Spelling Remediation: a single case study

Abstract An 11 year‐old spelling retarded boy was exposed to two different remediation programmes over 21 weeks. The first phase of the study was devoted to practice on a machine which allows two attempts at spelling a given word before presenting its correct spelling on a visual display panel. In the second phase, a rule‐based approach was introduced to teach those words which the child had failed to learn in Phase I. By the end of Phase I, the child had mastered over half the stimulus words and most of these were retained at follow‐up. However, progress was slow, and no generalisation occurred to matched untaught words. The rule‐based approach was effective in the immediate short term, but only half the stimulus words learnt were retained at follow‐up and no generalisation took place to untaught words. The design of the study did not allow for comparison of the relative efficacy of the two approaches. It was concluded that remedial instruction needs to span a much longer time period if it is to result in significant long‐term improvement in spelling skills.