Background: Most psychologists who study children's reading assume that their hypotheses are relevant to children's success at school. This assumption is rarely tested. Aims: The study's aims were to see whether two successful measures of the processes underlying children's learning to read and write are related to their…

When children start to learn to read English, they benefit from learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences. As they become more skilled, they use larger graphophonic units and morphemes in word recognition and spelling. We hypothesized that these 2 types of units in decoding make independent contributions to children's reading comprehension and…

The purpose of this research was to examine whether adults rely on morphemic spelling rules or word-specific knowledge when spelling simple words. We examined adults' knowledge of two of the simplest and most reliable rules in English spelling concerning the morphological word ending -s. This spelling is required for regular plural nouns (e.g.,…

In our comments on Pacton and Deacon's discussion of children's spelling of morphemes we raise four issues: (1) whether the "timing" question should be about children's ages or about their psychological processes; (2) the crucial importance of individual differences in the study of the connections that people make between morphemes and spelling;…

We report on a study designed to examine children's understanding of (1) the connection between root morphemes and the spelling of inflected words and (2) the role of morphological awareness in this understanding. Seven- to 9-year-old children were given clues (e.g. "turn") to the spelling of inflected and control words (e.g. "turning" and…

Morphemes have a powerful impact on the spellings of words in English. We report on two experiments examining young children's knowledge of the effect of suffix morphemes on spelling. In Experiment 1, 5- to 8-year-olds demonstrated awareness of the role of inflections, but not derivations in spelling. Experiment 2 examined whether children might…

Looks at the link between children's understanding of a morphemically-based orthographic rule and their awareness of morphemic distinctions. Questions the orthographic rule of using the apostrophe to denote possession in English. Concludes that different forms of linguistic awareness affect different aspects of reading and spelling. (SC)

The spelling of words in English is governed in part by the morphemes that make them up. This study examines the strength of children's knowledge of the role of root morphemes in spelling, specifically focusing on whether it can withstand interference by phonological changes. A total of 75 children between seven and nine years of age were given…

It is difficult to transform research evidence into teacher practice; indeed it has been argued that educational research is not very useful to teachers. In this paper, we explore teacher knowledge about a relatively new area of research concerning the role morphemes play in spelling, and seek to transform their practice. We find that although…

It is difficult to transform research evidence into teacher practice; indeed it has been argued that educational research is not very useful to teachers. In this paper, we explore teacher knowledge about a relatively new area of research concerning the role morphemes play in spelling, and seek to transform their practice. We find that although…