| To compete in the work force today, the global and national economy demands our 21st century learners to write efficiently, effectively, and coherently. Due to minimal progress in writing scores over the past decade, spelling has increasingly become a subject of national debate as poor spelling can impede a writer's ability to formulate ideas and words which can ultimately translate into lowered writer self-perception beliefs and increased task avoidance behaviors. First, this study examined the pre and post intervention similarities and differences in linguistic skills, literacy-related skills, and writer self-perception beliefs of secondary students with or without Specific Learning Disabilities. Then, this study investigated the effects that a multilinguistic, diagnostic spelling intervention in phonology, orthography, and morphology with a writing component had on the linguistic skills, literacy-related skills and writer self-perception beliefs of secondary students with Specific Learning Disabilities.;Post intervention results showed the Intervention (Treatment) students who participated in 30 hours of spelling instruction (phonology, orthography, and morphology) with writing component had more moderate to statistically significant gains in phonological awareness (elision; blending nonwords; phoneme reversal; and segmenting words and nonwords), rapid naming, morphology, word attack skills, and reading comprehension than the Non-Intervention (Control) students. These gains appeared to transfer to more moderate to statistically significant gains in spelling (TWS-4, TOWL-3 Spelling Subtest, and DSA TI Composite), writing achievement (TOWL-3), and writer self-perception beliefs (WSPS). The spelling instruction with writing component appeared to decrease the Intervention (Treatment) students' spelling errors on the persuasive essay posttest yet had no effect on the length, quality, and vocabulary (number of multi-syllabic words).;Based on this individual and collective group case study, students with Specific Learning Disabilities in secondary grades who are struggling with spelling and writing may benefit from this multi-linguistic, diagnostic spelling instruction approach. Future research should investigate this spelling instruction approach with At-Risk secondary students in the General Education classes who are struggling with spelling and writing. Perhaps many poor writers with spelling deficits would pass the writing portions of high-stakes tests at Proficient achievement levels if they were able to master the underlying linguistic skills in spelling development. |
