Teaching Low-Achieving Spellers at Their "Instructional Level"

In this study we tested the notion of an instructional level in spelling. In September, we used curriculum-based pretests to identify 48 low-achieving spellers in 7 third-grade classrooms. 24 of the low-spelling third graders (intervention group) were then taught for most of the year in a second-grade spelling book. The other 24 low spellers (comparison group) were taught for the full year in a third-grade spelling book. Results showed that the intervention group scored higher than the comparison group on the second-grade posttest (75% to 64%), scored almost as high on the third-grade curriculum-based posttest (47% to 50%), and scored higher on the third-grade transfer test (47% to 36%). We explain the posttest results in terms of instructional level theory and then discuss implications for classroom practice.