During the first day of this study students were given the WordMaker spelling
pretest to determine the appropriate starting level for each student within the software
program. Before beginning the computer station, the special education teacher read the
words for students to spell on their papers in a spelling test format. This multi-level
pretest assessed the students’ mastery of each word level. In order to move to the next
level students must score 100% on the previous one. Fourteen students made errors in the
first 25 words and started the program at Lesson 1. The four remaining students spelled
the first 25 words correctly and moved beyond the first level. Those students continued to
move throughout the pretest, spelling 12 more words on each following level. As a result,
they each had a different number of words to spell and started the WordMaker program at
different lessons (i.e., Lessons 26, 31, 36, 46). During the posttest, students were given
the same words they had on the pretest and the percentage of words spelled correctly
determined if improvement was made.