Contribution of spelling instruction to the spelling, writing, and reading of poor spellers

The contribution of supplemental spelling instruction to spelling, writing, and reading was examined. Second-grade children experiencing difficulties learning to spell participated in 48 20-min sessions designed to improve their spelling skills, In comparison with peers in a contact control condition receiving mathematics instruction, students in the spelling condition made greater improvements on norm-referenced spelling measures, a writing-fluency test, and a reading word-attack measure following instruction. Six months later, students in the spelling treatment maintained their advantage in spelling but not on the writing-fluency and reading word-attack measures. However, spelling instruction had a positive effect at maintenance on the reading word-recognition skills of children who scored lowest on this measure at pretest.