Learning to read and spell involves learning about the written forms of words and how these are linked to language. Writing systems include formal patterns, which pertain to the appearance of written words, and functional patterns, which pertain to links between units of writing and units of language. We review the evidence that learners of a…

Young Portuguese-speaking children have been reported to produce more vowel- and syllable-oriented spellings than have English speakers. To investigate the extent and source of such differences, we analyzed children's vocabulary and found that Portuguese words have more vowel letter names and a higher vowel-consonant ratio than do English words.…

First graders listened to the pronunciation of single syllable nonsense words and were asked to spell the words. Results showed that, for nonsense words of the form consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant, in which the consonant following the vowel was a nasal or a liquid, children often omitted the second consonant in their spelling. (BC)

Three studies examined preschoolers' and kindergartners' learning of correspondences between phonemes and graphemes. Findings suggest that children use their knowledge of letter names and their phonological segmentation skills rather than memorizing these links in a rote, paired-associate manner. (Contains 26 references.) (Author/LB)

Noting that in previous research, the linguistic status of the unit has often been confounded by its size, five experiments were conducted to provide a better test of the linguistic status hypothesis. Results supported the linguistic status hypothesis by indicating that effects of linguistic level on phonological sensitivity cannot always be…

Examines young children's ability to use simple morphological relations among words as a source of information about the words' spelling. Found that children used morphological relations among words only to a small extent. Suggests that although phonology plays an important role in early spelling, young children can also use other sources of…

This article reviews literature on normal and impaired spelling development, and discusses the influence of consonant clusters, phonetic influences, and the role of letter names. Research that underscores the importance of fine-grained linguistic analyses of spelling performance is described. It is concluded that such an approach holds promise.…

While previous studies have investigated children's awareness of two units within words--syllables and phonemes, there is experimental evidence that children are also aware of intrasyllabic units (units intermediate in size between the syllable and the phoneme), and that these units may be useful for teaching phonological awareness and reading.…