Knowing what we don’t know: cognitive correlates of early spelling of different target types

Abstract

Although research on cognitive correlates of spelling has been conducted, these studies generally do not distinguish between different types of targets that need to be spelled. Arguably, the contributions of these skills differ for words opposed to pseudowords and for targets that can be spelled on the basis of phoneme-to-grapheme conversion (phonologically consistent) and those that cannot (phonologically inconsistent, relying on orthographic knowledge). We assessed these issues in early spelling. A total of 83 first graders and 58 second graders completed word and pseudoword dictation tasks, containing phonologically consistent and inconsistent items. They also completed tasks reflecting potential cognitive correlates of spelling: phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming, visual attention span and word reading. Dictation outcomes demonstrated that more spelling errors were made in inconsistent than in consistent items. The effect of lexicality differed across grades: More errors were made in spelling words than pseudowords in Grade 1, whereas the opposite pattern was found in Grade 2. Phoneme awareness and rapid naming, but not visual attention span, were found to be significant correlates of spelling outcomes. However, the cognitive correlates captured only a limited amount of variance in spelling errors. Moreover, these effects mostly disappeared once word reading was entered as a predictor. These findings indicate that research into predictors of spelling should distinguish between words and pseudowords, consistent and inconsistent items, and should consider more spelling-based rather than reading-based correlates of spelling performance. Keywords Consistency • Phoneme awareness • Rapid automatised naming • Spelling • Visual attention span • Word type Elise de Bree and Madelon van den Boer have contributed equally to this work.

Predictors of single word spelling in English speaking children: a cross sectional study

“…The outcome remained the same when the order of the variables was reversed in the regression analysis, with PA added last and VAS correct arrays added first. Thus, our findings are consistent with studies suggesting that at least for more advanced spellers, PA and RAN do not make a significant contribution to spelling over and above the contribution of VAS (de Bree & van den Boer, 2019; van den Boer et al, 2015).…”

“…In accordance with previous findings, the advanced spellers were more accurate than the beginning spellers (also de Bree & van den Boer, 2019, for Dutch children). Also, we found strong associations between reading and spelling, which confirm previous findings (de Bree & van den Boer, 2019; Georgiou et al, 2019). Spelling skill for both beginning and more advanced spellers was strongly associated with all the cognitive correlates apart from RAN objects for the beginning spellers and VSTM for the advanced spellers.…”

“…We also found that VAS was a strong predictor of English spelling for the beginning spellers. De Bree and van den Boer (2019) failed to find such an association and suggested that VAS is a lexically related variable rather than a sublexical one. A possible explanation for the different findings could be due to differences in the transparency between the two orthographies, English and Dutch.…”

“…The overall aim of the study was to examine cognitive variables associated with single word spelling and to investigate differences between beginning and advanced spellers that might inform theoretical models. This aspect of spelling development is rarely captured in existing studies (de Bree & van den Boer, 2019, for a study in Dutch) and less so in English. Hence, it is still unclear whether sublexical and lexical processing is differentially employed over time, as suggested by both the LQH and DR model.…”

“…We, therefore, considered RAN as a likely predictor of spelling, but its alliance with sublexical or lexical processing might be determined by spelling skill. If RAN and spelling are correlated because both rely on visual serial processing and phonological representations (de Bree & van den Boer, 2019; de Jong, 2011; Moll et al, 2009; Protopapas et al, 2018), then RAN should be more important for beginning spellers. However, if the association is determined by the ability to establish orthographic representations (Bar‐Kochva & Nevo, 2019; Stainthorp et al, 2013), one should expect that the association between RAN and spelling will be stronger for more advanced spellers.…”