Article published in:
Spelling Acquisition in Cross-linguistic Settings
Edited by Susie Russak and Elena Zaretsky
[Written Language & Literacy 25:1] 2022
► pp. 40–66

Concurrent predictors of spelling accuracy in secondary education in a semi-consistent orthography

The role of non-phonological spelling strategies

| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Spelling is a complex skill that requires mobilizing various levels of linguistic and orthographic representation. While there is substantial evidence of the impact of phonological skills in its development, less is known about the explanatory value of non-phonological (e.g., morphological, orthographic) strategies in conventional spelling scores. This study assessed the unique impact of non-phonological spelling strategies after accounting for a large set of linguistic and cognitive predictors, as well as contextual variables (e.g., SES) in a language with a semi-consistent orthography: Catalan. Participants were 328 eighth-grade students from low-income households. Results showed that non-phonological spelling skills explained a substantial proportion of the variance in conventional spelling, over and above the rest of predictor variables, including phonographic skills, with the final model explaining more than 80% of the variance. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.

Keywords: spelling development, phonological strategies, non-phonological strategies, triple word-form theory, POMAS, Catalan orthography
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Spelling is best looked at from strategy use
    • 1.2Several skills underlie conventional spelling accuracy
    • 1.3Catalan orthography
    • 1.4The current study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Tasks and measures
      • 2.2.1Raven’s matrices
      • 2.2.2Verbal short-term memory
      • 2.2.3Working memory
      • 2.2.4Inhibition
      • 2.2.5RAN
      • 2.2.6Vocabulary
      • 2.2.7Morphosyntax
      • 2.2.8Word reading
      • 2.2.9Handwriting
      • 2.2.10Spelling
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Non-phonological spelling strategies
    • 3.2Predictors of conventional spelling
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 07 June 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00060.sal
References
Alamargot, Denis, & Lucile Chanquoy
(2001) Through the models of writing: with commentaries by Ronald T. Kellogg & John R. Hayes. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alloway, Tracy P. & David Gregory
(2013) The predictive ability of IQ and Working Memory scores in literacy in an adult population. International Journal of Educational Research 571: 51–56, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alves, Rui A., Limpo, Teresa, Salas, Naymé, & Joshi, R. Malatesha
(2018) Handwriting and spelling. In S. Graham, Ch. A. MacArthur, & M. Hebert (Eds.), Best practices in writing instruction, 211–239, Routledge.Google Scholar
Apel, Kenn, Elizabeth B. Wilson-Fowler, Danielle Brimo, & Nancy A. Perrin
(2012) Metalinguistic contributions to reading and spelling in second and third grade students. Reading and writing 251: 1283–1305, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bahr, Ruth H., Elaine R. Silliman, Virginia W. Berninger, & Michael Dow
(2012) Linguistic pattern analysis of misspellings of typically developing writers in grades 1– 9. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research 551: 1587–1599, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bahr, Ruth H., Ellaine R. Silliman, Robin L. Danzak, & Loise Wilkinson
(2015) Bilingual spelling patterns in middle school: it is more than transfer. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 181: 73–91, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bel, Aurora
(2003) The syntax of subjects in the acquisition of Spanish and Catalan. Probus 151: 1–26, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berninger, Virginia, Cheryl Yates, Ana Cartwright, Judith Rutberg, Elizabeth Remy, & Robert Abbott
(1992) Lower-level developmental skills in beginning writing. Reading and Writing 41: 257–280, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berninger, Virginia W.
(1999) Coordinating transcription and text generation in working memory during composing: Automatic and constructive processes. Learning Disability Quarterly 221: 99–112, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brandenburg, Janin, Julia Klesczewski, Anne Fischbach, Kirsten Schuchardt, Gerhard Büttner, & Marcus Hasselhorn
(2015) Working memory in children with learning disabilities in reading versus spelling. Searching for overlapping and specific cognitive factors. Journal of Learning Disabilities 481: 622–634, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, Markéta, Arne Lervåg, Petroula Mousikou, Corina Efrim, Miroslav Litavský, Eduardo Onochie-Quintanilla, et al.
(2012) Common patterns of prediction of literacy development in different alphabetic orthographies. Psychological Science 231: 678–686, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, Markéta & Anna Samara
(2015) Learning to read and spell words in different writing systems. The Oxford Handbook of Reading: 326–343.Google Scholar
Cuetos, Fernando, David Arribas, & José Luis Ramos
(2016) PROLEC-SE-R–Batería para la evaluación de los procesos lectores en secundaria y bachillerato-revisada. Madrid: TEA Ediciones.Google Scholar
Cutler, Anne, Dennis Norris, & Núria Sebastián-Gallés
(2004) Phonemic repertoire and similarity within the vocabulary. In 8th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (Interspeech 2004-ICSLP): 65–68. Seoul: Sunjijn Printing Co. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deacon, S. Hélène, Nicole Conrad, & Sébastien Pacton
(2008) A statistical learning perspective on children’s learning about graphotactic and morphological regularities in spelling. Canadian Psychology 491: 118–124, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deacon, S. Hélène, John R. Kirby, Melissa Casselman-Bell
(2009) How Robust is the Contribution of Morphological Awareness to General Spelling Outcomes? Reading Psychology, 301: 301–318, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Defior, Sylvia, Jesús Alegría, Rosa Titos, & Francisco Martos
(2008) Using morphology when spelling in a shallow orthographic system: the case of Spanish. Cognitive Development 231: 204–215, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Devonshire, Victoria, Paula Morris, & Michael Fluck
(2013) Spelling and reading development: the effect of teaching children multiple levels of representation in their orthography. Learning and Instruction 251: 85–94, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ding, Yuan, Liping Li, & Xinchun Wu
(2020) The reciprocal relationship between handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy in Chinese: A longitudinal study.” Frontiers in Psychology 111, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Wilfrid J. & Kareb K. Yuen
(1974) Trimming and winsorization: A review. Statistische Hefte 151: 157–170, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferreiro, Emilia & Ana Teberosky
(1979) Los sistemas de escritura en el desarrollo del niño. Buenos Aires:Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Field, Andy
(2009) Discovering statistics using SPSS: (and sex and drugs and rock’n’roll). Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.Google Scholar
Ganzeboom, Harry B. G., Paul M. De Graaf, & Donalnd J. Treiman
(1992) A standard international socio-economic index of occupational status. Social Science Research 211: 1–56, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gillis, Steven, and Dorit Ravid
(2006) Typological effects on spelling development: a crosslinguistic study of Hebrew and Dutch. Journal of Child Language 331: 621–659, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Adam C., Joshua Wilson, & Rod D. Roscoe
(2017) College student perceptions of writing errors, text quality, and author characteristics. Assessing Writing 341: 72–87, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kandel, Sonia, & Cyril Perret
(2015) How does the interaction between spelling and motor processes build up during writing acquisition? Cognition 1361: 325–336, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Young-Suk, Stephanie Al Otaiba, Cynthia Puranik, Jessica Sidler Folsom, & Luana Gruelich
(2014) The contributions of vocabulary and letter writing automaticity to word reading and spelling for kindergartners. Reading & writing 271: 237–253, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kline, Rex B.
(2011) Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling, 3rd Edn. New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Lervåg, Arne & Charles Hulme
(2010) Predicting the Growth of early spelling skills: Are there heterogeneous developmental trajectories? Scientific Studies of Reading 141: 485–513, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lew-Williams, Casey & Jenny R. Saffran
(2012) All words are not created equal: Expectations about word length guide infant statistical learning. Cognition 1221: 241–246, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Llauradó, Anna, M. Antònia Martí, & Liliana Tolchinsky
(2012) Corpus CesCa: compiling a corpus of written Catalan produced by school children. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 171: 428–441, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Llauradó, Anna & Liliana Tolchinsky
(2016) The developmental pattern of spelling in Catalan from first to fifth school grade. Writing Systems Research 81: 64–83, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCutchen, Deborah
(2000) Knowledge, processing, and working memory: Implications for a theory of writing. Educational Psychologist 351: 13–23, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Menichelli, Alina, Brend Rapp, and Carlo Semenza
(2008) Allograph agraphia: A case study. Cortex, 441: 861–868, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nunes, Terezinha, Peter Bryant, and Myriam Bindman
(1997a) Morphological spelling strategies: developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology 331: 637–649, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1997b) Learning to spell regular and irregular verbs. Reading & Writing 91: 427–449, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pacton, Sébastien, and S. Hélène Deacon
(2008) The timing and mechanisms of children’s use of morphological information in spelling: a review of evidence from English and French. Cognitive Development 231: 339–359, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prieto, Pilar
(2004) Els Sons del Català. Malappuram: UOC.Google Scholar
Pritchard, Verena E., Stephanie A. Malone & Charles Hulme
(2020) Early Handwriting Ability Predicts the Growth of Children’s Spelling, but Not Reading, Skills. Scientific Studies of Reading, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rapp, Brenda and Alfonso Caramazza
(1997) From graphemes to abstract letter shapes: Levels of representation in written spelling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 231: 1130–1152, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raven, J. C., J. H. Court, & J. Raven
(1996) Raven. Matrices progresivas. Madrid: TEA.Google Scholar
Read, Charles
(1971) Pre-school children’s knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Review 411: 1–34, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richards, Todd L., Elizabeth H. Aylward, Katherine M. Field, Amie C. Grimme, Wendy Raskind, Anne L. Richards, William Nagy et al.
(2006) Converging evidence for triple word form theory in children with dyslexia. Developmental neuropsychology 301: 547–589, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rittle-Johnson, Bethany, and Robert S. Siegler
(1999) Learning to spell: variability, choice, and change in children’s strategy use. Child Development 701: 332–348, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salas, Naymé
(2020) Non-phonological strategies in spelling development. Frontiers in Psychology, 111, 1071. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salas, Naymé, & Silvente, Sara
(2020) The role of executive functions and transcription skills in writing: A cross-sectional study across 7 years of schooling. Reading and Writing, 33(4), 877–905. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Savage, Robert, Vanitha Pillay, & Santo Melidona
(2008) Rapid serial naming is a unique predictor of spelling in children. Journal of Learning Disabilities 411: 235–250, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schloneger, Rachel M.
(2016) Is this author intelligent? The effect of spelling errors on perception of authors. Linguistics Senior Research Projects 21: 1–29.Google Scholar
Sénéchal, Monique
(2000) Morphological effects in children’s spelling of French words. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale 541:76–86, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shanahan, Timothy
(1984) Nature of the reading–writing relation: An exploratory multivariate analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology 761: 466–477. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silliman, E. R., Bahr, R. H., and Peters, M. L.
(2006) Spelling patterns in preadolescents with atypical language skills: phonological, morphological, and orthographic factors. Dev. Neuropsychol. 291, 93–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strauss, Esther, Elizabeth M. S. Sherman, & Otfried Spreen
(2006) A compendium of neuropsychological tests: Administration, norms, and commentary (3rd ed.). New York, NY, US: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Suárez-Coalla, Paz, Marta Álvarez-Cañizo, and Fernando Cuetos
(2016) Orthographic learning in Spanish children. Journal of Research in Reading, 391: 292–311, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sumner, Emma, Vincent Connelly, & Anna L. Barnett
(2014) The influence of spelling ability on handwriting production: Children with and without dyslexia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 401: 1441, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tainturier, M. J., & B. C. Rapp
(2004) Complex graphemes as functional spelling units: Evidence from acquired dysgraphia. Neurocase 101: 122–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tolchinsky, Liliana, Iris Levin, Dorit Aram, & Chatherine McBride-Chang
(2012) Building literacy in alphabetic, abjad and morphosyllabic systems. Reading and Writing, 251: 1573–1598, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Treiman, Rebecca, Jacqueline Hulslander, Richard K. Olson, Erik G. Willcutt, Brian Byrne, & Brett Kessler
(2019) The unique role of early spelling in the prediction of later literacy performance. Scientific Studies of Reading 231: 437–444, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Treiman, Rebecca
(2004) Phonology and spelling. In Terezinha Nunes & Peter Bryant (eds), Handbook of Children’s Literacy, 31–42. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017) Learning to spell words: findings, theories, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading 211: 265–276, DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Treiman, Rebecca & Brett Kessler
(2006) Spelling as statistical learning: Using consonantal context to spell vowels. Journal of Educational Psychology 981: 642–652. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wechsler, D.
(2005) Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fourth Edition, Spanish. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment.Google Scholar