International audienceThe self-teaching hypothesis suggests that knowledge about the orthographic structure of words is acquired incidentally during reading through phonological recoding. The current study assessed whether visual processing skills during reading further contribute to orthographic learning. French children were asked to read pseudowords. The whole pseudoword letter string was available at once for half of the targets while the pseudoword's sub-lexical units were discovered in turn for the other half. Then memorisation of the targets orthographic form was assessed. Although most pseudowords were accurately decoded, target orthographic forms were recognised more often when the pseudowords entire orthographic sequence was available at once during the learning phase. The whole-word presentation effect was signifi cant and stable from third to fifth grades. This effect was affected neither by target reading accuracy nor by target reading speed during the learning phase. Results suggest that beyond recoding skills, the ability to process the entire orthographic letter string at once during reading contributes to efficient orthographic learning

Lexical orthography acquisition is currently described as the building of links between the visual forms and the auditory forms of whole words. However, a growing body of data suggests that a motor component could further be involved in orthographic acquisition. A few studies support the idea that reading plus handwriting is a better lexical orthographic learning situation than reading alone. However, these studies did not explore which of the cognitive processes involved in handwriting enhanced lexical orthographic acquisition. Some findings suggest that the specific movements memorized when learning to write may participate in the establishment of orthographic representations in memory. The aim of the present study was to assess this hypothesis using handwriting and spelling aloud as two learning conditions. In two experiments, fifth graders were asked to read complex pseudo-words embedded in short sentences. Immediately after reading, participants had to recall the pseudo-words' spellings either by spelling them aloud or by handwriting them down. One week later, orthographic acquisition was tested using two post-tests: a pseudo-word production task (spelling by hand in Experiment 1 or spelling aloud in Experiment 2) and a pseudo-word recognition task. Results showed no significant difference in pseudo-word recognition between the two learning conditions. In the pseudo-word production task, orthography learning improved when the learning and post-test conditions were similar, thus showing a massive encoding-retrieval match effect in the two experiments. However, a mixed model analysis of the pseudo-word production results revealed a significant learning condition effect which remained after control of the encoding-retrieval match effect. This later finding suggests that orthography learning is more efficient when mediated by handwriting than by spelling aloud, whatever the post-test production task.

L'acquisition des connaissances orthographiques lexicales est un processus complexe, encore mal compris. Cette acquisition se fait en grande partie de façon implicite au cours de la lecture. Elle dépendrait alors de la qualité du décodage et d'autres facteurs restant à préciser. Des données théoriques et certains premiers résultats empiriques suggèrent que le traitement visuel simultané de toutes les lettres du mot est un facteur important pour l'acquisition de son orthographe spécifique. L'étude présentée ici vise à vérifier cette hypothèse en fin d'école primaire et avec différents délais entre lecture du mot et test orthographique. Lors d'une phase de lecture, on manipule la possibilité pour les participants de traiter toutes les lettres des mots simultanément. La reconnaissance de l'orthographe des mots est ensuite évaluée après un délai de un ou sept jours. Les résultats confirment que la possibilité de prise d'information simultanée du mot entier pendant la lecture favorise la mémorisation de son orthographe, quel que soit le délai de restitution.

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