Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words

Abstract

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.

An evaluation of spelling pronunciations as a means of improving spelling of orthographic markers

“…However, contrary to our expectations training children to use spelling pronunciations as cues for their spelling attempts did not turn out to be more efficient than the control condition, neither for poor nor for age-adequate spellers. This finding is in contrast to earlier findings indicating that spelling pronunciations are an efficient means to help children to work out how exactly the letters of a word spelling map onto the sounds of the according pronunciation (Bosman et al, 2006;Drake & Ehri, 1984;Hilte & Reitsma, 2006;Landerl et al, 2007).…”

“…Thus, in that study spelling pronunciations showed a beneficial effect over and above the effects of repeated spelling (with corrective feedback if necessary) of the training words. The findings are in accordance with earlier studies with English and Dutch speaking children (Bosmann, van Hell, & Verhoeven, 2006;Drake & Ehri, 1984;Hilte & Reitsma, 2006) also showing benefic ial effects of spelling pronunciations for both normally developing and poor spellers for irregularly spelled foreign and loan words. Findings by Holmes and Malone (2004) suggest that overpronunciation of word spellings is a widely used strategy to memorize difficult spellings among adults, while Ormrod and Jenkins (1989) report that children do not use such a strategy spontaneously.…”

“…Hilte, Bos, and Reitsma (2005) e also found that loan words with large deviations from transparent spelling profited more from spelling pronunciations than Dutch words that had only small deviations from transparent spelling. Thus, the earlier studies, in English (Drake & Ehri, 1984), in Dutch (Bosman et al, 2006;Hilte et al, 2005;Hilte & Reitsma, 2006) and one in our own lab (Landerl et al, 2007) suggest that spelling pronunciations are an efficient means to help childre n to store word spellings in orthographic memor y. The training words of the studies in German and Dutch were irregular spelled loan words.…”

Computer-based learning of spelling skills in children with and without dyslexia

“…This helps to improve both reading and spelling skills in children with dyslexia (Ecalle et al, 2009). An additional multimedia program was developed for children, in order to help them build up a relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representation, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondence in Dutch (Hilte & Reitsma, 2006). The findings of this study indicate that practice with spelling pronunciations is as beneficial as practice with visual preview, and it is significantly more effective than practice with normal pronunciation (Hilte & Reitsma, 2006).…”

The Role of Instruction for Spelling Performance and Spelling Consciousness

“…Numerous studies focused on the best ways to memorize a word's spelling (e.g., Bosman, van Hell, & Verhoeven, 2006;Hilte & Reitsma, 2006;Hubbert, Weber, & McLaughlin, 2000); ways to learn a spelling rule (e.g., Darch, Eaves, Crowe, Simmons, & Conniff, 2006;Hilte & Reitsma, 2011;Kemper, Verhoeven, & Bosman, 2012); and how to encourage students to apply spelling rules in a structured way (e.g., Butyniec-Thomas & Woloshyn, 1997;Paffen & Bosman, 2005). 1 An important insight is that spelling regularities have to be made explicit, spelling rules need to be explained, and the application of spelling rules has to be practiced until mastery (Berninger et al, 1998;Henry, 1989).…”