Cognitive, linguistic and print-related predictors of preschool children’s word spelling and name writing

Abstract

Preschool children begin to represent spoken language in print long before receiving formal instruction in spelling and writing. The current study sought to identify the component skills that contribute to preschool children's ability to begin to spell words and write their name. Ninety-five preschool children (mean age ¼ 57 months) completed a battery of cognitive, linguistic, as well as print-related measures, including spelling/writing tasks (i.e. letters, words and name). All writing samples were scored Downloaded from using scoring matrices and inter-rater reliability was 90% and above. Hierarchical linear regression was conducted for word spelling, indicating that after controlling for age and IQ, the model of best fit included expressive vocabulary, working memory, blending, letter naming and letter writing ability. Logistic regression was conducted for name writing, indicating that the model that included age, expressive vocabulary, letter naming and letter writing identified preschool children who wrote their name conventionally and those who could not. Letter writing explained unique variance in both word spelling and name writing, and phonological awareness explained unique variance in word spelling only. These findings suggest that different processes underlie word spelling and name writing, supporting the consideration of a dual-route model of children's early spelling and writing ability.

A cross-language study of decontextualized vocabulary comprehension in toddlerhood and kindergarten readiness.

“…Kindergarten readiness taps into components on the developmental continuum of emergent literacy (e.g., narrative and recognition of letters and numbers in print). Specifically, narrative skills mediate the relation between early language and emergent literacy in kindergarten (Gardner-Neblett & Iruka, 2015), letter naming contributes to preschool writing (Milburn et al, 2016), and number naming is a strong predictor of later numeracy (Koponen, Aunola, Ahonen, & Nurmi, 2007). The focus of kindergarten readiness is on a specific set of skills that children possess at the point in the continuum that they enter school.…”

Neuropsychological Perspective on Dyslexia

“…Similarly, subjects with dyslexia may present deficits in auditory perceptual processing and speech perception, problems in the sequential perception of phonemes, low discrimination of frequencies and amplitudes in rapid temporal sequences, and deficits in perceived sound, place and point of articulation in phonemes [21,22]. Dyslexics may also present deficits in auditory and phonological memory, with problems in the storage and retrieval of verbal information, which sustain deficits in phonological knowledge and problems in grapheme-phoneme conversion [23][24][25]. Other manifestations of dyslexia occur in knowledge of letters (the name and sound of the letter, and establishing the relationship between grapheme and sound), prosody (deficits in the perception of the tonic syllable of the word, pseudo-words and in sequences of syllables), phonological knowledge (deficits in perceiving and manipulating speech segments), RAN (slow naming of alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric elements) and executive function (use and control of cognitive and metacognitive abilities).…”

“…Subjects with dyslexia also have deficits in auditory and phonological memory (Table 5). Dyslexics have difficulties storing phonological items and retrieving or repeating them immediately [23][24][25]. Difficulties in phonological memory can justify difficulties in phonological knowledge for awareness and in the grapheme-phoneme association, which requires retention and retrieval of phonological information.…”

A study on the emergence of sound-sign correspondence in Italian-speaking 5-year-old pre-schoolers

“…Pre-schoolers' sensitivity to the characteristics of signs and letters is well-documented in the literature (Neumann et al, 2012). Preschool children, in order to best develop conceptual knowledge of their writing system, reflect upon the different symbolic systems used to represent meanings (e.g., written language, numerical language, and drawing), make spontaneous attempts to represent words in print (Milburn et al, 2017;Ouellette and Sénéchal, 2017) and try to systematically match the sounds included in words with signs that are not necessarily conventional (which should be distinguished from the letters of the alphabet) (Treiman and Kessler, 2013;Puranik et al, 2014). In particular, pre-schoolers' notational awareness is a key component of the Emergent Literacy Model by Pinto et al (2009Pinto et al ( , 2018Pinto and Incognito, 2022) for Italian children.…”