How poor readers and spellers use interactive speech in a computerized spelling program

The ‘Spello’ program was designed to use interactive speech feedback on a talking-computer system to improve children's spelling and phonological skills. In two versions of the program, the synthesizer pronounced the word to be spelled and the student tried to type in the word correctly. Both versions of the program showed the students which letters were correct in their spelling attempts. One version pronounced only the target word, as often as the child requested. The other version also provided intermediate speech feedback for children's spelling attempts, so they could hear how their own attempts sounded, and compare them to the target word. Twenty-eight children aged seven to fourteen studied 16 words they had misspelled on pretests and 16 words of related word structure. For children ten years or older, training with intermediate speech feedback led to greater benefits in phonological coding skills than training with word-only feedback, reflected in the ability to read nonsense words related in structure to the trained words. Intermediate speech feedback also led to a marginally significant advantage in spelling the trained words. When the groups switched conditions, however, there was no difference in their tested skills after a second week of training.

[1]  L. Ehri.  Learning to Read and Spell Words , 1987 .

[2]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Exposure to print and orthographic processing. , 1989 .

[3]  K. Stanovich.  TOWARD AN INTERACTIVE-COMPENSATORY MODEL OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF READING FLUENCY , 1980 .

[4]  R. Wagner,et al.  The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. , 1987 .

[5]  Anthony F Jorm,et al.  Role of visual word-recognition checks in children's spelling , 1981 .

[6]  Richard K. Olson,et al.  Implementing a long-term computerized remedial reading program with synthetic speech feedback: Hardware, software, and real-world issues , 1989 .

[7]  M. Snowling,et al.  The Nonword Reading Deficit in Developmental Dyslexia: A Review. , 1992 .

[8]  Richard K. Olson,et al.  Reading instruction and remediation with the aid of computer speech , 1986 .

[9]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Do beginners learn printed words better in contexts or in isolation , 1979 .

[10]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Sources of difficulty in learning to spell and read , 1987 .

[11]  Maggie Bruck,et al.  The Word Recognition and Spelling of Dyslexic Children. , 1988 .

[12]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Beginners need some decoding skill to read words by analogy. , 1992 .

[13]  Richard K. Olson,et al.  Reading on the computer with orthographic and speech feedback , 1992 .

[14]  Ingvar Lundberg,et al.  Effects of an Extensive Program for Stimulating Phonological Awareness in Preschool Children. , 1988 .

[15]  L. Ehri,et al.  Do Beginners Learn to Read Function Words Better in Sentences or in Lists , 1980 .

[16]  U. Goswami,et al.  Phonological Skills and Learning to Read , 1993, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[17]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Do Alphabet Letters Help Prereaders Acquire Phonemic Segmentation Skill , 1983 .

[18]  D. Fulker,et al.  Specific Deficits in Component Reading and Language Skills , 1989, Journal of learning disabilities.

[19]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Does learning to spell help beginners learn to read words , 1987 .