Implicit and explicit instruction: The case of spelling acquisition

This study examined the influence of implicit and explicit instruction for the acquisition of two types of Dutch spelling rules: a morphological and a phonological rule. A sample of 193 first grade, low- and high skilled spellers was assigned to an implicit-instruction, explicit-instruction, or control-group condition. The results showed that for both rules, students in the explicit condition made more progress than students in the control condition. For the morphological rule, students in the explicit condition had higher posttest scores on pseudo-words than students in the implicit condition. The effects of the three conditions were the same for low- and high-skilled spellers. Both low- and high-skilled spellers in the implicit and explicit condition did not fully generalize their knowledge of both rules to new and pseudo-words.