The Effect of Integrated Strategy Instruction On Spelling and Reading Achievement of Fifth Grade Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if fifth grade students of various achievement levels would achieve higher in spelling and reading after receiving explicit integrated instruction of encoding and decoding strategies. The measurement tools were the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory, the Scholastic Reading Inventory, and the Bader Graded Word List Inventory. This study involved the use of a quasi-experimental design with two sample groups: The intervention group (n=15) and the control group (n=19). SRI, Bader, words spelled correctly, word feature, and spelling combined scores were obtained before and after the intervention for both groups. The two groups did not differ significantly on any of the variables as seen by the following statistical results: SRI (Intervention Mean = 595.80, SD = 308.69; Control Mean = 674.79, SD = 222.35) [t (32) = .87, p = .39]; Bader (Intervention Mean = 74.40, SD = 22.76; Control Mean = 79.68, SD = 13.72) [t (32) = .79, p = .44]; Words spelled correctly score (Intervention Mean = 13.80, SD = 7.13; Control Mean 16.11, SD = 5.33) [t (32) = 1.08, p = .29]; Feature score (Intervention Mean = 44.47, SD = 15.91; Control Mean = 49.89, SD = 8.39) [t (32) = 1.20, p = .25]; and Combined score (Intervention Mean = 58.27, SD = 22.74; Control Mean = 66.53, SD = 13.68) [t (32) = 1.24, p = .23]. This study did not provide evidence that small group explicit integrated encoding and decoding instruction significantly affected spelling abilities; however, time spent on spelling instruction did not negatively impact reading skills. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.