Invented spelling activities in kindergarten : the role of instructional scaffolding and collaborative learning

• Main Author: Albuquerque, Ana
• Publication Date: 2020
• Other Authors: Martins, Margarida Alves
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.12/7630
• topic: Invented spelling; Early literacy; Instructional scaffolding; Collaborative learning; Kindergarten

There is considerable evidence on the connections between emergent literacy-related skills in preschool-age and successful reading and writing. The purpose of this double-designed experimental/descriptive study was to analyse the impact of invented spelling activities on kindergarten children’s spelling performance and to explore adult mediation and peer collaboration processes that occurred within a sample of intervention sessions. Data was collected with 52 participants divided into an experimental group and a control group who were submitted to a pre/post-test assessment. The global quantitative analysis revealed the strong impact of the intervention on children’s word spelling progress scores. The descriptive qualitative data of 2304 verbal interventions of a small-scale sample suggested that significant and diverse mediation scaffolding strategies were incorporated by the children in a shared dialogical learning approach. Our findings point to the need for delivering group interaction activities combining early literacy contents in kindergarten contexts as a vehicle for responding to the challenge of reading and writing acquisition at the beginning of schooling.