Identifying and predicting classes of response to explicit phonological spelling instruction during independent composing.(Report)

Origin and Significance of Response to Instruction

In 1993, National Institutes of Health sponsored a working conference for researchers in the field of learning disabilities at which the concept of response to instruction was introduced (Lyon, 1994). Francis, Fletcher, Stuebing, Davidson, and Thompson (1991) proposed individual growth curve modeling as a research tool for studying response to instruction. Berninger and Abbott (1994) proposed response to intervention as a way to control for effects due to lack of opportunity to learn in defining and treating learning disabilities. Hooper et al. (1994) proposed a conceptual framework for writing assessment that included response to writing instruction.

Following that conference, a number of longitudinal treatment studies demonstrated that reading problems could be prevented or the severity of their expression reduced to a large extent with appropriate early intervention, even if children came from low-literacy homes (Foorman et al., 1996; Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998; Torgesen et al., 1999; Torgesen, Wagner, Rashotte, Burgess, & Hecht, 1997; Vellutino et al., 1996). Yet, not all children were treatment responders in early intervention (Torgesen, 2000) or over the course of schooling (Shaywitz et al., 1999). Accumulating research evidence showed that individual difference variables such as phonological awareness, phonological working memory, and/or accurate phonological decoding predicted response to reading instruction and might explain why some children were nonresponders or slower responders (e.g., Adams, 1990; Blachman, 1997; Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, & Willows, 2001; Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989; Scarborough, 1998; Stanovich, 1986; Uhry & Shephard, 1997; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). More recently, there is increasing recognition that automatic word recognition out of context or oral reading fluency for text (Biemiller, 1977-1978; Blachman, 1997; Breznitz, 1987; Ehri & Saltmarsh, 1995; Jenkins, Fuchs, van dem Broek, Espin, & Deno, 2003; Kuhn & Stahl, 2000, 2003; Levy, Abello, & Lysynchuk, 1997; Perfetti, 1985; Samuels, 1985; Tan & Nicholson, 1997; Wolf, 2001; Young, Bowers, & Mackinnon, 1996) may both be an outcome of instruction and predictor of response to instruction.

Compton (2000a, 2000b, 2002, 2003a, 2003b) applied the concept of response to intervention to progress monitoring in school settings and documented clearly that (a) there are individual differences prior to beginning reading instruction, (b) dynamic change occurs in response to reading instruction for children in general, and (c) processes such as phonological awareness, knowledge of letter-sound correspondence, and rapid automatic naming (RAN) predict the slopes of individual growth curves in reading. Speece and Case (2001) and Fuchs, Fuchs, and Speece (2002) studied classes of response to intervention as a way of identifying students for special education. From its inception (Deno, 1985; Deno, Marston, & Mirkin, 1982; Fuchs, Deno, & Mirkin, 1984), curriculum-based measurement (CBM) has been a kind of response to intervention tool, although CBM is only one approach to assessing response to intervention.

Most of the response to instruction research has focused on reading and not on spelling (or other writing skills). CBM has been successfully applied to assess response to instruction in writing (Espin et al., 2000; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1991; Fuchs, Fuchs, Hamlett, & Allinder, 1991; Watkinson & Lee, 1992). Some of the same individual differences that affect response to reading instruction may also affect response to spelling and written expression, for example, phonological and orthographic coding (Badian, 1994; Berninger, 1994; Berninger et al., 1992; Berninger & Traweek, 1991; Berninger, Yates, & Lester, 1991) or rapid automatic naming for letters (e.g., Bowers, 2001; Bowers & Wolf, 1993), although other individual differences unique to writing, for example, handwriting automaticity and grapho-motor planning for sequential finger movements, may predict response to composition instruction (Berninger et al., 1992).

To illustrate the many applications of response to intervention (or response to instruction), consider its current use as (a) an evidence-based approach to accountability in general (No Child Left Behind) and special education (reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), (b) a way of identifying children for special education services (e.g., Lyon et al., 2001), (c) a means of transforming special education into more effective service delivery (Vaughn, Moody, & Schumm, 1998), and (d) a tool for helping teachers deal with normal variation in the general education classroom (Berninger & Richards, 2002). Considerable research is under way regarding the reliability and validity of the general construct of response to instruction or intervention. In the current study we focused on response during each of 24 sequential spelling lessons--rather than on effectiveness of instruction based on normed measures given at pretest, midtest, or posttest or CBM measures given periodically during the school year. For reasons discussed next, we investigated transfer of spelling knowledge to spelling during independent composing in response to explicit spelling instruction.

Scientific Research on Spelling and Its Transfer to Composing