Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T21:17:06.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Preschoolers use partial letter names to select spellings: Evidence from Portuguese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

TATIANA CURY POLLO ,
REBECCA TREIMAN  and
BRETT KESSLER
TATIANA CURY POLLO*
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
REBECCA TREIMAN
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
BRETT KESSLER
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Tatiana Cury Pollo, Washington University, Campus Box 1125, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130. E-mail: tpollo@wustl.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two studies examined children's use of letter–name spelling strategies when target phoneme sequences match letter names with different degrees of precision. We examined Portuguese-speaking preschoolers' use of h (which is named /a′ga/ but which never represents those sounds) when spelling words beginning with /ga/ or variants of /ga/. We also looked at use of q (named /ke/) when spelling /ke/ and /ge/. Children sometimes used h for stimuli beginning with /ga/ and /ka/, and q when spelling words and nonwords beginning with /ke/ and /ge/ they did not use these letters when stimuli began with other sequences. Thus, their spellings evinced use of letter-name matches primarily when consonant-vowel sequences matched, such that vowels must be exact but consonants could differ in voicing from the target phoneme.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 195 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Beers, J. W. (1980). Developmental strategies of spelling competence in primary school children. In Henderson, E. H. & Beers, J. W. (Eds.), Developmental and cognitive aspects of learning to spell: A reflection of word knowledge (pp. 36–45). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Google Scholar
Cardoso-Martins, C., & Batista, A. C. E. (2005). O conhecimento do nome das letras e o desenvolvimento da escrita: Evidência de crianças falantes do Português [Letter-name knowledge and the development of spelling skills: Evidence from Portuguese-speaking children]. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 18, 330–336.Google Scholar
Chall, J. S. (1967). Learning to read: The great debate. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Corrêa, M. F., Cardoso-Martins, C., Lemos, L. S., & Souza, R. F. N. (2003, October). O papel do conhecimento das letras na aquisição da leitura e da escrita [The role of letter knowledge in reading and spelling acquisition]. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.Google Scholar
Durrell, D. D. (1980). Letter-name values in reading and spelling. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 159–163.Please cite Durrell 1980 in the text.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foulin, J. N. (2005). Why is letter-name knowledge such a good predictor of learning to read? Reading and Writing, 18, 129–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Phonetic Association. (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levin, I., Patel, S., Margalit, T., & Barad, N. (2002). Letter names: Effect on letter saying, spelling, and word recognition in Hebrew. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 269–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martins, M. A., & Silva, C. (2001). Letter names, phonological awareness and the phonetization of writing. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 4, 605–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBride-Chang, C. (1999). The ABC's of the ABC's: The development of letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 45, 285–308.Google Scholar
Pinheiro, A. M. V. (1996). Contagem de freqüência de ocorrência de palavras expostas a crianças na faixa pré-escolar e séries iniciais do 1° grau [Frequency counts of words encountered by children in preschool and the initial grades of elementary school]. São Paulo, Brazil: Associação Brasileira de Dislexia.Google Scholar
Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2005). Vowels, syllables, and letter names: Differences between young children's spelling in English and Portuguese. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 161–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rack, J., Hulme, C., Snowling, M., & Wightman, J. (1994). The role of phonology in young children learning to read words: The direct-mapping hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 57, 42–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, C. (1975). Children's categorization of speech sounds in English (NCTE Res. Rep. No. 17). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.Google Scholar
Read, C. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Treiman, R. (1993). Beginning to spell: A study of first-grade children. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R. (1994). Use of consonant letter names in beginning spelling. Developmental Psychology, 30, 567–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R., Broderick, V., Tincoff, R., & Rodriguez, K. (1998). Children's phonological awareness: Confusions between phonemes that differ only in voicing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 68, 3–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2003). The role of letter names in the acquisition of literacy. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 31, 105–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (2006). Learning about the letter name subset of the vocabulary: Evidence from U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 211–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R., & Rodriguez, K. (1999). Young children use letter names in learning to read words. Psychological Science, 10, 334–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R., & Tincoff, R. (1997). The fragility of the alphabetic principle: Children's knowledge of letter names can cause them to spell syllabically rather than alphabetically. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 64, 425–451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., Tincoff, R., Rodriguez, K., Mouzaki, A., & Francis, D. J. (1998). The foundations of literacy: Learning the sounds of letters. Child Development, 69, 1524–1540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R., Weatherston, S., & Berch, D. (1994). The role of letter names in children's learning of phoneme-grapheme relations. Applied Psycholinguistics, 15, 97–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worden, P. E., & Boettcher, W. (1990). Young children's acquisition of alphabet knowledge. Journal of Reading Behavior, 22, 277–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar