Abstract

HEROLD, Marina; ALANT, Erna  and  BORNMAN, Juan. Typing speed, spelling accuracy, and the use of word-prediction. S. Afr. j. educ. [online]. 2008, vol.28, n.1, pp.117-134. ISSN 2076-3433.

Children with spelling difficulties are limited in their participation in all written school activities. We aimed to investigate the influence of word-prediction as a tool on spelling accuracy and typing speed. To this end, we selected 80 Grade 4 - 6 children with spelling difficulties in a school for special needs to participate in a research project involving a cross-over within-subject design. The research task took the form of entering 30 words through an on-screen keyboard, with and without the use of word-prediction software. The Graded Word Spelling Test served to investigate whether there was a relationship between the children's current spelling knowledge and word-prediction efficacy. The results indicated an increase in spelling accuracy with the use of word-prediction, but at the cost of time and the tendency to use word approximations, and no significant relationship between spelling knowledge and word-prediction efficacy.

Keywords : spelling difficulties; word approximations; word-prediction; writing support.

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