b) each set taught with a different instructional strategy (Sindelar, et al., 1985). Intervention effectiveness is demonstrated when acquisition on one set of spelling words is more rapid than acquisition of the other set, and these effects are consistent across both students and each spelling list.

Procedures Spelling assessment and instruction (both CCC and copy-only) was provided to both students for 20-min during the morning language arts block (10:40–12:30) five days a week for each word list. In general, a daily session consisted of (a) a written assessment (i.e., spelling test) of the 12 spelling words from that weeks list, followed by (b) the CCC and copy-only instruction. The presentation order of CCC and copy-only instruction was counterbalanced, so that one strategy was not always offered first. This test-teach procedure (i.e., next day test procedure) allows for a better measure of spelling word proficiency because assessment of intervention effectiveness occurs 24-hours post-intervention/practice. Assessment occurred Monday through Friday for each word list, with a retention probe assessment the following Monday. Instruction occurred Monday through Thursday, with no instruction following the Friday assessment. Springer

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Assessment Each week, for three weeks, both students were introduced to a new list of 12 spelling words. Students were given a black-lined 8 1/2 × 11 inch piece of paper. For each word on the spelling list, the classroom teacher verbally presented the word, followed by the word in a sentence, and then repeated the word (e.g. “Dog. The dog ran down the hill. Dog”). Each child was instructed to listen to the entire cue, and then write the word next to the corresponding number on the black-lined paper. No specific spelling feedback was provided during the daily assessment, although the teacher did provide general praise for staying with the task and task compliance (e.g., “Nice job working.”). This assessment procedure was repeated each day prior to the two instructional strategies. Intervention Prior to the first day assessment, one half (six words) of the weekly spelling list of 12 words was assigned to the CCC condition, while the other six words were assigned to the copy-only condition. The copy-only spelling condition represented the strategy currently in place in the classroom prior to this study, and all students in the class were competent and familiar with this strategy. Order of presentation for the CCC and copy-only procedure were counterbalanced. In general, across both interventions, the teacher verbally presented each word individually until each word was presented once per session. The CCC strategy consisted of (a) the teacher saying the word as students point to the word on the paper, (b) the teacher saying the word as students point to and say the word, (c) the teacher saying the word as the students point to, say, cover (by folding over 1/2 the paper to cover the word), print/write, and then check word, and (d) the teacher saying the word as the students point to, say, and spell the word. If during Step C. the student wrote the word incorrectly, they would erase and correct the spelling. The copy-only strategy consisted of (a) the teacher saying the word as students point to the word on the paper, (b) the teacher saying the word as students point to and say the word, (c) the teacher saying the word as the students point to, say, and print the word, and (d) the teacher saying the word as the students point to, say, and spell the word. The teacher provided general verbal praise when students printed the word correctly in both procedures (Step C.). Steps A., B., and D. were identical across both conditions. Retention and student survey The Monday following each Friday assessment, each student was again assessed on the previous weeks’ 12-word spelling list. The procedure for this retention assessment was identical to the initial assessment described above. Following the retention test, students were assessed on the new spelling word list for that week. To assess student satisfaction with the two strategies a questionnaire adapted from Grskovic and Belfiore (1996) was used. The questionnaire had five statements for students to answer yes/no. The questionnaire was administered on the final day of the study. The questionnaire is provided on Table 1. Dependent measure, agreement, and procedural integrity The total number of words written correctly in each condition on daily spelling assessments served as the dependent measure. All daily spelling assessments were scored by the classroom Springer

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Student survey (Answer choices are either YES or NO)

1. Learning spelling using the cover copy compare method is better than learning them the usual way 2. I think I learn more when I correct my mistakes when I write my words (cover copy compare method) 3. It takes too long to learn my spelling words using the cover copy compare method 4. I am a better speller when I use the cover copy compare method 5. I would like to try the cover copy compare method to learn other material in school

instructor (first author) and a second independent observer in the classroom. The second observer was either the second author or a teaching assistant assigned to the classroom. Agreement on the dependent variable, assessed across all word lists and both students, was 100%. The use of a task analysis checklist was used to assess procedural integrity. Teacher antecedent cues and feedback were monitored with the checklist for 50% of the sessions, with integrity of procedures recorded at 100% for all steps of the checklist.

Results Figure 1 shows the number of words spelled correctly for each student across three different weekly spelling word lists (Monday through Friday assessment). The first data point for each word list (Monday) represents the pretest, or single point of baseline. Sue showed the most improvement under the CCC condition, learning a total of 13 new words (an average of 4.3 new words learned per week), while learning only 5 new words under the copy-only condition (an average of 1.7 new words learned per week). David also learned more new words under the CCC condition, with a total of 9 (an average of 3.0 new words learned per week), while only 6 new words were learned under the copy-only condition (an average of 2.0 new words learned per week). Overall, from Monday to Friday, when using the CCC strategy David and Sue acquired a total of 22 new spelling words learned (an average of 7.3 new spelling words learned per week), and a total of only 11 new spelling words when using the copy-only strategy. We also assessed words retained from the end test on Friday to the following Monday, when the next word list was introduced. Sue showed the most success under the CCC condition, retaining 100% (13/13 words) of the words learned on Friday when given the following Monday retention test. Under the copy-only condition Sue retained 80% of the total words learned (4/5 words). David also retained more words learned using CCC than copy-only on the follow-up Monday test, retaining 88.9% (8/9 words) under CCC, and 50% (3/6 words) under copy-only. Overall, for both students and all three word lists, retention was higher under the CCC condition 95% (21/22 total words retained from Friday to following Monday). The total percentage of words retained under the copy-only condition was 64% (7/11 total words retained). The social validity of the two spelling methods was assessed by administering a questionnaire with a yes or no format at the conclusion of the study. Both students circled “yes” for all five question of the survey (See Table 1 for sample questions).

Discussion Overall, for both students in this study, the CCC strategy was more effective in total words learned and total words retained than the copy-only strategy. In addition, when analyzing the Springer

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social validation surveys (See Table 1) both students preferred the CCC strategy. Intervention effectiveness and intervention preference are two critical components when deciding on what instructional strategies to employ in the classroom. Evidence of effectiveness is critical, allowing teachers to use instructional time more wisely. Evidence of preference is also critical if teachers seek to increase the likelihood students will remain motivated and engaged in the instructional program. In addition, intervention effectiveness and preference play a role in minimizing the risk of escape from academic demand (Roberts, et al., 2001).

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SUE 0 Word List 1

Word List 2

W ord List 3

Fig. 1 Number of words spelled correctly using Cover-Copy-Compare and Copy-Only Springer

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At the heart of the CCC strategy, and the key comparison addressed in this research, is the impact of self-evaluation (i.e., error-discrimination) and self-correction (i.e., response modification) on academic performance. Self-evaluation requires the student to compare some topographical dimension of their behavior with a set standard or criterion (Belfiore & Hornyak, 1998). Self-correction may, or may not, be a component of self-evaluation. Whereas self-evaluation requires a discrimination be made between performance and some standard/criterion, self-correction requires a modification of performance to more closely approximate the standard/criterion (Mace, Belfiore, & Hutchinson, 2001). One small instructional variation occurred between the CCC and copy-only condition [Step C. the teacher saying the word as the students point to, say, cover (by folding over 1/2 the paper to cover the word), print/write, and then check word], and it is suggested that this variation resulted in increases in spelling performance for both students, replicated across three spelling word lists. During the CCC condition, after hearing and pointing to the target word, students covered the target word, wrote the word (without viewing the target word), checked their written response to the written model, and corrected their response, if necessary, using the model as the correct guide. In the copy-only condition, after hearing and pointing to the target word, the students copied the word beside the written model (while viewing the target word). During the copy-only condition students never (a) evaluated their work because the correct model was always present, nor (b) corrected mistakes because errors never occurred. Conversely, in the CCC condition, student responses were made without simultaneously viewing the correct model. After each student response in CCC, the students uncovered the model, and had to discriminate if their response was accurate or inaccurate by comparing letter sequences (their written word to the correct written model). When errors were noted by the students, the students had to determine where the error was, what type of error occurred, and make the necessary written correction. Anecdotal reports from the first author, the classroom teacher, indicated that students made and corrected numerous errors during the CCC condition, especially early in the week. Numerous studies report that errors and the immediacy of error correction seem to play a critical part in spelling accuracy (Alber & Walshe, 2004; Grskovic & Belfiore, 1996; Morton, Heward, & Alber, 1998; Vargas, Grskovic, Belfiore, Halbert-Ayala, 1997). In this study, students acquired and retained more spelling words when they were instructed to cover the correct answer, write their answer, make a visual discrimination of accuracy (i.e., self-evaluation), and if incorrect, correct the error immediately (i.e., self-correction). As a systematic procedure for error discrimination and self-correction, the CCC strategy, was easily mastered by both students. When procedures for handling errors are in place, errors can serve as an effective learning opportunity (Morton, et al., 1998). At a time when educators and researchers are (a) asking for more effective spelling instruction (e.g., Alber & Walshe, 2004; Ampaw-Farr, 2005; Graham, et al., 2003; Vargas, et al., 1997), (b) seeking solutions to the difficulties faced by students with learning disabilities in the areas of spelling (e.g., Boynton Hauerwas & Walker, 2003; Darch, Kim, Johnson, & James, 2000; Grskovic & Belfiore, 1996), and (c) responding to federal requests for scientific research-based practice and response to intervention, the effectiveness and student preference of CCC seems to be one strategy worth pursuing. References Alber, S. R., & Walshe, S. E., (2004). When to self-correct spelling words: A systematic replication. Journal of Behavioral Education, 13, 1–24. Ampaw-Farr, J. (2005). Spelling language. Literacy Today, March, 9. Springer

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Belfiore, P. J., & Hornyak, R. S., (1998). Operant theory and application to self-monitoring in adolescents. In D. Schunk & B. Zimmerman (Eds.), Self-regulated learning: From teaching to self-reflective practice (pp. 184–202). NY: Guilford Press. Bos, M., & Reitsma, P. (2003). Experienced teachers’ expectations about the potential effectiveness of spelling exercises. Annals of Dyslexia, 53, 104–127. Boynton Hauerwas, L., & Walker, J. (2003). Spelling on inflected verb morphology in children with spelling deficits. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 18, 225–35. Darch, C., Kim, S., Johnson, S., & James, H. (2000). The strategic spelling skills of students with learning disabilities: The results of two studies. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 27, 15–26. Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Fink-Chorzempa, B. (2003). Extra spelling instruction: Promoting better spelling, writing, and reading performance right from the start. Teaching Exceptional Children, 35, 66–68. Grskovic, J. A., & Belfiore, P. J. (1996). Improving the spelling performance of students with disabilities. Journal of Behavioral Education, 6, 343–354. Harcourt (2005). Trophies harcourt spelling, 4th grade. Chicago: Harcourt Incorporated. 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 (pp. 39–66). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Matz, K. A. (1994). 10 things they never taught us about teaching spelling. Education Digest, 9, 70–72. McLaughlin, T. F., Reiter, S. M., Mabee, W. S., & Byram, B. (1991). An analysis and replication of the add-a-word spelling program with mildly handicapped middle school students. Journal of Behavioral Education, 1, 413–426. McLaughlin, T. F., & Skinner, C. H., (1996). Improving academic performance through self-management: Cover, copy, and compare. Intervention in School and Clinic, 32, 113–119. Morton, W. L., Heward, W. L., & Alber, S. R. (1998). When to self correct?: A comparison of two procedures on spelling performance. Journal of Behavioral Education, 8, 321–336. Roberts, M. L., Marshall, J., Nelson, J. R., & Albers, C. A. (2001). Curriculum-based assessment procedures embedded within functional behavioral assessments: Identifying escape-motivated behaviors in a general education classroom. School Psychology Review, 30, 264–277. Sindelar, P. T., Rosenberg, M. S., & Wilson, R. J. (1985). An adapted alternating treatment design for instructional research. Education and Treatment of Children, 8, 67–76. Skinner, C. H., Belfiore, P. J., & Pierce, N. L. (1992). Cover, copy, and compare: Increasing geography accuracy in students with behavior disorders. School Psychology Review, 21, 73–81. Stading, M., & Williams, R. L. (1996). Effects of a cover, copy, and compare procedure on multiplication facts mastery with a third grade girl with learning disabilities in a home setting. Education and Treatment of Children, 19, 425–435. van Hell, J. G., Bosman, M. T., & Bartelings, M. (2003). Visual dictation improves the spelling performance of three groups of Dutch students with spelling disorders. Learning Disability Quarterly, 26, 329–355. Vargas, A. U., Grskovic, J. A., Belfiore, P. J., & Halbert-Ayala, J. (1997). Improving migrant students’ spelling of English and Spanish words with error correction. Journal of Behavioral Education, 7, 13–23. Winterling, V., Dunlap, G., & O’Neill, R. E. (1987). The influence of task variation on the aberrant behavior of autistic students. Education and Treatment of Children, 10, 105–119.

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