Consistency and Stability of Italian Children’s Spelling in Dictation Versus Composition Assessments

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate consistency in spelling skills across 2 different tasks of written production (dictation vs. composition) and stability of performance across 4 different grades. We assessed 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders’ spelling performance through 4 tasks: 2 dictation tasks (passage and sentences) and 2 composition tasks (description and narrative). For both tasks, we identified homophone and non-homophone errors. With respect to the findings for intertask consistency and stability, there were significant positive correlations between spelling inaccuracy in dictation and composition for all grades assessed. We also confirmed these findings for the subsample of inaccurate spellers, which suggests that children struggling in spelling do not benefit from a specific task (dictation or composition).