148 Chapter 6 to compare this specific phonics through spelling intervention to other interventions and to find out what elements of the intervention have the biggest impact, our results showed that such an intervention benefits word reading, pseudoword reading and spelling development of children with dyslexia notwithstanding phonological abilities. A part of the phonics through spelling intervention is described in further detail in Ruijssenaars and colleagues (2009; 2010). The need to strengthen the depth and breadth of semantic representations not only applies to clinical practice but to educational practice as well. To be more specific, given the fact that building a semantic network with deep word knowledge takes time as it develops slowly (Bloom, 2002; Bolger et al., 2008), stimulation of semantic representations should start early in the child’s development to be helpful in early literacy development. This early start is important because knowledge builds upon prior knowledge (Stanovich, 1986). Therefore, teaching methods should include opportunities to let children learn newwords, and link these words to previously learned concepts (Boroysky, et al., 2016). For example, prior research points at the importance of explicit instruction of meaning of words and the link with other words (see Bolger et al., 2008; Durso & Coggings, 1991) and the importance of guided play in stimulating vocabulary development (see Leseman & Veen, 2016). Guided play is a teaching method in which the teacher stimulates verbalization, symbolization, role-taking, planning, and cooperation and monitors play and metacommunication (these operationalization of guided play is derived from program Tools of the Mind by Barnett et al., 2008). Studies in the Netherlands showed that pre-school and school programs can be effective in expanding the vocabulary of children, especially for children with a non-Western background and that guided play is an effective element (see Leseman & Veen, 2016). In addition, an example of activities in which the broadness and depth of words can be stimulated with explicit instruction, thematic relation and repetition, and change of context is a combination of book reading and guided play. Shared book reading introduces new concepts and a narrative to play during which children actively process the meaning of words and its relations in their own context (Hadley et al., 2018). Second, we recommend teachers to include elements of the phonics through spelling intervention in their lessons as we found that such an intervention benefits both reading and spelling abilities of children with dyslexia. The general principle underlying the intervention is the principle of mastery learning (as described in Bloom, 1971); a clear curriculum with explicit learning goals subdivided in short periods with explicit instruction, formative assessment in order to give feedback, and lessons adjusted to the child’s needs in order to arrive at the next learning goal. To build such a curriculum, a socalled task analysis for reading and spelling needs to be carried out by the teacher (the
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