Cognitive predictors of shallow-orthography spelling speed and accuracy in 6th grade children

Abstract

Spelling accuracy and time course was investigated in a sample of 100 Norwegian 6th grade students completing a standardized spelling-to-dictation task. Students responded by keyboard with accurate recordings of response-onset latency (RT) and inter-keypress interval (IKI). We determined effects of a number of childlevel cognitive ability factors, and of word-level factors-particularly the location within the word of a spelling challenge (e.g., letter doubling), if present. Spelling accuracy was predicted by word reading (word split) performance, non-word spelling accuracy, keyboard key-finding speed and short-term memory span. Word reading performance predicted accuracy just for words with spelling challenges. For correctly spelled words, RT was predicted by non-word spelling response time and by speed on a key-finding task, and mean IKI by non-verbal cognitive ability, word reading, non-word spelling response time, and key-finding speed. Compared to words with no challenge, mean IKI was shorter for words with an initial challenge and longer for words with a mid-word challenge. These findings suggest that spelling is not fully planned when typing commences, a hypothesis that is confirmed by the fact that IKI immediately before within word challenges were reliably longer than elsewhere within the same word. Taken together our findings imply that routine classroom spelling tests better capture student competence if they focus not only on accuracy but also on production time course.& Vibeke Rønneberg

The effect of writing modality on recollection in children and adolescents

“…They gradually become aware of the writing conventions of their own language while simultaneously developing finger dexterity (Dinehart 2015). Similarly, as keyboard proficiency develops, so does spelling accuracy and keyboarding speed with less focus on finding the correct keys (Rønneberg and Torrance 2019). This is also consistent with the keyboarding research conducted by Christensen (2004), in which the texts produced by eighth and ninth graders via keyboarding improved considerably after keyboarding practice.…”

“…However, children aged 10 recalled almost equally well after writing with all three writing modalities. This leads to the question of the keyboarding proficiency of the 11-and 16-year-old participants, which would decrease the amount of attention needed to locate and strike the keys (Rønneberg and Torrance 2019) and would thereby enable the participants to concentrate more on the topic (Berninger and Swanson 1994;Klein 1999) and recall more of the text. Furthermore, for 11-year-olds, a difference was found between the recollection scores of handwriting and touchscreen keyboarding; however, for 16-year-olds the difference between handwriting and touchscreen was not significant.…”

“…As Berninger and Swanson (1994) and Klein (1999) put it, a competent writer by hand can concentrate on the writing topic at a higher level of planning while reviewing the produced text and does not need to concentrate on the graphomotor execution process of writing, which could also be the case in proficient keyboarding. More cognitive resources can be used to process the content, planning and monitoring of writing (Berninger and Swanson 1994;Rønneberg and Torrance 2019;Yeganeh Doost et al 2017). Hence, in this study, we posited that the writing modality can be considered an encoding medium that can leave a significant memory trace.…”

The Reciprocal Relationship Between Handwriting Fluency and Spelling Accuracy in Chinese: A Longitudinal Study

“…Due to the competition of cognitive resources such as attention and memory load, this fluent handwriting is difficult to maintain, so it will continue to affect their handwriting fluency in the later stage. This could also explain why a continued struggle with spelling accuracy in early childhood is more likely to lead to delayed handwriting output, which is detrimental to children's literacy development (Rønneberg and Torrance, 2017). Thus, early spelling accuracy predicts the development of subsequent handwriting fluency.…”

Young Bilingual Children’s Spelling Strategies: A Comparative Study of 6- to 7-Year-Old Bilinguals and Monolinguals

“…While spelling strategies may vary across languages (Mayer et al, 2007, Rønneberg & Torrance, 2019, spelling single words requires the coordination of distinct processes (Czapka, et al, 2019). For young spellers in an alphabetic system, spelling involves segmenting spoken words into phonemes, and knowing letter names/sounds while also understanding the alphabetic principle of mapping a sequence of sounds to represent them graphically onto a sequence of letters (Treiman & Bourassa, 2000, Raynolds & Uhry 2010.…”