When Marissa Gadacy \u201917 (CLAS) joined Neag School of Education assistant professor Devin Kearns in his research lab, she proposed exploring a relatively unchartered piece of the puzzle in elementary school students\u2019 reading comprehension skills: spelling.<\/p>\n
This fall, the Office of Undergraduate Research selected Gadacy and Kearns for one of its\u00a02016 Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts Research Experience (SHARE) Awards, providing their proposed project with $2,000 in funding for use in their collaborative research this semester. The award is given each year to a selection of UConn undergraduate student-and-professor pairs who are conducting research together in the social sciences, humanities, or arts.<\/p>\n
The study, titled \u201cLongitudinal Examination of Children\u2019s Polysyllabic Word Reading,\u201d tests children\u2019s development in reading multiple-syllable (polysyllabic) words and its effects on reading comprehension. Last year, Kearns concluded that second-graders\u2019 reading comprehension related more to their polysyllabic word reading than reading for a variety of words on a standardized test. What Gadacy will add to the study in 2016 is an examination of whether students\u2019 ability to spell words correctly impacts their reading comprehension.<\/p>\n
\nCurrent student Marissa Gadacy and Neag School assistant professor Devin Kearns will collaborate on research examining aspects of elementary school students\u2019 reading comprehension skills, thanks to funding from a\u00a0UConn Office of Undergraduate Research SHARE Award.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Gadacy predicts that spelling will be related to reading comprehension, perhaps more so than reading, because it requires a number of additional skills.\u00a0To test this hypothesis, Gadacy and Kearns will be designing and administering a spelling exam to third-graders this winter in more than 10\u00a0schools in Rhode Island and Connecticut.<\/p>\n
Gadacy admits that designing the test is a complex undertaking. Each of the test\u2019s 20 to 40 words (ranging from two to four syllables each) must be selected from a large database that records how frequently specific words are used in elementary school textbooks. In selecting words for the test, the objective is to choose medium-frequency words \u2013 words that are familiar to students without being so recognizable that their spelling becomes obvious.<\/p>\n
Kearns says he expects students to perform better in spelling words that occur more often and words that have\u00a0spellings students could guess without knowing spelling rules. For example, \u201cdrips\u201d<\/em>\u00a0is easy to spell because the letters say what students would expect. Words with\u00a0ay<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0ai,<\/em>\u00a0however, are hard to spell without knowing a spelling rule. Both make the \u201ca\u201d sound, like in\u00a0play<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0plain.<\/em>\u00a0Kearns explains that we spell \u201ca\u201d with\u00a0ay<\/em>\u00a0at the end of words, and often\u00a0ai<\/em>\u00a0elsewhere in the word.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some schools, children learn to spell by memorizing words,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cThat doesn\u2019t build spelling skill as well as\u00a0teach students well-established pattern like the ones for \u201ca.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gadacy, a double major in psychology and human development and family studies, began working with Kearns last year because his work related to her interests in language development.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took a psychology of language course that taught me how people read and speak to each other, which I thought was extremely interesting and complex,\u201d she says. Over the course of her time working in the research lab, Gadacy says she has progressed to working with study participants in schools and developing her own research ideas.<\/p>\n
Even though her SHARE grant expires after the Fall 2016 semester, Gadacy says she will likely continue to perform undergraduate research. The Wallingford, Conn., native plans to pursue graduate school before beginning a career in psychology research or social work.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has worked hard and\u00a0learned a great deal in a short\u00a0time,\u201d Kearns says. \u201cI\u2019m thankful to have her on my team and exited to work with her on the SHARE project.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This spring, Marissa Gadacy \u201917 (CLAS) and Neag School of Education assistant professor Devin Kearns will collaborate on research examining aspects of elementary school students\u2019 reading comprehension skills, thanks to funding from UConn\u2019s Office of Undergraduate Research, which selected their research proposal for one of its 2016 Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts Research Experience (SHARE) Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2428,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-202587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational-psychology","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 13:54:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202589,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202587\/revisions\/202589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202587"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=202587"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=202587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}