“Targeted repeated short practice sessions improve spelling accuracy of science-specific terminology in school students.”

In this synthesis, we examined the effects of spelling and reading interventions on spelling outcomes for students with LD in Grades K through 12. While some interventions involving practice showed effects, results varied, and not all repeated practice approaches consistently improved spelling accuracy across all students.

Children who practiced words in an interleaved compared to blocked sequence showed fewer spelling errors in an immediate posttest and an 8-week follow-up test. Klimovich and Richter (2025) found that third-grade children made significantly fewer spelling errors on trained words following interleaved compared to blocked practice in an immediate posttest. At an 8-week follow-up, benefits extended to both trained and near-transfer words—but only for children with average to high prior knowledge.

The results showed that students learned more spelling words using retrieval practice than rainbow writing. This was true across all three experiments, and even for the assessment that occurred 5 weeks after learning. The students in the three experiments practiced the spelling words across two days in their classrooms, using retrieval practice where the research assistant read the words out loud and students wrote the spelling from memory, repeating the process for 10 minutes total.

Word frequency and name agreement affect a word's accessibility during speech production. Speakers are faster to name pictures with high-frequency words. The study examined how repetition affects word retrieval and production, with participants completing multiple practice trials prior to the main experiment.

Called the “spacing effect,” hundreds of studies demonstrate it enhances long-term learning and retention — and is far better than cramming the night before an exam. Students who took the quiz eight days after the lecture performed significantly better on the final test than the other students, suggesting that spaced learning can enhance long-term memorization.

To help students understand new words, you can rely on morphology and break words apart, showing students how each part has a specific meaning. Interactive word walls and anchor charts can help students quickly reference vocabulary and visually connect the content to the terms.

All three types of repetition strategies (oral, written, and oral+written) were effective in retaining new vocabulary in the short-term. Although these repetition strategies, especially the written and oral+written strategies, helped to retain meaning and spelling of target items in the long-term, figures show a decline in the six-week delayed post-tests. The findings suggest that oral+written and written repetition strategies are most effective, but recycling newly learned vocabulary is important to consolidate it for longer periods of time.

Students in spelling interventions made measurable gains in both their ability to spell words correctly and their ability to read them. The study focused on general spelling instruction rather than specifically science terminology or targeted short sessions.

Although research shows that repetition increases second language vocabulary learning, the study examined the effects of within-session repeated retrieval on vocabulary learning with posttests after a delay greater than 2 weeks, employing a paired-associate format to exert strict control over the treatment and considering time-on-task as a factor.

Spaced repetition is a learning technique that involves reviewing information at increasing intervals over time. This method not only helps in remembering the vocabulary more effectively, but also ensures that the knowledge is more retrievable during exams.

Many studies found that teaching spelling in a clear, direct way has a positive impact on students' ability to spell and read. This aligns with evidence that repeated, structured practice in spelling instruction improves accuracy.

One analysis found that using spaced repetition for STEM topics boosted test scores by an impressive 10-20%, compared to traditional methods. Another study showed that spacing out a review quiz by just 8 days, instead of 1 day, significantly improved students' long-term retention when tested 5 weeks later. In 2020, researchers developed a web app that personalized spaced repetition schedules for each learner. Students who used the optimized spacing performed better on exams than those who crammed or didn't use the app at all. The spaced group also spent less time studying overall.

Children who received phonemic segmentation training with letters made significant gains from pretest to posttest in producing simplified spellings of words whereas the other two groups who were not trained with letters showed no improvement. When participants were shown spellings of the words during study periods but not during tests, they required fewer trials to learn the words than when they were shown irrelevant numbers.

For example, the introduction of new vocabulary words in a science curriculum may also include spelling practice. A well documented strategy used in spelling, among other academic areas, is Cover, Copy, Compare (CCC), which facilitates practice of skills that benefit from repeated practice.

Prior presentation of a correctly spelled word speeded its later correct spelling only when subjects reproduced the spelling of the word in the training phase. Reproducing words earlier as compared with only reading words enhanced later recognition memory performance. The dissociation between effects on spelling accuracy and recognition memory performance suggests that active reproduction of spelling is more effective than passive reading.

There is no significant difference between the mean gain scores of students who have learned to spell by using oral practices when compared to those who have used other repeated practice methods. This suggests that repeated short oral practice sessions do not uniquely improve spelling accuracy over alternative repeated practices.

Science Teacher Angle: Give short, weekly spelling tests on key vocabulary to ensure mastery, linking each term to current lab activities or textbook units. Strong scientific vocabulary paves the way for better comprehension of complex topics.

Help your child to remember how to spell some scientific keywords by breaking a word into bite-sized chunks. Get your child to remember the first syllable first, before adding the second syllable, and so on, to build the full word.

The spacing effect—the finding that distributed practice produces better long-term retention than massed practice—is one of the most robust phenomena in cognitive psychology. Spaced repetition, where practice sessions are separated by intervals, has been shown to be particularly effective for vocabulary and spelling retention across multiple studies and age groups.

This study analyzes the effectiveness of multisensory teaching strategies in the development of spelling skills among Basic General Education students. While multisensory repeated practice showed some benefits, it was not specifically targeted short sessions for science terminology and results were mixed for accuracy improvements.

This study explored quantitative performance on exams and qualitative perceptions of students before and after introducing instructor-made spaced repetition flashcards. While overall performance on the exams was unchanged (p = 0.2657), there were significant changes in student perception. Most notably, students' confidence in their ability to succeed improved (p = 0.0066), along with their belief that the course made them think like a microbiologist (p = 0.0011).

Systematic spelling instruction boosts reading and spelling outcomes. The Science of Reading framework emphasizes the importance of explicit, systematic instruction in spelling patterns and rules to improve student spelling accuracy.

Rather than requiring students to memorize vocabulary, students need to be supported as they develop the language of science. Therefore, instead of starting with vocabulary, scientific terminology should be embedded into science instruction.