2/2/17
Multilinguistic Scoring of
Students' Spelling Errors
Krystal L. Werfel, PhD, CCC-SLP
Sara Straley, BA, MSP Student
The presenters have no financial or nonfinancial relationships to disclose.
Why spelling?
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2/2/17
Objectives
•  Describe spelling errors according to
underlying linguistic difficulty
•  Determine linguistic category of
students’ spelling errors
•  Develop treatment goals specific to
students’ spelling errors
Repertoire Theory of Spelling
MGR
Knowledge
Conventional
spelling depends
on:
Semantic
Knowledge
Phonemic
Awareness
Conventional
Spelling
Orthographic
Pattern
Knowledge
child’s linguistic
knowledge
and
linguistic properties
of word
Morphological
Knowledge
(Masterson&Apel,2000)
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Spelling Sensitivity Score
Masterson & Apel (2010)
Spelling Sensitivity Score
•  analyzes use of linguistic knowledge in spelling
•  quantitative score
Process:
1.  Divide words into elements (phonemes except
affixes constitute one element).
2.  Assign score to each element.
3.  Calculate desired score.
Two Scores:
Word Score
Element Score
Spelling Sensitivity Score
Element Scoring with the
Spelling Sensitivity Score
Element
Score
Description
Word Scoring with the
Spelling Sensitivity Score
Word
Score
Description
3
Spelling correct
3
Spelling correct
2
Spelling incorrect,
orthographically plausible
2
Word contains at least one
orthographically plausible
substitution
1
Spelling incorrect,
orthographically
implausible
1
Word contains at least one
orthographically
implausible substitution
0
Element omitted
0
Word contains at least one
omission
(Masterson & Apel, 2010)
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Example Scoring
Example: birds
Spelling
b
ir
d
s
Word
Score
Element
score
birds
b (3)
ir (3)
d (3)
s (3)
3
3
berds
b (3)
er (2)
d (3)
s (3)
2
2.75
brids
b (3)
ri (1)
d (3)
s (3)
1
2.5
bird
b (3)
ir (3)
d (3)
-- (0)
0
2.0
Let’s Practice using the SSS
Target Word
yes
bed
shake
eight
strong
pile
knife
knew
Child Spelling
yes
bead
shak
eat
stog
polde
life
new
Multilinguistic Coding of
Spelling Errors
(Bowers et al., 2014; Werfel, 2017)
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2/2/17
Linguistic and visual processes
that influence spelling
•  Phonological Awareness – analysis of sounds of
language
•  Orthographic Knowledge - rules for letter-sound
correspondence & positional constraints
•  Mental Graphemic Representations - mental images
of conventional spellings
•  Morphological Knowledge – affix and juncture rules
•  Semantics - meaning of language
Spelling Error Coding Manual
(Werfel, 2017; adapted from Bowers et al., 2014 )
As you are scoring - Things to
remember
1. 
Are all the sounds in the word represented? Are more represented than should
be? (PA error)
(Example: sop for ‘stop’ doesn’t have all sounds, but sdop for ‘stop’ does have 4
sounds)
2. 
Is there a rule or pattern within a base word or root that is being violated? (OPK
error)
3. 
Is a portion of a word spelled incorrectly, even thought it is following allowable
orthographic and morphological patterns? Do you just need to know a part of the
word must be spelled that way? (MGR error)
4. 
Is there a problem with an affix, either in its presence, spelling, or attachment?
(MK error)
5. 
Dose the spelling lead to a different meaning? (SK error)
REMEMBER YOU CAN HAVE MORE THAN 1 ERROR PER WORD
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Goal Writing from Spelling
Assessment
•  Behavior, Condition, Criterion
•  Holly Results:
–  SSS - ES = 2.73, WS = 2.48
–  MLC – PA = 22%, OPK = 67%, MGR = 6%, MK = --, SA = 6%
•  Holly will represent all sounds in written spellings of
multisyllabic words with 100% accuracy.
•  Holly will identify orthographically-plausible
graphemes for vowel phonemes with 90% accuracy.
•  Holly will correctly select graphemes for voiced and
unvoiced stop consonants with 100% accuracy.
Questions?
[email protected]
6
Multiple Linguistic Coding of Spelling Errors of Children with Hearing Loss
Werfel
CODING MANUAL
Type of Error
Phonological
Awareness
Orthographic
Pattern Knowledge
Mental Graphemic
Representation
Morphological
Knowledge*
Semantic
Knowledge*
Other
Spelling of Word or Word Element is Characterized by:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Omission of phoneme in word
Addition of phoneme in word
Letter transpositions that change sound order in word
Illegal phoneme-grapheme correspondence
Illegal positional constraint of grapheme
Legal but incorrect grapheme
Letter transpositions that do not change sound order in word
Omission of affix
Addition of affix
Incorrect spelling of affix
Omission of juncture
Non-dropping of juncture
Incorrect spelling of juncture
Correct spelling of homophone for target word
Correct spelling of real word(s) with more than half
phonemes in common with target word
Correct spelling of an alternate verb tense for target word
Correct spelling of real word(s) with less than half phonemes
in common with target word
Use of non-grapheme element in spelling
Examples
expet for expect
brandsish for brandish
engotiate for negotiate
salut for salute
ckollar for collar
opake for opaque
abel for able
electric for electricity
overwhelmed for overwhelm
zealus for zealous
ambigous for ambiguous
continueity for continuity
institushion for institution
ate for eight
color for collar
unity for unify
know for knew
sled for strong
sun for fountain
nine-teen for nineteen
o’pake for opaque
agri culture for agriculture
Child:
Type of Error
Item
Spelling
TOTALS
Phonological
Awareness
Orthographic
Pattern
Knowledge
Mental
Graphemic
Representation
Morphological
Knowledge
Semantic
Knowledge
Other
Holly is a 5th grade student who uses cochlear implants. She uses listening and
spoken language and receives literacy instruction in the general classroom. Her
standard score for nonverbal intelligence is 90, overall language is 53, and
spelling is 76. Below is a copy of her spellings:
TARGET
yes
she
like
us
green
him
home
ball
much
plant
two
went
spend
when
who
strong
able
everyone
uncle
knew
brandish
nineteen
expect
sure
enough
unify
electricity
fallow
fountain
institution
collar
ELEMENTS
yes
sh e
l iCe k
us
g r ee n
him
h oCe m
b a ll
m u ch
plant
tw o
went
spend
wh e n
wh o
strong
a b le
e v er y o ne
u n c le
kn ew
b r a n d i sh
n iCe n t ee n
expect
s ure
e n ou gh
u n i fy
e l e c t r i c ity
f a ll ow
f ou n t ai n
i n s t i t u t ion
c o ll ar
base
junct
affix
Alice is a 4th grade student with a diagnosis of SLI and Dyslexia. Her testing for
nonverbal intelligence was reported to be within normal limits. Below is an
example of her single word spelling:
Alice’sSpelling
stalp
lat
plant
wnt
he
spnd
sac
hrdlee
strall
yes
she
aes
Target
stop
let
plant
went
him
spend
shake
hardly
strong
yes
she
us
Joseph is a 4th grade student with a diagnosis of Dyslexia. His testing for
nonverbal intelligence was reported to be within normal limits. Below is an
example of his single word spelling:
Joseph’sSpelling
stop
bean
late
palenp
hem
spering
sheak
hardley
abole
yes
match
as
Target
stop
bed
let
plant
him
spring
shake
hardly
able
yes
much
us
Timmy is a 5th grade student at a School for the Deaf. He is aided with bilateral
hearing aids during his school day, but opts not to wear them outside of school.
Nonverbal intelligence was not known at the time of testing. Below is an example
of his spelling from a single word spelling test.
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
"#$%%&'(!)*+($,-!
./0!12(!
.30!-4&#!
.50!'&'$!
.60!74&,$!
.80!#&$!
.90!7*,$+!
.:0!;27%!
.<0!4*'(!
.=0!%$*>!
./?0+*@$!
.//0A+&$-!
./30!A2*%!
./504$*+B!
./60A4*&'!
./80C'&,$!
./90!A4&$>!