The Impact of Word Study Intervention on Adult English Learners’ Spelling and Reading

Title: The Impact of Word Study Intervention on Adult English Learners’ Spelling and Reading Authors: Massengill Shaw, Donita Abstract: The purpose of this study was to document the impact of an instructional approach, Word Study, on adults’ spelling and reading. Forty-nine adults enrolled in ESL classes at a community-based site in the United States from January through May and were tested on the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System, the Elementary Spelling Inventory and the Developmental Spelling Analysis. This study employed a mixed-methodology including statistical and qualitative analyses. The results showed significant growth for the adult students on their spelling and reading scores and positive response to the intervention. Reasons for why this approach is valuable to educators are addressed in the discussion. Description: A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author’s publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of the Provost, Dr. Jeffrey Vitter; Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, Dr. Steve Warren; Acting KUMC Executive Vice Chancellor, Dr. Steve Stites; and Dr. Paul Terranova, KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml. ©2012 Optical Society of America. The author may also publish the article on his or her own noncommercial web page ("noncommercial" pages are defined here as those not charging for admission to the site or for downloading of material while on the site).