Abstract
This paper describes the SelfSpell Hypercard environment for dyslexic children which helps them to learn to spell their problem words. Synthesised speech is used to augment the written text and different levels of help are available at all times. Two versions are available, with one in which the children are encouraged to enter rules to help them remember how to spell each word, and one in which a mastery learning technique is used. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the software indicated substantial improvements with either version in the spelling and motivation of two groups of dyslexic children. The results indicate that, with an appropriate remedial environment, even children with minimal initial spelling ability are able to acquire the spellings of even quite difficult words. The positive results with the mastery-based approach suggest that SelfSpell can help dyslexic children to surmount the barrier of alphabetic coding.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bradley, L. (1988). Making connections in learning to read and to spell. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2, 3–18.
Frith, U. (1985). “Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia”. In Patterson K. E., Marshall J. C. and Coltheart M. (eds) Surface dyslexia, London Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lewis, R. and Paine, N. (1985). How to Communicate with the Learner. Open Learning Guide 6. London, CET.
Malone, T.W. (1981). Towards a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive Science, 4, 333–369.
Nicolson, R.I, Pickering, S. and Fawcett, A.J. (1991). Open Learning for Dyslexic Children using HyperCardTM. Computers and Education, 16, 203–209.
Thomson, M.E. (1984). Developmental Dyslexia: Its nature, assessment and remediation. London, Edward Arnold.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Nicolson, R.I., Fawcett, A.J. (1992). Spelling remediation for dyslexic children using the selfspell programs. In: Tomek, I. (eds) Computer Assisted Learning. ICCAL 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 602. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-55578-1_95
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-55578-1_95
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-55578-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47221-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive