An Analysis of High-Frequency Words Found in Commercial Spelling Series and Misspelled in Students' Writing

One purpose of this study was to determine whether a selected number of spelling series used high- frequency words for their lists when compared to a standard measure of word frequency. Another purpose was to determine whether students misspelled high-frequency words in their writing. Data collected from the spelling series were analyzed using a two-factor analysis of variance and the Tukey method of multiple comparisons. Data collected from children's writing samples were analyzed using at test. Analysis showed differences in the number of high-frequency words among the series and within the grade levels. There also was a difference between the number of misspelled words in children's writing at Grade 5 but not at Grade 3.