Orthographic Skills in English Language Learners and Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

This study investigates orthographic skills in students with learning disabilities (LD), English Language Learning (ELL) students and their typical-achieving, native-English speaking (TYP) peers to help in the differentiation of these groups, and ultimately improve LD assessment for linguistically diverse students. A repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to compare the effect of Group Type (LD, TYP, ELL) on the orthographic skills of 108 children as measured by the Words Their Way Primary Spelling Inventory on three administrations over the course of a school year. There were statistically significant differences between groups with medium and large effect sizes in all spelling inventory measures: Feature Points, Words Spelled Correct and Spelling Inventory Stage scores. In each grade and administration, the students in the LD group consistently had the lowest means and students in the TYP group had the highest means. On the Words Spelled Correct measure, there was a triple interaction with a medium to large effect size between the three groups by grade and over time. This interaction showed that in Kindergarten, both ELL students and students with LD score significantly lower than the TYP group. ELL students made substantial progress and by spring of first grade, they had similar scores to those of the TYP group. The LD group continued to have significantly lower scores than both other groups in first and second grades. A comparison of spring stage scores indicated significant differences between the ELL group and the TYP group in the number of students that were on or above grade level. There was also a significant difference between the number of students with spring spelling stages on or above grade level in the LD and the TYP group. However, there was not an equivalent difference between the LD and ELL groups. An analysis of student progress over the course of the school year found the rates of improvement in all three groups to be comparable, though the group means are consistently ranked with the LD group underperforming the ELL group and TYP group (LD <ELL <TYP). These important variations in how diverse students perform by grade and over time can inform both the instruction and assessment of students. In doing so, more well-designed pre-referral interventions can begin to correct problems of disproportionality of linguistically diverse students in special education.