The Use of Oral Activities to Improve the Scores of Written Spelling Quizzes in a Group of Third Graders

Abstract

This article presents the effects of implementing oral activities to help students improve their spelling written quizzes’ scores in a group of third graders from a private elementary school. Twenty-six students from a spelling class participated in the investigation. The purpose of this spelling class is to help students acquire vocabulary. However, almost 50% of the 26 participants were not obtaining passing grades in the quizzes. After a two-week treatment period where the only change in the class dynamics was the manner in which the target words were practiced, a post-test was administered to the group of participants. The results obtained in the post-test indicated that there was a significant improvement in the scores after the implementation of the oral activities designed to practice the vocabulary items. Therefore, it was concluded that promoting the use of vocabulary through meaningful speaking tasks may lead to more learning and retention of vocabulary than traditional ways such as repetition and rote memorization of words.