Spelling as a self‐teaching mechanism in orthographic learning

Abstract

The present study examined the possibility that spelling fulfils a self-teaching function in the acquisition of orthographic knowledge because, like decoding, it requires close attention to letter order and identity as well as to word-specific spelling-sound mapping. We hypothesised that: (i) spelling would lead to significant (i.e. above-chance) levels of orthographic learning; (ii) spelling would actually result in superior learning relative to reading owing to the additional processing demands invoked when spelling; (iii) there would be stronger outcomes for post-test spelling production compared with spelling recognition; and (iv) relative to reading, spelling would produce superior orthographic learning in the case of later-occurring orthographic detail compared with information appearing earlier in the letter string. In a fully within-subjects design, third grade Hebrew readers were exposed to novel letter strings presented in three conditions: spelling, reading and an unseen control condition. With the exception of the position by condition interaction (our fourth hypothesis), which, although in the expected direction, failed to attain significance, all hypotheses were supported. These data highlight yet another dimension of reading-writing reciprocity by suggesting that spelling offers a powerful selfteaching tool in the compilation of word-specific orthographic representations.The acquisition of orthographic knowledge, whether represented in localist (e.g. Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon & Ziegler, 2001) or distributed architectures (Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg & Patterson, 1996), is agreed to be one of the cornerstones of literacy. This knowledge consists of both word-specific orthographic representations critical for rapid automatised word recognition (and proficient spelling) and generalised (i.e. productive) knowledge of orthographic conventions (Siegel, Share & Geva, 1995). According to the self-teaching hypothesis (Jorm & Share, 1983;Share, 1995), this knowledge is accumulated largely via the process of phonologically recoding (i.e. decoding) novel letter strings -all letter strings being unfamiliar at some point. Each successful decoding encounter with an unfamiliar letter string is assumed not only to enable the reader to identify unfamiliar words independently but also, perhaps more importantly, to provide an opportunity to acquire and consolidate word-specific (and general) orthographic information. This exhaustive (or near-exhaustive) decoding process 1 is held to be critical in forming well-specified orthographic representations because it draws attention to the order and identity of letters and how they map phonological representations. In a sense then, the decoding process helps the reader see the 'logic' of a word's spelling, that is, the spelling-sound mapping. Thus, phonological

The influence of graphotactic knowledge on adults’ learning of spelling

“…Experiment 3 used a different task, one in which participants copied the items after they were presented but were not told that their memory for the items would later be tested. Previous studies suggest that writing words leads to better learning of their spellings than does reading them (e.g., Bosman & van Orden, 1997;Shahar-Yames & Share, 2008;Van Leerdam, Bosman, & Van Orden, 1998), perhaps because writing forces people to process every letter. We thus predicted that participants in Experiment 3 would perform better than the participants in the implicit condition of Experiment 2, perhaps as well as participants in the explicit condition of that experiment.…”

Recodificación Fonológica y Formación de Representaciones Ortográficas en Español

“…Estudios que analizaron otros mecanismos de aprendizaje de la ortografía más allá de la lectura encontraron un desempeño superior en los sujetos que habían escrito las pseudopalabras meta que en aquellos casos en los cuales los ítems solamente habían sido leídos o deletreados oralmente (Shahar-Yames & Share, 2008). Podría hipotetizarse que el proceso de escritura podría ser un mecanismo con mayor potencia que la lectura para la formación de representaciones ortográficas (Bosman & Van Orden, 1997), ya que en el proceso de escritura se deben procesar todas y cada una de las letras en orden fijo y de manera lineal (Shahar-Yames…”

Effets d’encodages visuel (lecture) et visuo-graphomoteur (copie) sur les productions en dictée de pseudomots en 1re et 2e années élémentaires

“…Des différences interindividuelles trop marquées auraient l'inconvénient d'introduire un biais dans les données, raison pour laquelle il nous a semblé nécessaire, à la suite d'autres travaux (e.g. Bosse, Chaves et Valdois, (2014) ;Bürki, Spinelli et Gaskell, 2012;Cunningham et al, 2002;Nation et al, 2007;Shahar-Yames et Share, 2008;Share, 1999Share, , 2004Share, , 2008 de nous assurer que les participants n'avaient jamais été exposés aux items proposés.…”