The study of frequency and types of spelling errors based on students demographic variables

It is important to conduct studies on misspellings because it helps develop educational and intervention programs to improve students’ spelling skills. This descriptive and causal-comparative research aims to investigate the frequency and study different types of misspellings in multilingual and bilingual students based on their demographic characteristics. Accordingly, 2465 third, fourth, and fifth -grade students were selected from the elementary students of Karaj. Using cluster random sampling, the students’ spelling samples were collected and then analyzed using descriptive statics, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings of this study are as follows: 1- Students whose native language is Farsi are more skilled in spelling. 2- Girls can perform better in spelling. 3- Errors related to visual memory, attention, and education are more frequent than other errors. 4- At higher grades, the percentage of misspellings reduces. 5- Third and fifth –grade students’ problems resulted from carelessness, and fourth-grade students’ problems resulted from poor visual memory. Spelling is not easy, especially for bilingual students. Although the effect of features such as gender on spelling performance is unavoidable, the percentage of misspellings reduces as students enter higher grades. In other words, the percentage of misspellings can possibly reduce by providing high-quality education.