Learning to spell words in Spanish: a comparative analysis / La escritura de palabras en castellano: un análisis comparativo

Abstract

This article examines the cognitive mechanisms involved in word spelling in Spanish, a consistent/shallow orthographic system, as opposed to an inconsistent/deep system. The article examines the two basic spelling mechanics according to the dual-route modelthe phoneme-grapheme route and the orthographic routeas well as two additional mechanisms, one exploiting the sub-lexical orthographic regularities and the other morphological knowledge. Although there is insufficient evidence to allow definitive conclusions, it is suggested that the mechanisms involved in word spelling are qualitatively the same in all orthographic systems, whatever their degree of consistency-depth. The quantitative differences observed show that consistent systems such as Spanish are acquired more rapidly than less consistent systems.

A study of writing mechanisms in Spanish primary education children / Estudio de los mecanismos de escritura en niños españoles de Educación Primaria

“…Studies on Spanish suggest that the use of lexical knowledge and writing automaticity occur earlier in Spanish than in French. They present about a year earlier (Alegría & Carrillo, 2014; Defior & Serrano, 2005; Jiménez et al, 2008), possibly due to the transparency of the Spanish orthographic system, since accuracy would favour the formation of orthographic representations as the self-teaching theory suggests (Share, 1999).…”

“…Estos resultados coinciden con estudios en francés, donde se observa que antes de los ocho años la producción de las letras es muy lenta y la interacción de los procesos centrales y motores parece ser muy limitada, mientras que en torno a los 9–11 años el movimiento es rápido y automático, además de presentar un acceso directo a las representaciones ortográficas (Halsband & Lange, 2006; Kandel et al, 2009; Kandel & Perret, 2015). Estudios en castellano sugieren que el uso del conocimiento léxico y la automaticidad de la escritura se produce antes en castellano que en francés, en torno a un año antes (Alegría & Carrillo, 2014; Defior & Serrano, 2005; Jiménez et al, 2008) posiblemente por la transparencia del sistema ortográfico castellano, pues la exactitud favorecería la formación de las representaciones ortográficas como sugiere la teoría del selfteaching (Share, 1999).…”

“…Estudios en castellano sugieren que el uso del conocimiento léxico y la automaticidad de la escritura se produce antes en castellano que en francés, en torno a un año antes (Jiménez et al, 2008;Alegría & Carrillo, 2014;Defior & Serrano, 2005) posiblemente por la transparencia del sistema ortográfico castellano, pues la exactitud favorecería la formación de las representaciones ortográficas como sugiere la teoría del selfteaching (Share, 1999).…”

Assessing the efficacy of a Tier 2 early intervention for transcription skills in Spanish elementary school students

“…However, since most of the current empirical evidence on training transcription skills cited above comes from English, a language with deep orthography, it is very relevant to investigate whether similar results are found in a language with a shallow and fine-grained orthography such as Spanish. In fact, comparative studies show differences in the speed at which basic spelling mechanisms are acquired, demonstrating that learning is faster in consistent orthographic systems than in inconsistent systems (Alegría & Carrillo, 2014;Carrillo et al, 2013). To date, several studies have examined the efficacy of interventions to support the development of writing skills in Spanish struggling writers who received twice-weekly, parent-delivered training in transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) (Arrimada et al, 2018).…”

Spelling errors by Spanish children when writing in English as a foreign language

“…And yet, children face a challenge when they learn it as a foreign language, partly because of English orthographic depth and inconsistency. Consistency refers to how regular grapheme-phoneme and phoneme-grapheme translation rules are (Alegría & Carrillo, 2014). Orthographic depth is the extent to which the orthography is a phonetic representation of speech (Katz & Feldman, 2017).…”