112 Chapter 5 Spelling Spelling was measured with the standardized ‘PI word dictation’ (Geelhoed & Reitsma, 1999). In this task childrenwere asked towrite single Dutchwords correctly. The dictation consisted of 135 words, divided into nine blocks of fifteen words. First a sentence including the target word was read aloud and afterwards the target word was repeated. The test was terminated when a child failed to write at least eight out of fifteen words per block correctly in one block. The number of correctly written words was counted. Test scores were standardized by comparing them to norm-based peers with help of the manual of the tests. There were two versions available of the test (version A and version B). The internal consistency reliability of this measure differs per age but is at least .91 (Geelhoed, & Reitsma, 1999). Predictor measures Verbal learning Verbal learning was measured by the ‘15 words test for children’ (Kingsma, & Van den Burg, 2005), the Dutch adaptation of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (Rey, 1941). The experimenter verbally presented the child with a list of 15 meaningful and mono- and bisyllabic words. A list of the words can be found in Appendix A. Immediately after hearing the words, the child was asked to recall as many words as possible in a random order. The same list was presented five times in a row and each time the child had to name as many of the presented words as possible. Each trial the number of correct named words was noted. Following Van Strien et al. (1999), the result of the first trial can be seen as an Index of immediate memory span (Intercept) and the change in performance over the five trials (Slope) can be seen as a measure of verbal learning. The parallel test-retest reliability of this measure is .70 (Van den Burg & Kingsma, 1999). Verbal consolidation Verbal consolidation was measured by the ‘15 words test for children’ (Kingsma, & Van den Burg, 2005), the Dutch adaptation of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (Rey, 1941). After finishing the five trials there was a 30-minute delay in which non-verbal tasks were administered. After this 30-minute delay the children were asked to name all the words they remembered, which represents the Verbal consolidation. The reliability of this measure is .62 (Kingsma, & Van den Burg, 2005). Control measures Phonological awareness Two subtests from the ‘Screening Test for Dyslexia’ (Kort et al., 2005a) were used. First, during ‘Phoneme Deletion’ children were asked to omit a phoneme from an orally
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