Abstract:

Spelling is the knowledge and application of the conventions of language in writing and is a challenge for many students. Spelling ability is a gradually developing, long and complex process. It is directly linked to language skills, phonological, grammatical, grammatical, semantic awareness, cognitive functions (intelligence, perception, memory) and metacognitive skills. This paper examines the correlation between students’ performance on intelligence tests and specific socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, father’s and mother’s occupation, the people who help them with homework, the degree of satisfaction with their school performance, their parents’ degree of satisfaction with their school performance, difficulties they face in school subjects (reading, spelling, essay, arithmetic), oral examinations, written examinations, reports and use of leisure time. The sample consisted of 225 children: 111 (49.3%) boys and 114 (50.7%) girls. The average age of the children in the sample was 11.5 years with the average age of the boys being only two months older than the girls. All children attended the 6th grade of primary school on the island of Rhodes: 50.2% of the children attended in the city of Rhodes and 49.8% in the semi-urban and rural areas of the island.

Data were collected with:
1) an impromptu socio-demographic questionnaire,
2) Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPMs) and
3) the Zachos Dictation Writing Test (DDT).

The study showed that there was a correlation between students’ performance on the intelligence test and three demographic variables:
1) Parents’ level of satisfaction with their children’s academic performance. Children who responded that their parents were satisfied with their academic performance scored higher on intelligence compared to children who reported that their parents thought they did not study at all,
2) Difficulties in arithmetic: Children who reported having no difficulties scored higher compared to children who reported having problems, and
3) Leisure time utilization: Children who spent their free time visiting their families’ country houses scored higher on intelligence compared to students who did not. The overall conclusion of the study is that the performance of pupils with spelling difficulties is related to variables such as what parents think of them, difficulties with numeracy and the use of family leisure time.

Keywords:

Intelligence, students with spelling difficulties, socio-demographic characteristics.