Lexical orthographic knowledge develops from the beginning of literacy acquisition

• Published in: Cognition Vol. 91; no. 2; pp. B11 - B22
• Main Authors: Martinet, Catherine, Valdois, Sylviane, Fayol, Michel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.03.2004; Elsevier; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Analogy/frequency effects; Biological and medical sciences; Case Studies; Child; Child development; Cognition; Developmental psychology; Female; First graders; Foreign Countries; France; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Grade 1; Humans; Knowledge; Language; Language acquisition; Lexical knowledge; Lexicology; Literacy; Literacy Education; Male; Orthographic Symbols; Orthography; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reading Instruction; Spelling; Spelling acquisition; Verbal Learning; Vocabulary; Word Frequency; France; Lexical knowledge; Analogy/frequency effects; Spelling acquisition; First graders; Human; Word frequency; Lexicon; Cognition; Experimental study; Orthography; School age; Language; Language development; Child
• ISSN: 0010-0277; 1873-7838
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2003.09.002

This study reports two experiments assessing the spelling performance of French first graders after 3 months and after 9 months of literacy instruction. The participants were asked to spell high and low frequency irregular words (Experiment 1) and pseudowords, some of which had lexical neighbours (Experiment 2). The lexical database which children had been exposed to was strictly controlled. Both a frequency effect in word spelling accuracy and an analogy effect in pseudoword spelling were obtained after only 3 months of reading instruction. The results suggest that children establish specific orthographic knowledge from the very beginning of literacy acquisition.