The links between grammar and spelling: A cognitive hurdle in deep orthographies?

A cross-sectional study tested Danish students' mastery of links between grammar and spelling (cf. the English link between past tense verbs and the -ed spelling for a word final /t/, e.g., missed vs. mist). One hundred and forty-two students aged 10–17 spelled pseudo-word items with ambiguous phonemes, where the choice between a 'conditional' spelling (cf. English ed for /t/) and a simple spelling (cf. t for /t/) was predictable from the grammatical context but not from the sound. Overgeneralisations (conditional spellings used where simple spellings were appropriate) were controlled to obtain pure measures of grammatical spelling competence. The oldest group of participants performed near ceiling on four of five spelling problems studied while three younger groups in the experiment never did. The nature of the apparent grammatical hurdle in Danish spelling acquisition is discussed.     

Learning to spell in Hebrew: Phonological and morphological factors

This paper investigates children's developingknowledge of the Hebrew spelling system in view of theclaim that language-specific typology affects the rateand the pattern of development of orthographicspelling. Hebrew is a morphologically syntheticlanguage with a phonologically ``deep' orthography, onthe one hand, and a consistent representation ofmorphology in the spelling system, on the other. Thispaper focuses on the difference between representingcontent words versus grammatical words, and rootsversus morphemic and attached function letters inwritten Hebrew. The paper describes two studies. InStudy 1, compositions from gradeschool children (grade1 through 6) were analyzed for types of spellingerrors; in Study 2, children from grades 2–4 wereadministered a spelling task. Results indicate thatgrammatical words are spelled correctly before contentwords, and that within content words, the correctspelling of function letters precedes that of rootletters. These differences are attributed to factorsof transparency, consistency and frequency, coupledwith gradeschoolers' growing perception ofphonological and morphological patterning in Hebrew.     

Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.     

Learning to spell: raising standards in spelling and independent writing

This paper considers evidence from an intervention designed to raise standards in spelling and independent writing. The Complete Spelling Programme (McMurray and Fleming, 1998) is designed to ensure that all processes involved in learning to spell are activated and that the interaction between them is facilitated. In addition, a number of innovative features within the programme's design allow sources of spelling knowledge to be presented in a developmental sequence, allowing all children to learn together, regardless of their ability. The programme provides day‐to‐day spellings and an extensive range of follow‐up activities, clearly differentiated, linking spelling to wider literacy teaching, e.g. grammar, language understanding, punctuation. The impact of the programme on progress, not only in spelling tests but also in spelling accuracy and quality in independent writing, was assessed by means of a longitudinal study with a 2 × 2 quasi‐experimental design. The two independent variables were (i) experimental school (intervention) or control school (no intervention) and (ii) high or low social disadvantage. A sample of 81 children aged 5–6 years across the four schools was followed for three years from Year 2 to Year 4 (Northern Ireland). A range of quantitative measures was used for baseline assessment and to establish the quantifiable outcomes for children in both the experimental (N=43) and the control schools (N=38). Qualitative measures were used to illuminate the processes involved in the programme in the experimental schools (McMurray, 2004). At the end of the study pupils who had been taught using the programme had made significant improvement in spelling and independent writing. On the basis of the findings it is argued that spelling needs to be seen as an integral tool in raising standards in literacy and that it should not be taught in isolation from other literacy skills.     

The building blocks of writing: Learning to write letters and spell words

This study examined the development of beginning writing skills in kindergarten and the relationship between early writing skills and early reading skills. Sixty children were assessed on beginning writing skills (including letter writing, individual sound spelling, and real and nonsense word spelling) and beginning reading skills (including letter name and letter sound knowledge, global early reading ability, phonological awareness, and word reading). Children’s beginning writing abilities are described, and they exhibited a range of proficiency in their ability to write letters, spell sounds, and spell real and nonsense words. Global early reading proficiency, phonological awareness, and/or letter sound fluency predicted letter writing, sound spelling, and spelling of real and nonsense words. Appreciation is expressed to the participating students and teachers at Dwight D. Eisenhower School and to Margaret Boudreau and Joan Foley for assistance in scoring students’ responses.     

Grammar and phonology predict spelling in middle childhood

We report the findings of a follow-up study of 34 9-year-old children who had participated in a longitudinal study of phonological and literacy development between the ages of 4 and 6 years. In a series of concurrent and longitudinal analyses, measures of phoneme awareness proved to be better predictors of spelling than measures of rime awareness. Children's awareness of grammatical relations influenced their orthographic skills in spelling. Although we were able to demonstrate that later orthographic knowledge is influenced by earlier phonological processes, our results are also consistent with the view that awareness of grammatical rules has an important role in determining orthographic proficiency as children get older.     

Noun or verb? Adult readers’ sensitivity to spelling cues to grammatical category in word endings

The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as -ing for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., -oon) and others with verbs (e.g., -erge). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006), and confirmed that skilled adult readers are sensitive to these orthographic cues. It was found that adults were more likely to treat pseudowords as nouns when they had noun-like endings than verb-like or control endings, and more likely to treat pseudowords as verbs when they had verb-like than noun-like endings. This sensitivity held across three tasks (sentence construction, sentence judgement, and pseudoword judgement), which required increasingly explicit awareness of the way that cues could allow grammatical categorisation. In some tasks sensitivity to verb-like endings was related to reading ability, although not to spelling ability or grammatical awareness. Implications for our understanding of language processing are discussed.     

Development of phonological, morphological, and orthographic knowledge in young spellers: The case of inflected verbs

This study was designed to simultaneously investigate the influence of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness skills on the ability to spell inflected verbs in structured spelling tasks. Children in grades 1, 2, and 3 (n=103) spelled inflected past and progressive tense verbs and completed awareness tasks. Developmental changes occurred in the ability to include the inflected ending, to spell the ending consistently reflecting the correct morphological unit, and to affix the ending using the correct orthographic pattern. The contributions of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness to spelling development varied across the three grades but were similar for each sub-component, suggesting a developmental relationship between the ability to spell inflected verbs and linguistic and orthographic awareness.     

Effects of explicit rules in learning to spell open- and closed-syllable words

Second graders (N = 222; 7.7 years of age) practiced with open- and closed-syllable words in a computer-assisted training program and appropriate spelling rules were either explicitly provided during practice or not. Also, children practiced either with a small set of exemplars or with a large set; the latter condition was expected to promote the use of rules. A control group consisting of 209 second graders, who did not practice in the computer-assisted training program, was also included in the study. Learning effects of practice were established by testing the spelling of practiced words, as well as novel transfer words, in pre-, post-, and retention tests. The results in the posttest showed that with a large set of exemplars during practice explicitly provided spelling rules are supportive for learning to spell novel words but no further effects of explicit rules were found, either for practiced words or in the retention test.     

Spanish-speaking children’s spelling errors with English vowel sounds that are represented by different graphemes in English and Spanish words

Vowels in Spanish have direct one-to-one letter-sound correspondences, whereas vowels in English usually have multiple spellings. For native Spanish-speaking children learning to spell in English, this transition from a shallow to a deep orthography could potentially cause difficulties. We examined whether the spelling of English vowel sounds was particularly difficult for native Spanish-speaking children, and whether the errors are consistent with Spanish orthographic rules. Twenty-six native Spanish-speaking and 53 native English-speaking children in grades 2 and 3 were given real-word and pseudoword spelling tasks in English that included words containing four vowels that have different spellings between Spanish and English. Results supported our hypothesis—native Spanish-speaking children committed significantly more vowel spelling errors that were consistent with Spanish orthography. The number of vowel spelling errors not consistent with Spanish orthography did not differ between the two language groups. These findings suggest that orthographic properties of the children’s native language influence their learning to spell in a second language. Educational implications address how knowledge of this cross language influence can aide teachers in improving spelling instruction.     

Training phonological awareness: a study to evaluate the effects of a program of metalinguistic games in kindergarten

A phonological awareness program was evaluated in a small-scale study using thirty eight children from three intact kindergarten classes at an American school on the outskirts of London. The average age of the children was five years four months. There was one experimental class and two control classes. The experimental class received a Danish training program of metalinguistic games and exercises. One control class used a kindergarten reading and writing program called Success in Kindergarten Reading and Writing which incorporates phonological awareness skills, but in an informal way. The other control class followed the normal kindergarten program. The results showed that the children in the experimental group and the Success in Kindergarten group had significantly greater gains in reading and spelling measures given at the end of the year. They also did better on six of the metalinguistic tests, with the experimental group showing significantly greater gains in all the tests of phoneme awareness than the other two groups. The implications of a formal versus informal phonological awareness training program are discussed.     

Morphological,phonological, and orthographic differences between the spelling of normally achieving children and basic literacy adults

In this study, we compared 41 adults in a basic literacy class with 92 achievement-level-matched children on their use of English print conventions, as inferred by a qualitative analysis of spelling errors. The two groups followed similar patterns in their mastery of basic spelling features, including letter reversals, consonant blends, and short vowels, with the adults showing relatively more advanced skill in using orthographic patterns. However, the adults made a preponderance of misspellings that were rarely made by the children, including omissions, substitutions, and additions of derivational and inflectional morphemes, and neglect of word endings in general. The findings indicate clear morphological difficulties along with more subtle phonological coding deficits. We suggest that low literacy adults would benefit from specific direct instruction in linguistic analysis, with particular attention to the morphological principles underlying inflections and derivations. Such instruction should be based on a careful assessment of reading and spelling knowledge.     

Phonological awareness and morphological awareness: differential associations to regular and irregular word recognition in early Korean Hangul readers

A large battery of reading related skills were orally administered to 111 4-year old and 118 5-year old Korean kindergartners, who were also tested on reading of regular and irregular Korean Hangul words. In regression equations, speeded naming was uniquely associated with reading of both regular and irregular words. In contrast, only the three measures of phonological awareness at the levels of phoneme onset, coda, and syllable uniquely explained Hangul regular word recognition, whereas only morphological awareness consistently explained irregular word recognition. Results suggest somewhat different cognitive demands for reading of regular and irregular words, based on the dual-route model, in Korean Hangul.     

词素分析及其在教学中的习得过程

章着重分析了词家——语言的最小单位以及在语言功能中的重要地位,同时也分析了在语言学习和教学中获得词家知识和运用的语言习得过程。     

Clinical appraisal of spelling ability and its relationship to phonemic awareness (blending,segmenting, elision,and reversal), phonological memory,and reading in reading disabled,ADHD, and normal children

Seventy-eight 8-to-12-year-old children (34 ReadingDisabled; 31 Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disordered; and 13diagnosed normal controls) were given a battery oftests including cognitive, linguistic, academic,phonemic awareness, and memory tests. As part of theacademic battery an 8-point spelling rating scale wasdeveloped (Rating Scale) that resulted in threedifferent scores which reliably discriminated amongthe three groups. Relationships between phonemicawareness, phonological memory, reading and spellingwere explored. Zero-order and second-ordercorrelations were completed with indications thatphonemic awareness tasks (elision, blending, reversal,and segmenting) and phonological memory (WISC-IIIDigit Span) are significantly correlated with readingdecoding and spelling measures with slightly highercorrelations with the Rating Scale. Regressionanalyses resulted in a large proportion of thevariance on reading and spelling tasks accounted forby phonemic awareness (particularly elision andreversal) and phonological memory. The ReadingDisabled group was found to produce more errors thatwere phonetically inaccurate than the other twogroups. The demand of spelling ten ``error' wordsbeyond the RD students' achievement level appeared toelicit greater weaknesses in their phonologicalrecoding abilities than in those of the ADHD ornormally achieving students.     

Name writing but not environmental print recognition is related to letter-sound knowledge and phonological awareness in pre-readers

This paper reports a study exploring the associations between measures of two levels of phonological representation: recognition (epi-linguistic) and production (meta-linguistic) tasks, and very early reading and writing skills. Thirty-eight pre-reading Ottawa-area children, aged 4–5 years, named environmental print (EP), wrote their own name, identified correct names and EP words amongst foils and detected foil letters within EP and names. Results showed that phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge were not related to EP recognition. Name writing accuracy and name identification were related to both levels of phonological awareness. Furthermore, name writing showed a unique association with phonological awareness even after letter-sound knowledge was controlled statistically. Pre-readers may first use meta-linguistic phonological awareness in their name writing and identification prior to learning to read.     

Pinch my wig or winch my pig: Spelling,spoonerisms and other language skills

Phonological processing skills have often been assumed to play a minimal role in skilled adult spelling despite evidence showing their importance in the development of spelling skills. The present study investigated the relationship between phonological awareness and spelling in adults. It was hypothesised that subjects demonstrating higher levels of spelling proficiency would also show superior phonological processing skills. This relationship was expected to be mediated by sound-spelling mapping knowledge. Given the irregularities of sound-spelling correspondences in English, it was also predicted that knowledge of orthographic conventions would be related to spelling competency. Two measures of each component skill were used on seventy three university students. As predicted, the importance of spelling-sound mapping skills in spelling were demonstrated, as was a relationship between phonological awareness and spelling-sound correspondences. In addition a moderate correlation was found between orthographic tasks and spelling performance. It was concluded that, among university students at least, phonological ability makes an important contribution to skilled adult spelling.     

The relations between children's linguistic awareness and spelling: The case of the apostrophe

In a longitudinal study, we looked at the link between children'sunderstanding of a morphemically-based orthographic rule and theirawareness of morphemic distinctions. The orthographic rule in question wasthe use of the apostrophe to denote possession in English. Early on in thestudy, we gave the children phonological, semantic/syntactic and morpho-syntactic awareness tasks, and later we gave them a spelling task in whichthey had to write words which were either genitives (e.g., `boy's') ornominative or accusative plurals (e.g., `boys'). Eight- to 10-year-oldchildren found this task difficult, but their performance improved to someextent with age. The morpho-syntactic, but not the phonological orsemantic/syntactic, awareness tasks predicted how well the children placedapostrophes in genitive words and omitted them from plural words. Weconclude that different forms of linguistic awareness affect differentaspects of reading and spelling. Learning about spelling patterns based onmorphemes is heavily influenced by children's morpho-syntactic awarenessbut not, apparently, by other forms of linguistic awareness.     

语音意识研究对大学英语教学的启示

从语音意识的概念入手,明晰了语音意识的内涵。通过回顾国内外相关研究,表明语音意识和英语阅读能力间存在显著正相关关系,文章阐释了语音意识作用于阅读的原因。研究表明,重视语音意识,采取科学的方法对语音意识进行训练是提高大学英语阅读能力的新的有效途径。本文提出了具体的提高语音意识的教学方法。