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.

Letter Features as Predictors of Letter-Name Acquisition in Four Languages with Three Scripts.

To expand our understanding of script-general and script-specific principles in the learning of letter names, we examined how three characteristics of alphabet letters-their frequency in printed materials, order in the alphabet, and visual similarity to other letters-relate to children's letter-name knowledge in four languages with three distinct scripts (English [ = 318; age = 4.90], Portuguese [ = 366; age = 5.80], Korean [ = 168; age = 5.

Word class and spelling in English.

The spelling of an English word may reflect its part of speech, not just the sounds within it. In 2 preregistered experiments, we asked whether university students are sensitive to 1 effect of part of speech that has been observed by linguists: that content words (e.g.

Letter Teaching in Parent-Child Conversations.

Talk about letters is an important part of the home literacy environment. Such talk has been studied primarily through questionnaires, but these are limited in the amount of information they provide. Here we analyzed conversations between 55 U.

Use of Letter Names Benefits Young Children's Spelling.

We studied how children begin to produce spellings that reflect the sounds in words. We asked 75 U.S.

Development of context-sensitive pronunciation in reading: The case of ‹c› and ‹g›.

Writing systems sometimes deviate from one-to-one associations between letters and phonemes, but the deviations are often predictable from sublexical context. For initial ‹c› and ‹g› in English, deviations from the typical /k/ and /g/ pronunciations are influenced by adjacent context (the following vowel, as in center vs. canter) and nonadjacent context (the presence of a Latinate vs.

What Methods of Scoring Young Children's Spelling Best Predict Later Spelling Performance?

Background: Children's spellings are often scored as correct or incorrect, but other measures may be better predictors of later spelling performance.

Method: We examined seven measures of spelling in Reception Year and Year 1 (5-6 years old) as predictors of performance on a standardized spelling test in Year 2 (age 7).

Results: Correctness was the best predictor of later spelling by the middle of Year 1, and it significantly outperformed a binary measure of phonological plausibility at the end of Reception Year.

Statistical learning and spelling: Evidence from Brazilian prephonological spellers.

We analyzed the spelling attempts of Brazilian children (age 3 years, 3 months to 6 years, 0 months) who were prephonological spellers, in that they wrote using letters that did not reflect the phonemes in the words they were asked to spell. We tested the hypothesis that children use their statistical-learning skills to learn about the appearance of writing and that older prephonological spellers, who have had on average more exposure to writing, produce more wordlike spellings than younger prephonological spellers. We found that older prephonological spellers produced longer spellings and were more likely to use letters and digrams in proportion to their frequency of occurrence in Portuguese.

Statistical Learning and Spelling.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide a tutorial on statistical learning and its role in learning to spell and to discuss the implications of the research for educators.

Method: The tutorial begins with a discussion of statistical learning and its characteristics. It then discusses research on how statistical learning plays out in learning to spell, how spelling should be taught, and similarities and differences among learners.

Correction to: Phonological and graphotactic influences on spellers' decisions about consonant doubling.

Please note that, because of an error in the production process, many of the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols were missing from the originally published pdf version of the article, both in the main text and in the Appendix.

Children benefit from morphological relatedness independently of orthographic relatedness when they learn to spell new words.

We examined whether French children in Grades 3 and 5 (aged ∼ 8-11 years) benefit from morphological relatedness beyond orthographic relatedness in the implicit learning of new spellings. Children silently read stories that included two target nonwords. One nonword was in an opaque condition in that nothing in the story could justify the spelling of its final sound.

Preschoolers' knowledge about language-specific properties of writing.

According to the differentiation hypothesis, young children's attempts to write show characteristics common to all writing systems, such as linearity. Characteristics that are specific to the writing system of the child's culture emerge only later. We tested this hypothesis by presenting adults who knew both Chinese and English with written productions of Chinese and United States 2- to 5-year-olds and asking them to judge the nationality of the writer.

Phonological and graphotactic influences on spellers' decisions about consonant doubling.

Even adults sometimes have difficulty choosing between single- and double-letter spellings, as in spinet versus spinnet. The present study examined the phonological and graphotactic factors that influence adults' use of single versus double medial consonants in the spelling of nonwords. We tested 111 adults from a community sample who varied widely in spelling ability.

Differentiation of Writing and Drawing by U.S. Two- to Five-Year-Olds.

To investigate preschoolers' knowledge about symbol systems, we compared the written and drawn productions of 2-5-year-old U.S. children.

Parent-child conversations about literacy: a longitudinal, observational study.

Conversations about literacy-related matters with parents can help prepare children for formal literacy instruction. We studied these conversations using data gathered from fifty-six US families as they engaged in daily activities at home. Analyzing conversations when children were aged 1;10, 2;6, 3;6, and 4;2, we found that explicit talk about the elements and processes of reading and writing occurred even when children were less than two years old and became more common as children grew older.

Statistical Learning and Spelling: Older Prephonological Spellers Produce More Wordlike Spellings Than Younger Prephonological Spellers.

The authors analyzed the spellings of 179 U.S. children (age = 3 years, 2 months-5 years, 6 months) who were prephonological spellers, in that they wrote using letters that did not reflect the phonemes in the target items.

Learning to spell: Phonology and beyond.

An understanding of the nature of writing systems and of the typical course of spelling development is an essential foundation for understanding the problems of children who have serious difficulties in learning to spell. The present article seeks to provide that foundation. It argues that the dual-route models of spelling that underlie much existing research and practice are based on overly simple assumptions about how writing systems work and about how spelling skills develop.

Chinese children's early knowledge about writing.

Much research on literacy development has focused on learners of alphabetic writing systems. Researchers have hypothesized that children learn about the formal characteristics of writing before they learn about the relations between units of writing and units of speech. We tested this hypothesis by examining young Chinese children's understanding of writing.

Measures of Kindergarten Spelling and Their Relations to Later Spelling Performance.

Learning the orthographic forms of words is important for both spelling and reading. To determine whether some methods of scoring children's early spellings predict later spelling performance better than do other methods, we analyzed data from 374 U.S.

Characteristics of Print in Books for Preschool Children.

Children begin to learn about the characteristics of print well before formal literacy instruction begins. Reading to children can expose them to print and help them learn about its characteristics. This may be especially true if the print is visually salient, for studies suggest that prereaders pay more attention to such print than to print that is visually less salient.