Consistency and stability of Italian children’s spelling in dictation versus composition assessments

The purpose of the study was to investigate consistency of spelling skills across two different tasks of written production (dictation versus composition) and stability of performance across four different grades. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders’ spelling performance was assessed through four tasks, two dictation tasks (passage and sentences) and two composition tasks (description and narrative). For both tasks, homophones and non-homophones errors were identified. With respect to the findings for inter-task consistency and stability, there were significant positive correlations between spelling inaccuracy in dictation and composition for all grades assessed. These findings were also confirmed for the sub-sample of inaccurate spellers, and suggested that children struggling in spelling do not benefit from a specific task (dictation or composition).