Predicting Later Spelling from Kindergarten Spelling in U.S., Australian, and Swedish Children.

Purpose: Using data from 1,868 children from the US, Australia, and Sweden who took a 10-word spelling test in kindergarten and a standardized spelling test in Grades 1, 2, and (except for the Australian children) Grade 4, we examined two questions. First, does the quality of a child's errors on the kindergarten test help predict later spelling performance even after controlling for the number of correct responses on the kindergarten test? Second, does spelling develop at a faster pace in Swedish than in English?

Method: We measured kindergarten error quality based on the number of letter additions, deletions, and substitutions needed to transform each error into the correct spelling. Using mixed-model analyses, we examined the relationship of this and other variables to later spelling performance.

Spelling-to-sound translation for English disyllables: Use of long and short vowels before single medial consonants.

The English writing system is often seen as having rules that govern the choice between alternative pronunciations of letters but as having many exceptions to the rules. One postulated rule, the V̄|CV rule, is that a vowel is pronounced as long rather than short when it is followed by a single consonant letter plus a vowel letter. We find, in an analysis of English disyllabic words, that exceptions to the V̄|CV rule are not randomly scattered throughout the vocabulary.

Number and Syllabification of Following Consonants Influence Use of Long Versus Short Vowels in English Disyllables.

Spelling-to-sound translation in English is particularly complex for vowels. For example, the pronunciations of ‹a› include the long vowel of ‹pper› and ‹scred› and the short vowel of ‹cctus› and ‹hppy›. We examined the factors that are associated with use of long versus short vowels by conducting analyses of English disyllabic words with single medial consonants and consonant sequences and three behavioral studies in which a total of 119 university students pronounced nonwords with these structures.

Double trouble: Using spellings of different lengths to represent vowel length in English.

Much previous research on spelling and reading development has focused on single-syllable words. Here we examined disyllables, asking how learners of English mark the distinction between short and long first-syllable vowels by use of vowel digraphs and double-consonant digraphs. In a behavioral study, we asked participants in Grade 2 (n = 32, mean age ∼8 years), Grade 4 (n = 33, mean age ∼10 years), Grade 6 (n = 32, mean age ∼12 years), and university (n = 32; mean age ∼20 years) to spell nonwords with short and long first-syllable vowels.

Prephonological spelling and its connections with later word reading and spelling performance.

Before children are able to invent phonologically plausible spellings of words, they may produce strings of letters that do not seem to be motivated by the sounds in words. To examine the nature of these prephonological spellings and their relationship to later literacy performance, we administered a test in which children spelled a series of words using preformed letters, together with other literacy-related tests, to 106 U.S.