Learning to spell in a language with transparent orthography: Distributional properties of orthography and whole-word lexical processing

• Published in: Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 704 - 716
• Main Authors: Angelelli, Paola, Marinelli, Chiara Valeria, Putzolu, Anna, Notarnicola, Alessandra, Iaia, Marika, Burani, Cristina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2018; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Elementary school students; Italian language; Lexical access; Lexical processing; Nonwords; Orthography; Priming; Spelling; Transcription; Word frequency; Lexical spelling; Lexical priming; Transparent orthography; Spelling acquisition; Distributional properties of orthography
• ISSN: 1747-0218; 1747-0226
• DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1275715

We examined how whole-word lexical information and knowledge of distributional properties of orthography interact in children’s spelling. High- versus low-frequency words, which included inconsistently spelled segments occurring more or less frequently in the orthography, were used in two experiments: (a) word spelling; (b) lexical priming of pseudoword spelling. Participants were 1st-, 2nd-, and 4th-grade Italian children. Word spelling showed sensitivity to the distributional properties of orthography in all children: accuracy in spelling uncommon transcription segments emerged progressively as a function of word frequency and schooling. Lexical priming effects emerged as a function of age. When related primes contained an uncommon segment, 2nd- and 4th-graders preferred uncommon segments than common ones in spelling target pseudowords, thus inverting the response trend found in the control condition. A smaller but significant effect was present in 1st- graders, who, unlike 2nd- and 4th-graders, still preferred common segments, only slightly increasing the use of uncommon ones. A larger priming effect emerged for high-frequency primes than low-frequency ones. Results indicate that children learning to spell in a transparent orthography are sensitive to the distributional properties of the orthography. However, whole-word lexical representations are also used, with larger effects in more skilled pupils.