Adults' Spelling and Understanding of Possession and Plurality: An Intervention Study

Autor/inn/en	Hokanson, Lesli; Kemp, Nenagh
Titel	Adults' Spelling and Understanding of Possession and Plurality: An Intervention Study
Quelle	In: Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 26 (2013) 2, S.241-261 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0922-4777
DOI	10.1007/s11145-012-9366-7
Schlagwörter	Spelling; Morphemes; Grammar; Punctuation; Adults; Undergraduate Students; Intervention; Instructional Effectiveness; Morphology (Languages); Pretests Posttests + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Schreibweise; Morphem; Grammatik; Interpunktion; Unterrichtserfolg; Morphology; Morphologie
Abstract	In English, some words sound the same but are distinguished by silent written markers of their morphological status, as in plurals (e.g., "cities"), singular possessives (e.g., "city's") and plural possessives (e.g., "cities'"). We examined undergraduates' ability to correctly omit or position apostrophes in these three word types before and after a 3-week intervention that focused on the conceptual bases for plurality and possession, as well as their associated spelling rules. Pre-test spelling was imperfect for plurals and poor for possessives, especially plural possessives. Abstract understanding of plurality and possession, measured in a morphological awareness task, was also relatively poor. The intervention resulted in significant but imperfect improvement on all tasks, with post-test morphological awareness predicting post-test spelling of plurals and possessives, even after controls for general spelling ability. Control participants showed no change. We suggest that adults' difficulty in spelling possessives stems from a shaky grasp of the underlying morphological concepts, and we discuss possibilities for future intervention. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10