Abstract
Graphotactic knowledge and word-specific orthographic knowledge have been shown to account for unique variance in concurrent spelling skills beyond phonological skills in the early school years.The present study examined whether knowledge of spelling patterns conditioned by phonological context would add to the concurrent prediction of spelling among 133 Danish fifth graders.Findings from other orthographies (e.g., English and German) were replicated, in that measures of graphotactic knowledge and word-specific orthographic knowledge accounted for unique variance in spelling beyond phonological decoding. However, the results went further by demonstrating that a measure of knowledge of conditional spelling patterns was an independent predictor of spelling.The findings indicate that children learning to spell in the opaque Danish orthography use multiple sources of knowledge to guide their choice of spellings and call for increased attention to conditional spelling patterns in literacy instruction.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Research in Reading |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 313–332 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| ISSN | 0141-0423 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2017 |