EFFECT OF TWO INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SPELLING PERFORMANCE OF PUPILS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES IN IBADAN, NIGERIA

Spelling is a crucial skill for academic success however many pupils with learning disabilities lag behind in academic tasks because of poor spelling skills and its accompanying negative effects. Past studies on pupils with learning disabilities focused more on reading skills with little attention on spelling skills. This study investigated the main impacts of visual imagery and cloze spelling instructional strategies on the spelling performance of pupils with learning disabilities. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design with a 3 x 2 factorial matrix. Sixty students with learning disabilities (Male = 38, Female = 22, Mean age = 9.35) from three government-run primary schools were chosen using purposive sampling. Three instruments were used: Pupil Rating Scale (Revised) (r = 0.76), Right Word Recognition (r = 0.91) and Pupils’ Note Books on Dictated Words. Data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that treatment had a significant main effect on the spelling performance of pupils with learning disabilities (F¬3,56) = 2.085. P