Development of spelling skills in a shallow orthography: the case of Italian language

Notarnicola, Angela; Angelelli, Paola; Judica, Anna; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi

doi:10.1007/s11145-011-9312-0

Cited by 42 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…It must be noted that Italian is a language more transparent in reading than it is in spelling, i.e. the relationship between sound and signs in the coding phase is more ambiguous and opaque than the relationship between signs and sounds in the decoding phase (Angelelli et al, 2010;Notarnicola et al, 2012). This characteristic of Italian might explain the high stability of reading across time, and confirms previous studies conducted in transparent writing systems (de Jong & van der Leij, 2002;Landerl & Wimmer, 2008).…”

Section: Stability Of Reading and Writing Parameters At Two Points Insupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Reading rapidity is a more reliable index for the identification of reading difficulties than reading accuracy. According to the studies on spelling development in Italian children, first graders are able to spell with both routes, the sublexical and the lexical ones, even though they mainly rely on the sublexical route, which is mastered quite early, and take more time to optimize the lexical one (Notarnicola et al, 2012;Orsolini et al, 2006). We believe that reading accuracy in first grade and second grade do not correlate as even children who commit many mistakes while reading in first grade become more accurate in the second grade.…”

Section: Stability Of Reading and Writing Parameters At Two Points Inmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Transparent orthographies are more similar to English in spelling than they are in reading. In English the demands on spelling and decoding are similar, while in most transparent orthographies, including Italian (Angelelli, Notarnicola, Judica, Zoccolotti & Luzzatti, 2010;Notarnicola, Angelelli, Judica & Zoccolotti, 2012), the sign to sound correspondence is more consistent than the sound to sign one. For instance, one grammatical feature of the Italian language that can confuse the sound to sign conversion is the apostrophe.…”

Section: Reading-spelling Relationship In Transparent Writing Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

et al. 2015

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The present study examined the relationship between reading (i.e., rapidity and accuracy) and writing competences (i.e., fluency, accuracy, and composition skills) of Italian children in the first and second grade. The performance of seventy-five children was longitudinally assessed over a 2-year period. Results demonstrated that reading and spelling were stable across the first two grades of primary school. Cross-lagged analyses suggested that spelling plays a pivotal role in the acquisition of formal literacy, especially within a transparent writing system like that of our Italian participants. Early progress in spelling becomes a resource for later reading acquisition. However, spelling did not correlate with the composition component of writing, suggesting the independence of these two processes. Results have implications for early childhood educators on the design and delivery of writing and reading instruction.

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Section: Stability Of Reading and Writing Parameters At Two Points Insupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Stability Of Reading and Writing Parameters At Two Points Inmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Reading-spelling Relationship In Transparent Writing Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

et al. 2015

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“…In line with cross-linguistic data, a recent study that investigated spelling acquisition in firstto eighth-grade Italian children (Notarnicola, Angelelli, Judica, & Zoccolotti, 2012) confirmed a prevalent reliance on the sublexical procedure in all grades examined (children being always more accurate on consistent items than on inconsistent ones), with a ceiling effect for stimuli with consistent transcription after only three years of schooling.…”

supporting

confidence: 61%

“…Lexical spelling deficits (e.g., surface dysgraphia), in fact, have been documented in both Italian brain-damaged patients (Luzzatti, Laiacona, Allamano, De Tanti, & Inzaghi, 1998) and children with learning disabilities (Angelelli, Judica, Spinelli, Zoccolotti, & Luzzatti, 2004;Angelelli, Marinelli, & Zoccolotti, 2010;Angelelli, Notarnicola, Judica, Zoccolotti, & Luzzatti, 2010;Angelelli, Putzolu, et al, 2016). Although in consistent orthographies the sublexical procedure is preponderant, evidence of lexical spelling was found to occur very early in spelling development that is, by the end of first grade (for Portuguese, see Fernandes, Ventura, Querido, & Morais, 2008; for Italian, see Notarnicola et al, 2012), supporting the view of a parallel and early acquisition of both lexical and sublexical spelling procedures, which showed, however, differential developmental trends. Thus, in a consistent orthography such as Italian, children may early learn the sublexical phoneme-to-grapheme mappings and prevalently rely on this procedure, which allows them to spell correctly almost all words.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to Spell in a Language with Transparent Orthography: Distributional Properties of Orthography and Whole-Word Lexical Processing

Angelelli

Marinelli

Putzolu

et al. 2017

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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According to the dual-route model (DRM) of spelling, two processes operate in parallel: a lexical procedure, which relies on accessing word-specific orthographic memory, and a sublexical route, which relies on exploiting soundto-spelling regularities (e.g., phoneme-grapheme correspondences). Also according to the DRM, pseudoword spelling and consistency effects (words with consistent transcription spelled better than inconsistent ones) are considered markers of the sublexical procedure; inconsistent word spelling and the lexicality effect (words spelled better than pseudowords) together with word frequency effects (high-frequency stimuli spelled better than lowfrequency ones) are markers of the lexical procedure. The two-route view has been implemented in different spelling models (e.g., Barry, 1994;Hillis & Caramazza, 1991;Patterson, 1986;Perry, Ziegler, & Coltheart, 2002) and has received support from behavioural data derived from both adults with and those without spelling disturbances (for a review see Tainturier & Rapp, 2001) and children learning in various orthographic systems. As far as the ontogenetic acquisition of the two procedures is concerned, cross-linguistic studies have indicated that the more regular the writing system the more children rely on sublexical processing (for an English-Italian comparison see Marinelli, Romani, Burani, & Zoccolotti, 2015 AbstractWe examined how whole-word lexical information and knowledge of distributional properties of orthography interact in children's spelling. High-versus low-frequency words, which included inconsistently spelled segments occurring more or less frequently in the orthography, were used in two experiments: (a) word spelling; (b) lexical priming of pseudoword spelling. Participants were 1st-, 2nd-, and 4th-grade Italian children. Word spelling showed sensitivity to the distributional properties of orthography in all children: accuracy in spelling uncommon transcription segments emerged progressively as a function of word frequency and schooling. Lexical priming effects emerged as a function of age. When related primes contained an uncommon segment, 2nd-and 4th-graders preferred uncommon segments than common ones in spelling target pseudowords, thus inverting the response trend found in the control condition. A smaller but significant effect was present in 1st-graders, who, unlike 2nd-and 4th-graders, still preferred common segments, only slightly increasing the use of uncommon ones. A larger priming effect emerged for high-frequency primes than low-frequency ones. Results indicate that children learning to spell in a transparent orthography are sensitive to the distributional properties of the orthography. However, whole-word lexical representations are also used, with larger effects in more skilled pupils.

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Morpheme‐based Reading and Spelling in Italian Children with Developmental Dyslexia and Dysorthography

et al. 2017

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Italian sixth graders, with and without dyslexia, read pseudowords and low-frequency words that include high-frequency morphemes better than stimuli not including any morpheme. The present study assessed whether morphemes affect (1) younger children, with and without dyslexia; (2) spelling as well as reading; and (3) words with low-frequency morphemes. Two groups of third graders (16 children with dyslexia and dysorthography and 16 age-matched typically developing children) read aloud and spelt to dictation pseudowords and words. Pseudowords included (1) root + suffix in not existing combinations (e.g. lampadista, formed by lampad-, 'lamp', and -ista, '-ist') and (2) orthographic sequences not corresponding to any Italian root or suffix (e.g. livonosto). Words had low frequency and included: (1) root + suffix, both of high frequency (e.g. bestiale, 'beastly'); (2) root + suffix, both of low frequency (e.g. asprigno, 'rather sour'); and (3) simple words (e.g. insulso, 'vapid'). Children with dyslexia and dysorthography were less accurate than typically developing children. Root + suffix pseudowords were read and spelt more accurately than non-morphological pseudowords by both groups. Morphologically complex (root + suffix) words were read and spelt better than simple words. However, task interacted with morphology: reading was not facilitated by low-frequency morphemes. We conclude that children acquiring a transparent orthography exploit morpheme-based reading and spelling to face difficulties in processing long unfamiliar stimuli. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Development of spelling skills in a shallow orthography: the case of Italian language

Cited by 42 publications

References 47 publications

Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

Cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between primary school students’ writing and reading skills

Learning to Spell in a Language with Transparent Orthography: Distributional Properties of Orthography and Whole-Word Lexical Processing

Morpheme‐based Reading and Spelling in Italian Children with Developmental Dyslexia and Dysorthography

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