Remedioom als Remedie?

This study seeks to investigate the effect a computer-based intervention program can have on the spelling skills of Dutch dyslexic or poor second-language learners of English in secondary education. The program, named Remedioom, aims at improving English spelling skills by making pupils explicitly aware of the internal structural patterns in English words through a visual mode. This visual manner of presenting English vocabulary is based on Van Berkel's (1999) theory on how children learn English as a foreign language. The results indicate that effects are indeed greater for children receiving intervention by means of Remedioom than for those who receive intervention through a traditional paper-and-pencil method. However, the visual mode itself does not appear to cause these effects, but rather the mere structural approach, which moves away from the focus on meaning as adopted in a paper-and-pencil method. Indeed, an auditory-based computer program, with which Remedioom was also compared, produced similar significant results when related to the results of the pupils in the paper-and-pencil condition.