Name: Katie Bible

Date: 5/23/2021
Assignment: Assignment #8

Analyzing Students’ Spelling

The students I will be analyzing in this study are all fourth grade students. One student is

a native English speaker. The other two students native language is Spanish. The topic of their

writings are all different. Today, I will be looking at the students spelling mistakes and errors. I

will be using the analytic framework of Gail Tompkins to help break down my study. Her

framework includes identifying students spelling errors and identifying their developmental

spelling level. The second half of her model looks at students' use of “circular writing” or, “safe

writing”. This identifies a students' ability to use a wide range of vocabulary. It also helps

educators understand a child’s confidence level in using unfamiliar words.

To start the study students spelling errors were counted and scored against Gentry’s, Five

Stage Model of Spelling Development. The levels of spelling are: conventional, transitional,

semiphonetic, and precommunicative. Looking at three samples, students were all out of the

precommunicative stage. They were all able to build words with correct sounds and letters which

shows that they can connect the idea that letters correspond with a sound. The next step is

semiphonetic, which looks at students representing whole words with a few letters. All students

were able to create full words with full meaning. This led to the next stage, transitional writing.

Again, students tested out of this section. Only the English student had misspellings (hospital and

whith), whereas the two EL students both had no spelling errors. This put’s all students in the

conventional stage of spelling development. This data shows that students are all able to spell
Name: Katie Bible
Date: 5/23/2021
Assignment: Assignment #8
words correctly, but are the words the EL students using as phonetically challenging? This leads

us to the next step of the assessment.

In the second half of the study I observed student’s use of, “Safe Words”. Students who

are learning a new language or working with an unfamiliar language may repeat words they feel

confident using and know that they will not make errors on. The English student had no

repetitive sentences or stems. The student did repeat the use of the noun being used as the topic

of conversation. When looking at the 1st Spanish EL student’s sample there is the repetitive

stem, “Kids will..” It is used 6 times in the paper. Only 3 out of 10 sentences start with a different

beginning. This student’s writing was “circular” and repeated itself without much development.

When looking at the second Spanish EL student’s paper there are not as many repetitive stems

however, there is a lot of repetition of similar word combinations. The 2nd EL student uses, “you

will” repetitively to persuade the writer. This half of the study identifies that both EL students

use safe writing and have particular words they feel comfortable using over and over again.

What does this mean? The results of the first test shows that all three students are at the

same developmental spelling level. Each student has the ability to identify sounds and letters.

They all also have the ability to blend their sounds together to build whole words. However, the

two EL student’s samples had circular writing with similar “safe words” which could lead to less

errors. In this case, the two EL students may actually be in the transitional spelling stage. If the

second language learners practiced with unfamiliar words with harder phonetic structures they

could have a higher percentage of misspelled words.

In conclusion, I think that Tompkins’ model in analyzing writing is an effective means of

identifying a students' writing level. After using this model to analyze students' language I was

able to see that the two EL students are writing without misspellings, but they are not using a
Name: Katie Bible
Date: 5/23/2021
Assignment: Assignment #8
wide vocabulary. This would indicate to me as a teacher to provide more visual vocabulary on

anchor charts and word walls. I would build on increasing students' confidence to try writing

words they are not sure of. However, I did notice a lot of grammatical errors in the EL students

papers that this model did not help identify or categorize. To truly identify an EL student's

writing needs I believe both spelling and grammatical errors need to be evaluated. I look forward

to incorporating both spelling and grammatical frameworks into my writing evaluations.

References:

Tompkins, Gail E.; Abramson, Shareen & Pritchard, Robert H. (Spring 1999). “A Multilingual

Perspective on Spelling Development in Third and Fourth Grades,” Mutlicutural

… Education, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Bethesda, MD.