Abstract
When the going gets tough, context gets going: Exception word reading via self-teaching
Stephanie MacKinnon
Many English words fail to conform to typical grapheme-to-phoneme conversion patterns and are therefore deemed exceptions; this makes decoding and spelling difficult for novice readers. This study evaluated the effects of practicing regular and exception words in context and in isolation on reading and spelling accuracy. Students in Grade 2 (N=30) participated in a within subject design. They read 66 different items from three word categories: regular/short, regular/long, and exception. Half of the words were read in context, the other half were read in isolation. No feedback was provided. Training took place over 10 trials, followed by a spelling test. Reading retention followed one week after training. Results showed that training in context boosted reading accuracy initially for short words and throughout training for exception words, but no effect of context was found for long words. Spelling outcomes showed gains in all word categories for both conditions, suggesting that reading practice supports modest levels of spelling improvement. In sum, for young learners reading in context without feedback was most beneficial for exception words.