Abstract (eng)
The study focuses - as part of a four-year longitudinal study - the influence of five different reading and writing books used in the first year (Fibeln) on the spelling of primary school children (pre-examination). The children of both experimental groups additionally received spelling training. The children of the control group did not. In the main investigation, the training-accompanied relationship pattern between the different categories of reading and writing books and spelling ability was examined (at the end of the second and fourth years). To do so, a category analysis system for reading and writing books was developed, which is subdivided into four scales (didactic, methodological, design concept and content-related basis structure) and 17 reading and writing book exercise categories. The following categories: ‘space orientation’, ‘optical differentiation’, ‘phonological awareness’, ‘phonetic awareness’, ‘phonetic spelling’, ‘orthographic spelling’, ‘implicit-constructivist spelling’, ‘differentiated provision’ and ‘motivational elements’ were subordinated to the didactic scale for example. In an additional investigation, the connection between the above-mentioned reading and writing book categories and spelling ability were surveyed, albeit under training-free and immediate ‘exercise/performance conditions’ (at the beginning of the second year). The cohort which did not receive any training exhibits more similar results to one of the two training cohorts than can be observed between the two cohorts which received training. The training thus appears to have had no measurable influence on the children’s performance. The greatest positive correlation with spelling ability on the didactic scale is shown by the two categories ‘orthographic spelling’ and ‘implicit-constructivist spelling’. Exercises with content with a direct relation to written language as well as those with a vocabulary-rich and implicit focus thus proved to be the most favourable reading and writing book tasks. An amazing result is shown for the ‘phonological awareness’. The more phonological exercises are carried out, the more mistakes are made at the beginning of the second year (pre-examination). Phonological awareness constitutes an important pre-skill in written language skills. Phonological exercises therefore possibly come somewhat “late” within the framework of written language lessons. On the methodological scale, it is evident that the analytical-synthetic method with a focus on syllable structure is at least beneficial. The most favourable method is shown to be the analytical-synthetic method with a focus on phonetic writing. The study also reveals an amazing positive correlation between the spelling ability and the category ‘suitability of the contents’ (design concept scale). The higher the suitability of the contents the less orthographic mistakes, phonetic errors and wrong uses of upper and lower case letters are made at the beginning and the end of the second year and even at the end of the fourth year.