A computational investigation of inventive spelling and the “Lesen durch Schreiben” method
dc.contributor.author
Born, Jannis
dc.contributor.author
Nikolov, Nikola I.
dc.contributor.author
Rosenkranz, Anna
dc.contributor.author
Schabmann, Alfred
dc.contributor.author
Schmidt, Barbara Maria
dc.date.accessioned
2022-04-25T17:41:49Z
dc.date.available
2022-04-23T03:51:48Z
dc.date.available
2022-04-25T17:41:49Z
dc.date.issued
2022
dc.identifier.other
10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100063
en_US
dc.identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/543428
dc.identifier.doi
10.3929/ethz-b-000543428
dc.description.abstract
In primary schools, Lesen durch Schreiben (LdS; “reading through writing”, known internationally as inventive spelling) is a prevalent didactic method of reading and spelling instruction. In LdS, pupils learn writing through prolonged inventive spelling, meaning that only phonological but not orthographic spelling errors are corrected. Rigorous studies of the effectiveness of LdS are scarce and have delivered inconsistent results, casting doubt on the suitability of LdS for primary school instruction. Empirical investigations of writing acquisition methods are time-consuming, costly, and are plagued by methodological evaluation difficulties, such as separating method effects from other instruction-related variables. In this work, we developed a computational framework (based on recurrent neural networks) for reading and writing acquisition. This framework enables us to extract and systematically investigate some core principles of writing acquisition methods. Focusing on two German corpora, we compared the behavior of learning agents trained using the LdS regime against agents trained using a classical, primer-based regime. Experimental results revealed that our LdS agents performed significantly worse than our primer agents in writing tasks and, to a lesser extent, in reading tasks. Our results show that the stereotypical spelling mistakes of children exposed to LdS can be replicated with neural network models. These mistakes arise naturally during writing acquisition for all learning agents but are either suppressed or reinforced depending on the learning regime. We examined the learned, internal representations of both agents and found deviations in the LdS agent that may have induced the amplified confusion of similar phonemes. While we focused on two German corpora, similar results can be expected for alphabetic languages with similar graphene-phoneme regularities. In sum, LdS does not exhibit benefits over standard instruction in our simulations. However, we urge caution in drawing immediate conclusions for human learners. Instead, our work presents a modest step towards the construction of a computational framework for writing and reading instructional methods that may inspire future research.
en_US
dc.format
application/pdf
en_US
dc.language.iso
en
en_US
dc.publisher
Elsevier
en_US
dc.rights.uri
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.title
A computational investigation of inventive spelling and the “Lesen durch Schreiben” method
en_US
dc.type
Journal Article
dc.rights.license
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
dc.date.published
2022-04-11
ethz.journal.title
Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence
ethz.journal.volume
3
en_US
ethz.pages.start
100063
en_US
ethz.size
17 p.
en_US
ethz.version.deposit
publishedVersion
en_US
ethz.identifier.scopus
ethz.publication.place
Amsterdam
en_US
ethz.publication.status
published
en_US
ethz.date.deposited
2022-04-23T03:52:01Z
ethz.source
SCOPUS
ethz.eth
yes
en_US
ethz.availability
Open access
en_US
ethz.rosetta.installDate
2022-04-25T17:41:58Z
ethz.rosetta.lastUpdated
2025-02-14T02:09:49Z
ethz.rosetta.versionExported
true
ethz.COinS
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