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Spelling as a self-teaching mechanismin orthographic learningDaphna Shahar-Yames and David L. Share
University of Haifa
The present study examined the possibility that spelling fulfils a self-teachingfunction in the acquisition of orthographic knowledge because, like decoding, itrequires close attention to letter order and identity as well as to word-specificspellingsound mapping. We hypothesised that: (i) spelling would lead to significant(i.e. above-chance) levels of orthographic learning; (ii) spelling would actually resultin superior learning relative to reading owing to the additional processing demandsinvoked when spelling; (iii) there would be stronger outcomes for post-test spellingproduction compared with spelling recognition; and (iv) relative to reading, spellingwould produce superior orthographic learning in the case of later-occurringorthographic detail compared with information appearing earlier in the letter string.In a fully within-subjects design, third grade Hebrew readers were exposed to novelletter strings presented in three conditions: spelling, reading and an unseen controlcondition. With the exception of the position by condition interaction (our fourthhypothesis), which, although in the expected direction, failed to attain significance,all hypotheses were supported. These data highlight yet another dimension ofreadingwriting reciprocity by suggesting that spelling offers a powerful self-teaching tool in the compilation of word-specific orthographic representations.
The acquisition of orthographic knowledge, whether represented in localist (e.g.
Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon & Ziegler, 2001) or distributed architectures (Plaut,
McClelland, Seidenberg & Patterson, 1996), is agreed to be one of the cornerstones of
literacy. This knowledge consists of both word-specific orthographic representations
critical for rapid automatised word recognition (and proficient spelling) and generalised
(i.e. productive) knowledge of orthographic conventions (Siegel, Share & Geva, 1995).
According to the self-teaching hypothesis (Jorm & Share, 1983; Share, 1995), this
knowledge is accumulated largely via the process of phonologically recoding (i.e.
decoding) novel letter strings all letter strings being unfamiliar at some point. Each
successful decoding encounter with an unfamiliar letter string is assumed not only to
enable the reader to identify unfamiliar words independently but also, perhaps more
importantly, to provide an opportunity to acquire and consolidate word-specific (and
general) orthographic information. This exhaustive (or near-exhaustive) decoding
process1 is held to be critical in forming well-specified orthographic representations
because it draws attention to the order and identity of letters and how they map
phonological representations. In a sense then, the decoding process helps the reader see
the logic of a words spelling, that is, the spellingsound mapping. Thus, phonological
Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2007.00359.xVolume 31, Issue 1, 2008, pp 2239
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
recoding is assumed to fulfil a self-teaching function, enabling the reader to inde-
pendently acquire the orthographic representations crucial for skilled word recognition.
The self-teaching notion has now received support from a modest number of empirical
studies (Bowey & Miller, 2007; Bowey & Muller, 2005; Cunningham, 2006;
Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich & Share, 2002; de Jong & Share, 2007; Kyte & Johnson,
2006; Nation, Angell & Castles, 2007; Share, 1999, 2004; Share & Shalev, 2004).
Collectively, these studies have demonstrated rapid and durable orthographic learning via
self-teaching across orthographies of varying transparency as well as in both oral and
silent reading. Furthermore, levels of orthographic learning have been shown to be
closely tied to levels of target word decoding whether the latter are naturally occurring or
created artificially via experimental manipulation (Bowey & Miller, 2007; Cunningham,
2006; Cunningham et al., 2002; Kyte & Johnson, 2006; Share, 1999; Share & Shalev,
2004; but see Nation et al., 2007).
Decoding, however, is not the only process that has been hypothesised to have a self-
teaching function. For example, the role of context as a supplementary (but not stand-
alone) source of self-teaching has also been debated (see, e.g., Landi, Perfetti, Bolger,
Dunlap & Foorman, 2006; Martin-Chang, Levy & ONeill, 2007; Share, 1995; Tunmer &
Chapman, 1998). The present investigation considers another candidate process that
might fulfil a self-teaching function in the growth of orthographic knowledge spelling.
Our study was motivated by the idea that the process of spelling, like the process of
decoding, requires the writer to attend to orthographic details (letter identity and order)
and sub-lexical print-to-sound relationships in a comprehensive manner. Several lines of
evidence are consistent with the idea that spelling influences reading.
First, there are longitudinal studies of early (preschool/kindergarten) writing that have
revealed significant predictive relationships with later first-grade reading (e.g. Mann,
Tobin & Wilson, 1987; Morris & Perney, 1984; Shatil, Share & Levin, 2000). Second,
longitudinal studies employing causal modelling techniques have reported a direct causal
pathway from spelling to reading (e.g. Berninger, Abbot, Abbot, Graham & Richards,
2002; Ellis & Cataldo, 1990; Shanahan, 1984). Finally, this causal link has been directly
confirmed in experimental training studies. In their study of a group of kindergarten
children, Ehri and Wilce (1987) taught their experimental group to segment and spell
(with the aid of letter tiles) words and pseudowords printed in phonetically simplified
spellings. The control group practised associating letters with isolated sounds. The
experimental group was found to be more successful than the control group learning to
read words comprising trained letters. Replicating and extending the Ehri and Wilce
findings, Uhry and Shepherd (1993) found that training first graders in segmenting and
spelling phonetically regular words (using lettered blocks) improved their pseudoword
reading ability, real-word reading and even oral text reading speed and accuracy.
It should be noted, however, that both these studies of spelling training among
beginning readers may be demonstrating general benefits of superior working knowledge
of the alphabetic code among children still learning the rudiments of print-to-sound
decoding rather than word-specific orthographic knowledge of the kind on which
automatised skilled word recognition depends. In this regard, it is worth remarking that
theoretical models of reading/spelling development (e.g. Frith, 1985) often place the
locus of spelling-to-reading benefits at the initial code-breaking stage. However, a study
by Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) provides some clues on the issue of acquiring
word-specific spellings because, unlike the previous two studies, this study examined the
contribution of spelling to first-graders reading and spelling for a set of words, most of
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 23
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
which have highly unpredictable spellings, which depend heavily on word-specific
orthographic knowledge (e.g. type, buy, calf, sign). This particular study focused
specifically on the contribution of the motor component in handwriting to spelling and
reading by comparing three modes of spelling, namely handwriting, computer keyboard
typing and manipulating letter tiles. Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) found superior
spelling outcomes among children who wrote words using pencil and paper (using the
Simultaneous Oral Spelling technique), compared with typing them on a computer or
manipulating letter tiles (experiment 1). In their second experiment, although handwriting
once again was superior to the other two spelling conditions, there were no significant
differences between the three conditions on reading. Nonetheless, it is important to note
that after spelling training children in all three conditions successfully read approximately
8 of the 30 training items compared with only 4 at pre-test. Unfortunately, spelling
success was very low (averaging o1 in 10 words correct). Because at least six wordscould be spelled successfully on a purely phonetic basis (e.g. small, check, shelf, man,
help, tell, car and possibly tribe), it is unclear to what extent word-specific orthographic
knowledge had been acquired. This potential problem also applies to the reading
outcomes. The data from these three experimental training studies among beginning
readers, therefore, remain inconclusive. The present study sets out to address the issue of
the contribution of spelling to the acquisition of word-specific orthographic knowledge
among somewhat older children (Grade 3) who, in Hebrews highly regular orthography,
are well past the initial code-learning stage.
As a general prediction, we hypothesised that spelling would yield significant (i.e.
above chance) orthographic learning in view of the fact that, like decoding, spelling
requires letter-by-letter consideration of word-specific spellingsound (or more precisely
soundspelling) relationships (Perfetti, 1997). Beyond this general prediction, however,
we suspected that spelling might actually lead to superior orthographic learning
compared with decoding in view of the greater processing demands involved in spelling
(Bosman & van Orden, 1997). In the process of spelling unfamiliar words, the writer
must segment the spoken form into its component phonemes. This same phoneme
segmentation skill has been shown to be one of the most powerful predictors of early
reading (see, e.g. Share, Jorm, Maclean & Matthews, 1984). Given the fact that most
orthographies have multiple ways of representing many phonemes (Daniels & Bright,
1996), the writer must select the correct word-specific grapheme associated with each
phoneme. Even when spelling highly familiar words, the writer is obliged to retrieve the
elements of the visual form of the word whereas reading only requires recognition
(Perfetti, 1997). When spelling, furthermore, the writer must process each and every
letter. In reading, on the other hand, the orthographic representation may be less than
fully specified yet sufficient for word identification, particularly when encountered in
meaningful context (Holmes & Carruthers, 1998).
According to the self-teaching hypothesis, the initial encounter with an unfamiliar
word is likely to be exhaustive or near-exhaustive but it seems likely that subsequent
occurrences, especially in connected text, may be less exhaustive. In spelling, however,
each and every spelling obliges the writer to process the complete letter array. In view of
these differences, we hypothesised that, relative to reading, spelling would provide
superior orthographic learning in the case of later-occurring orthographic detail compared
with earlier-occurring information. Thus, we predicted an interaction between learning
condition (reading versus spelling) and position (earlier-occurring versus later-occurring
orthographic information).
24 SHAHAR-YAMES and SHARE
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
Another unique dimension of spelling likely to enhance orthographic learning concerns
the motor-kinesthetic aspects of spelling production (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990;
Graham & Weintraub, 1996). In this regard, it is noteworthy that there exists a long-
venerated tradition of multi-sensory teaching, emphasising the importance of tactile-
kinesthetic information in the process of writing as a technique for remediating reading
difficulties (Fernald, 1943; Gillingham & Stillman, 1956; Hulme, 1983; Montessori,
1915; Orton, 1928). The stated rationale for these practices is that the movements made
when writing (or tracing) the shapes and sequence of letters in a word are crucial in
providing additional associative links between spelling and sound. Several empirical
studies have now supported this assumption (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990; Hulme &
Bradley, 1984; Hulme, Monk & Ives, 1987). Consequently, we anticipated that spelling
would have an added advantage over reading in the case of orthographic learning tasks
that require production of the target spelling compared with mere recognition that does
not invoke motor-kinesthetic processes.
Finally, it should be acknowledged that beyond the individual elements enumerated
above, spelling demands the integration of multiple sources of information from several
modalities including visual-perceptual, motor-kinesthetic and linguistic information
(Abbot & Berninger, 1993; Graham & Weintraub, 1996). Understandably, the process of
spelling typically requires more time than decoding.
To recap, we predicted not only that spelling a novel word would lead to significant
orthographic learning but also that spelling would actually be superior to reading (i.e.
decoding). In addition, we expected this advantage to be most clearly evident in the case
of spelling production compared with spelling recognition. Finally, we predicted that the
advantage of spelling over reading would be more pronounced for later-occurring
orthographic detail compared with earlier-occurring detail, that is, we expected an
interaction between learning condition and target letter position.
These hypotheses were tested in a sample of third grade (i.e. post-novice) Hebrew
readers. In a fully within-subjects design, each child was exposed to novel letter strings
(legal pseudowords) in three conditions: reading, spelling and a control (unseen)
condition. A week later, orthographic learning was assessed using measures of spelling
production and spelling recognition (orthographic choice).
Method
Sample
This study took place in several third grade classrooms in two regular schools in an area
of Haifa considered to be of average socioeconomic status. One of these schools is
situated in the city of Haifa (n5 19) and the other in the Haifa periphery (n5 26). Fifty-three parents gave written consent for their children to participate in this study. Eight
children failed to complete all three testing sessions (several of whom were very weak
readers), leaving a final sample of 45 participants all native-born Israelis (19 boys and
26 girls) with a mean age of 8.9 years (range, 8.410.0; SD, 3.80 months). All participants
were native Hebrew speakers with the exception of one child whose native tongue was
Russian and two other participants who spoke Hebrew and Russian at home (all three of
them showed the same pattern of results).
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 25
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
The reading ability of this sample was slightly above national norms. Table 1 presents
data on standardised tests of isolated word and pseudoword reading of the research
sample and the national norms (Shany, Lachman, Shalem, Bahat & Zeiger, 2006). This
sample scored 90% on word reading accuracy (national norm, 82%), read at a rate of 45
words per minute (wpm) (norm, 40), scored 72% on pseudoword reading accuracy (there
are no national norms for this measurement) and read at a rate of 24wpm (norm,
19wpm). This instrument yields a percentile-rank-based classification divided into eight
categories (ranging from the lowest 1st7th percentile to the highest 90th percentile
and above). Our sample included children representing all but one (the lowest) of these
eight percentile bands.
Design
This study was a fully within-subjects design with three conditions: reading, a reading-
and-spelling composite and a control condition. Each participant was exposed to four
target pseudowords in each of the three conditions 12 targets in all. Target items were
rotated across conditions in order to neutralise any uncontrolled item differences. In
addition, each target appeared in two alternate homophonic spellings with half of the
sample seeing one spelling and half the other. Each target pseudoword was embedded in
a pair of sentences, for example, Taguam is a very distant land. Taguam lies beyond the
hills of darkness. Order of conditions was also rotated across subjects.
The study was carried out in three consecutive sessions each separated by an interval of
a week. The first two sessions included a learning phase (exposure to the targets and
sentences) two targets in each of the two experimental conditions (reading and reading/
spelling) and, in the second and third sessions, the post-testing of targets from the
previous meeting. Post-testing also included the control condition in which targets which
were not previously seen were post-tested. Thus, in the first session, the children were
exposed to two targets in the reading condition and two in the reading/spelling condition.
A week later, these four targets were post-tested together with another two (unseen)
control items. Immediately following post-testing, another four targets were viewed
two in the reading and two in the reading/spelling conditions. The third and final session
was devoted to post-testing these four items and a further two control items.
Learning phase
Spelling. This condition consisted of reading followed by spelling because the learning
of new orthographic forms via spelling alone has limited ecological validity.2 Furthermore,
Table 1. Scores (means, standard deviations and percentiles) on standardised reading tests (Shany et al.,
2006) of isolated word and pseudoword reading regarding accuracy (% errors) and fluency (wpm) for the
research sample (n5 45) compared to national norms.
Standardised tests Sample National norms
M (SD) Percentiles M (SD)
Reading isolated words accuracy (% errors) 10.08 (6.07) 6580 18.4 (15.67)
Reading isolated words fluency (wpm) 45.48 (14.47) 6580 39.54 (16.87)
Pseudoword reading (% errors) 27.75 (15.17) * *
Pseudoword reading (wpm) 24.21 (7.51) 6580 19.32 (8.31)
*There are no national norms for pseudoword reading accuracy for the third grade.
26 SHAHAR-YAMES and SHARE
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
when spelling words, the writer is likely to read the production in order to check spelling.
Thus, reading is often an inseparable part of spelling (Ehri, 2000; Perfetti, 1997).
In the spelling condition, the participant first read a target pseudoword that appeared in
each of two consecutive sentences (mean sentence length, 5.4 Hebrew words; range, 47
words) and then was asked to write down the target from memory with the sentences
removed from sight. For the first spelling production the target word was spoken aloud
(dictated) by the experimenter. The childs spelling was then removed from sight and
then he or she was requested to write it out again. On this occasion, the target was not
named. In this condition, therefore, each participant was exposed to the target five times
twice in reading, twice via spelling and once in spoken form.
Reading. In this condition, the participant only read the targets. These were embedded in
the same sentences as the spelling condition. However, in this condition, each pair of
sentences was read twice instead of once, making a total of four target exposures.
Immediately after sentence reading a comprehension question was posed orally in which
the target word was specifically named. For example, after reading Akezet is a serious
disease. You wouldnt want to get Akezet, the participant was asked Whats akezet? The
dual aim here (apart from ensuring reading for meaning) was: (i) to provide an additional
exposure to the spoken form of the target, thereby matching the spelling condition as
described above; and (ii) to extend the overall processing time in the reading condition to
make it more comparable to the spelling condition, which pilot work had indicated was a
lengthier procedure.
Control. The targets in this condition were neither seen nor heard, only post-tested.
Target words
The pool of target words was selected on the basis of suitability established in prior work
at comparable ages (Share, 1999, 2004; Share & Shalev, 2004). Each of the target words
used in the present study contained at least two homophonic letters comprising four of
the six pairs of homophonic consonantal letters that exist in Hebrew (the words that were
used as stimuli are presented in the Appendix). It is worth noting that items with two (or
even more) homophonic letters are very common in Hebrew as approximately one-third
of Hebrew phonemes can be transcribed by means of two alternate (homophonic) letters
a feature that creates considerable challenges in the acquisition of spelling (Geva &
Siegel, 2000; Ravid, 2002). Word length varied between four and six (consonantal) letters
(M5 4.7 letters). Although a majority of these items were bisyllabic, this set also includedfour three-syllable and one four-syllable words. We chose to present our targets in a
meaningful context to establish ecological validity and ensure that children read for meaning.
Post-tests of orthographic learning
Two measures of orthographic learning were administered 1 week after exposure to target
words and sentences.
Spelling production. In this dictation task, participants were requested to write a target
word named by the experimenter. Productions were scored for both overall spelling
accuracy (either as correct or incorrect) and accuracy of producing the two critical target
letters.
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 27
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
Orthographic choice. In this measure of orthographic learning, four fully homophonic
spellings of the target were presented. This foursome included all four combinations of
the two target letters, that is, the original spelling that appeared in the learning phase and
three homophonic foils.
Composite orthographic learning. Following Cunningham et al. (2002), we also
combined the above two tasks into a single composite measure by averaging the
(standardised) scores for spelling production and orthographic choice. The production
component was derived by averaging standardised scores for overall (whole-word)
spelling success and target letter spellings. An identical pattern of results was also
obtained when we used only whole-word spelling or only target letter spelling as the
spelling production measure.
Assessment of general reading ability
Two reading tasks were administered to gauge overall levels of reading ability in this
sample. These were two recently standardised tests of word and pseudoword reading
accuracy and fluency that supplied national norms (the Alef-to-Taf Battery for the
Diagnosis of Reading and Writing Disabilities according to National Norms; Shany et al.,
2006).
Reading isolated words (Shany et al., 2006). This test of oral reading accuracy and
fluency contains a list of 38 words varying in frequency, length and morphological
structure.
Pseudoword reading (Shany et al., 2006). The test of pseudoword reading accuracy and
fluency includes 33 words, of which 24 are structured according to the conventions of
Hebrew morphology and an additional nine are morphologically novel items.
Procedure
The experiment was conducted with individual children over three separate testing
sessions. These sessions took place during regular school hours in a separate room
allocated to the researchers.
As already indicated, session 1 included a learning phase in which children read two
targets (embedded in meaningful sentences) and spelled another two targets (with the
order counterbalanced across participants). At the beginning of the first session, the
Shany et al. (2006) word reading test was administered to establish minimal reading
competence. Although this test revealed several very weak readers, two of whom failed to
complete all the sessions, no child was dropped from the sample purely on the basis of
their standardised test result. A week later, session 2 began with the tests of orthographic
learning for the four targets learned in session 1 as well as two unseen control words. This
was followed by exposure to two more targets in reading and two more in spelling. The
final session, session 3, took place 7 days later and included the post-tests for the session
2 words together with the remaining two control items. Immediately afterwards,
participants completed the standardised tests of general reading ability. Finally, the Shany
et al. (2006) pseudoword reading test was administered.
The session began by showing the child a card with two printed sentences. The child
was asked to read the sentences aloud as accurately as possible. In the case of the spelling
28 SHAHAR-YAMES and SHARE
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
condition, the child was also told that he or she would be asked to write something. The
child was also told that the experimenter would be measuring time with a stopwatch and
would be recording the childs reading with an audiotape recorder. The researcher hand-
recorded the total time elapsing between the commencement of reading the first word and
the response given to the comprehension question (in the reading condition) or the final
letter spelled (in the spelling condition). Errors committed while reading and spelling the
target words were also recorded.
Reading condition. Instructions were as follows: Read aloud the sentence on the card,
then turn the card over and read the next sentence. After the child finished reading both
sentences, he or she was asked to repeat this procedure. After completing this (thereby
having read the target words four times), the comprehension question was given. No
assistance was given with either reading the sentences or the comprehension question.
Only general non-contingent encouragement was given during reading and questioning.
Spelling. In this condition, children were first asked to read aloud the two sentences as in
the reading condition. After they had read each of the two sentences once, they were
given a piece of paper and asked to write the target word named by the experimenter.
This piece of paper was then removed and the child was asked to write the word once
again (this time without any mention of the pronunciation). If the child was unsure about
the spelling, he or she was told to try to write the word as best he or she could. No
additional help was given.
Session 2
The second session contained two parts post-testing and exposure to new targets. The
first part tested orthographic learning of the targets seen a week earlier and included both
spelling production and orthographic choice. These two measures were administered in a
fixed order spelling production and then orthographic choice. (No order effects have
been found with these measures, see Share, 2004.)
Post-test spelling (dictation). Each participant was asked to write a spoken target. If the
child seemed unsure, he or she was told to write it as best he or she could.
Orthographic choice. Following spelling, the child was presented with a page with the
four homophonic spellings of the target and requested to indicate the correct target. This
procedure was repeated for all six of the targets. The order of the six targets as well as the
location of the correct spelling among the four alternatives were rotated from subject to
subject.
The second part of this session was devoted to reading and spelling the remaining four
targets.
Session 3
This final meeting involved only the post-testing of the four targets (and two controls)
from the second session a week earlier. The standardised test of pseudoword reading was
then administered. This list was left until last in order to avoid any possible interference
with the target pseudowords.
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 29
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
Results
Target word decoding in the exposure/learning phase
Table 2 presents the data on reading and writing success during initial exposure to the
targets read in the two experimental conditions.
It can be seen from Table 2 that in both conditions performance levels were high the
vast majority of targets were accurately decoded and spelled (unassisted). It is also
evident that the level of spelling success matched decoding success. Fortuitously, there
were no significant differences between any of these figures (all t values were less than
unity). Thus, not only was decoding accuracy in the two conditions similar but also
spelling success was comparable to reading success both within the reading/spelling
condition and across the conditions; that is, spelling success matched the reading success
in the reading-only condition.
The fact that similar levels of success were achieved in both the reading and spelling
conditions is gratifying in that it ensures that comparisons of orthographic learning across
the two conditions are not confounded by initial differences in learning at the time of
exposure.
Post-test orthographic learning
In this study overall post-test orthographic learning was first evaluated by comparing
target spelling reproduction (spelling) and identification (orthographic choice) to chance
levels. In the case of spelling the complete letter string in which a range of errors are
possible (e.g. letter omission, interpolation, transposition, etc.), performance was
compared with the control condition alone.
If no orthographic learning had taken place, it would be expected that correct
reproduction of the critical target letters would be 50% per letter, or 25% for the correct
production of both letters. For three of the four homophonic letters, there were only two
phonologically plausible letters.3
Table 3 presents the post-test orthographic learning data (means and standard
deviations in percentages) across the three conditions (reading, reading/spelling and
control).
Above-chance levels of orthographic learning in reading and spelling conditions
First, it can be seen that levels of performance were very close to chance in the control
condition in which targets were only post-tested without any prior exposure. The
Table 2. Mean accuracy (in percentages) and standard deviations for target reading/writing in reading and
spelling conditions, length of time spent reading (or reading-and-spelling) in the two conditions (in seconds)
and percent response accuracy for comprehension questions (reading condition only) (n5 45).
Condition Target
decoding/spelling
(% accuracy)
Duration of
time spent in
condition in seconds
Reading
comprehension
(% accuracy)
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
1. Reading 82.9 (22.90) 23.4 (3.23) 93.9 (12.10)
2. Reading/spelling 85.3 (15.94) 27.5 (4.10)
Reading 86.1 (17.52)
Spelling 84.4 (22.63)
30 SHAHAR-YAMES and SHARE
r United Kingdom Literacy Association 2008
Table3.Post-testorthographiclearning(m
eansandstandarddeviationsin
percentages)acrossthreeconditions(control,reading,reading/spelling)with
tvalues
andeffect
size
(Eta
Squared)(n545).
Post-testmeasure
Condition
Control
Reading
Spelling
Reading/Control
Reading/Spelling
Spelling/Control
M(S
D)
M(S
D)
M(S
D)
tZ2
tZ2
tZ2
Spellingproduction
Whole
word
22.2a(19.38)
26.1a(19.91)
37.8b(25.35)
0.93
.19
2.36
*.11
3.39
**
.21
Target
letters(n52)
47.8a(14.91)
54.7b(14.67)
61.9c(19.02)
2.05
*.09
2.04
*.09
4.00
**
.27
Letter1
46.7a(23.60)
55.0ab(18.92)
60.0b(29.39)
1.80
.07
.99
.02
2.51
*.13
Letter2
48.9a(20.61)
54.4ab(25.16)
63.9b(22.96)
1.08
.03
1.68
.06
3.48
**
.22
Orthographic
choice(4-choice)
23.9a(21.29)
37.4b(20.61)
41.9b(26.02)
2.82
**
.15
.86
.02
3.46
**
.21
Composite
orthographic
learning(z)
0.79a(1.39)
0.07b(1.68)
0.67c(1.36)
2.67
**
.14
2.12
*.09
4.81
**
.35
No
te:Superscriptsindicatedifferencesbetweenconditions;conditionswithdifferentsuperscriptsaresignificantlydifferent.
*Indicates
significance
at0.05level.
**Indicates
significance
at0.01level.
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 31
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outcomes for the two experimental conditions, as anticipated, contrasted sharply with the
control data. Spelling of the individual target letters (treated separately) in the reading
condition did not exceed the designated 50% chance level; first letter, t(44)5 1.77,p5 .083, second letter, t(44)5 1.19, ns (whole word spelling, as already noted, was notevaluated against chance performance). On the other hand, performance on the combined
target letter spelling and on the orthographic choice measure, as well as the composite
measure of orthographic learning, exceeded chance in both experimental conditions
according to one-sample t-tests, indicating significant orthographic learning. These data
replicate a number of prior studies indicating robust orthographic learning among young
non-novice (Grade 2 and 3) Hebrew readers following unassisted reading of targets
embedded in text (Share, 1999, 2004; Share & Shalev, 2004).
The data from the reading/spelling condition confirm the central prediction that
spelling would also result in significant orthographic learning. However, we expected that
spelling would not only yield reliable orthographic learning but also actually be superior
to reading owing to the unique processing demands involved in reproducing (from
memory) the complete array of letters. To examine this hypothesis we turn to the
comparisons between the conditions.
Comparisons across reading, spelling and control conditions
Planned comparisons in the form of paired-sample t-tests were used to examine pair-wise
differences between (i) the control condition and reading, (ii) the control condition and
spelling and (iii) reading versus spelling.
The reading condition led to significant orthographic learning (relative to the control
condition) in orthographic choice, t(44)5 2.82, po.01, and on production of the targetletters (combining both letters), t(44)5 2.05, po.05, although not on the target lettersconsidered individually first letter, t(44)5 1.80, p5 .079, or second (non-initial) targetletter, t(44)5 1.08, ns or the spelling of the entire string of letters (whole word),t(44)o1.0, ns. Performance in the reading condition also exceeded control levels on thecomposite measure of orthographic learning, t(44)5 2.70, po.05.Spelling, on the other hand, led to more powerful and more consistent learning
outcomes. Spelling surpassed control levels significantly on all six measures: whole word
spelling, t(44)5 3.39, po.005; combined target letter spelling, t(44)5 4.00, po.000;first target letter spelling, t(44)5 2.51, po.05; second letter spelling, t(44)5 3.48,po.005; orthographic choice, t(44)5 3.46, po.005; and the composite, t(44)5 4.74,po.000. Absolute scores in this reading/spelling condition also exceeded performance inthe reading condition (at least numerically) on each of the six measures,4 reaching
statistical significance in three instances: whole word spelling, t(44)5 2.36, po.05;combined target letter spelling, t(44)5 2.04, po.05; and the composite spelling/orthographic choice measure, t(44)5 2.06, po.05. There were non-significant differ-ences on the first letter, t(44)o1.0, ns; second letter, t(44)5 1.68, p5 .079; and inorthographic choice, t(44)o1.0, ns. By and large, these findings are consistent with ourhypothesis that spelling (reading/spelling) would lead to greater orthographic learning
than reading alone.
Does spelling provide unique benefits for non-initial letters?
We predicted that because spelling obliges the reader/writer to process the letter string
exhaustively, with no possibility of earlier closure as in reading, spelling production
32 SHAHAR-YAMES and SHARE
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might be expected to show unique benefits for orthographic information appearing later
in the printed word relative to initial letters. Thus, we hypothesised that later-appearing
letters would enjoy an added advantage compared with word-initial target letters when
spelled. Consistent with this expectation, in the reading condition, spelling accuracy for
initial and non-initial target letters considered individually (55.0% and 54.4%) was very
similar and, as already noted, neither was significantly above either chance or control
levels. In spelling, the second letter was actually superior (numerically) to the initial letter
although not significantly so. The difference between reading and spelling in the case of
the second letter was almost twice the difference in the case of the first letter (9.5% versus
5.0%). This interaction between target letter position and experimental condition was
submitted to a repeated measures analysis of variance, but failed to attain significance,
F(1, 44)o1.0, ns. It should be noted, however, that the present data do not provide thestrongest test of this hypothesis because, in a large number of target words, most non-
initial letters were not word-final. We return to this outcome in the discussion.
Does spelling provide added benefits for spelling production compared with spelling
recognition?
Owing to the fact that the act of writing requires memory retrieval as well as motor-
kinesthetic processing, we predicted an advantage for the reading/spelling condition in
spelling production relative to spelling recognition. Summing across the two target letters
and across the entire string (whole-word spelling accuracy), this expectation was
confirmed. Furthermore, in both cases, the spelling contribution was substantial the
spelling contribution was substantially stronger than the learning effect observed for
reading. Also, consistent with our prediction, spelling recognition (orthographic choice)
revealed only a small non-significant advantage for the spelling condition.
These data were submitted to a multivariate analysis of variance. Although these
interactions did not reach significance in the initial analyses for either the whole word,
F(1, 88)5 1.28, ns, or the target letter measures, F(1, 88)5 1.49, ns, after we partialledout condition duration (i.e. the non-equivalent times recorded for the two conditions), the
interaction for the whole-word spelling measure attained significance, F(2, 86)5 5.30,po.05, and fell marginally short of significance, F(2, 87)5 2.95, p5 .058, (two-tailed),in the case of the combined target letters. These outcomes suggest, as anticipated, that the
unique processing demands of spelling (retrieval and motor-kinesthetic processing) create
added benefits for measures of spelling production compared with spelling recognition.
The influence of exposure/learning time on orthographic learning
As discussed above, the act of spelling, in many ways, appears to be more demanding
than reading requiring several component activities that are not involved in reading
including picking up the pencil and gaining the right grip, getting oriented on the paper,
retrieving phonemes, selecting the orthographically correct graphemes and forming the
letters one after another while maintaining good spacing and horizontal alignment.
Among young children for whom writing is not yet as automatic as it is among skilled
writers, these are non-trivial demands that take up more time than reading alone even
letter-by-letter sounding out. The non-trivial demands of this process were borne out by
the fact that three children actually dropped their pencils onto the floor during spelling. It
came as no surprise that even after stretching reading condition times by adding a
comprehension question focused on the target word, the spelling condition still took
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significantly more time (27.5 versus 23.4 seconds), t(44)5 6.04, po.05. Our concern wasthat the longer time-on-task in the spelling condition may explain away the differences
between the two experimental conditions. Analysis of covariance, however, showed that
the same pattern of findings emerged after partialling out the time variable. The
significant advantage in the spelling condition for whole word spelling and target letter
spelling remained significant, F(44)5 9.61, po.005, and F(44)5 5.66, po.05,respectively, while the non-significant differences for the first letter, for the second
target letter and for orthographic choice, all Fs(44)o1.0, remained non-significant.In short, the stronger orthographic learning outcomes in spelling compared with
reading do not appear to be attributable to overall differences in processing times.
Discussion
The self-teaching hypothesis was founded on the idea that the process of recoding a
printed word to sound obliges the reader to attend to orthographic detail and to word-
specific print-to-sound mapping in a way that facilitates the establishment of the well-
specified and well-unitised representations that are crucial for rapid automatised word
recognition. The present study was motivated by similar considerations regarding the
process of spelling, namely, that the process of producing a spelling might also serve a
self-teaching function because it too requires the writer to attend to orthographic detail
(letter identity and order) and sub-lexical print-to-sound relationships in a systematic
manner. Our findings confirmed these expectations significant orthographic learning
was obtained in both spelling and reading.
However, we predicted not only significant orthographic learning for spelling but also
that spelling would actually produce superior learning outcomes compared with reading
owing to the additional demands placed on the writer specifically the more taxing
retrieval and motor-kinesthetic processes involved in spelling. In broad-brush terms, our
results were consistent with this prediction performance levels for spelling at the post-
test exceeded levels for spelling in all six measures and, in three cases, these differences
attained significance (composite recognition/production measure, whole word spelling
and combined target letter spelling). As already noted, it was only on measures requiring
spelling production that these differences were statistically reliable exactly as predicted
by our hypothesis that spelling would be especially beneficial for production as compared
with recognition. Once differences in overall processing time were partialled out, the
interaction between spelling production and spelling recognition (orthographic choice)
was significant in the case of whole word spelling and on the border of significance (using
the more conservative two-tailed test) when target letter spelling was considered. This
result is unsurprising because in the spelling condition at the learning phase and post-test,
the same method (activity) was used.
We also hypothesised that spelling would lead to extra advantages for orthographic
detail appearing later in a spelling. We reasoned that although the initial encounter
decoding a novel word (especially in oral reading) is likely to invoke an exhaustive letter-
to-sound translation procedure, it seems reasonable to assume that on subsequent
occasions this process may be partly curtailed, particularly if the target is embedded in
meaningful text. Spelling, in contrast, does not admit of any abbreviated processing.
Every production obliges the writer to process each and every letter of the string, giving
full and equal consideration to each letter.
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Consistent with these expectations, the advantage for spelling compared with reading
on the second target letter (9.5%) was almost twice the advantage for the first letter
(5.0%). This interaction, however, did not attain statistical significance. Nonetheless, we
think it premature to reject the hypothesis of position-sensitive orthographic learning for
two reasons. First, the position of our first and second letters did not maximise the
distance between the two letters. Although 10 of the 12 first letters were indeed initial
letters, a majority of post-initial letters were not word-final letters. In fact, in only four
instances was the non-initial letter the word-final letter. In three cases, the post-initial
letter was actually in the first half of the word. In the remaining cases, the target letter was
either second last or third last. The second factor, which we think makes it premature to
dismiss the position-sensitive hypothesis, is that our test words were all rather short
averaging only 4.7 (consonantal) letters. A systematic comparison between word-initial
and word-final graphemes in words of varying length would provide a more incisive test
of this hypothesis. More generally, however, there may be important differences between
orthographies in orthographic redundancy. In consonantal alphabets (or abjads) such as
Hebrew, there is relatively little redundancy (Share & Levin, 1999), necessitating a
relatively comprehensive processing of the letter string. In plene alphabets such as
English, which consist of fully-fledged letters representing both consonants and vowels,
there exists a much larger degree of redundancy (see Adams, 1990), which affords greater
leeway for foreshortening the decoding process, thereby creating the possibility of
stronger position-sensitive learning effects for reading compared with spelling.
The precise nature of the processes critical for the establishment of orthographic
representations remains to be investigated. There is clearly much in common between
reading and spelling (Ehri, 1980; Gough, Juel & Griffith, 1992; Holmes & Carruthers,
1998; Perfetti, 1997) but there are also unique processes. Word identification via both
decoding and spelling obliges the reader to examine each of (nearly all) the letters in a
letter string. Selective non-exhaustive processing of letter information may well enable
the novice reader (or even pre-reader, see Treiman & Kessler, 2003) to make initial
partial or skeletal representations between print and speech (see, e.g., Ehri, 1995; Rack,
Hulme, Snowling & Wightman, 1994; Share, 1995; Stuart & Coltheart, 1988) but will
ultimately fail the reader in the long run owing to the fact that many words, particularly
shorter monosyllables, are often distinguished only by a single letter (house/horse) or
even only by letter ordering (salt/slat). However, mere visual inspection of the items in a
letter array seems unlikely to explain orthographic learning. In an experiment in which
children were shown non-alphabetic (hence non-recodable) strings of common keyboard
characters (e.g. #@*?) and required to attend to each of the constituent elements as well
as to the string as a whole (by means of a dual-task procedure requiring both symbol
search (YES/NO decision) and string length report (how many characters appear in this
string?), Share (1999, experiment 4) found extremely low levels of visual/orthographic
learning compared with orthographic learning of alphabetic (i.e. recodable) words of
similar length. It appears that something about the process of print-to-sound translation
may be a critical ingredient in the decoding process (Share, 1999, experiments 2 and 3;
see also Kyte & Johnson, 2006). Both these studies found that viewing a novel letter
string while articulating an unrelated syllable resulted in significantly poorer orthographic
learning compared with viewing the same string while articulating the relevant (i.e.
correct) pronunciation. Both decoding and spelling share print-to-sound conversion
(although in opposite directions), which can be conceived as a process of seeing the
logic of a words spelling and, in another sense too, coming to hear the pronunciation in a
SPELLING AND ORTHOGRAPHIC LEARNING 35
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new way (Olson, 1994; Share, 1995). This, perhaps, is the fundamental difference
between mere visual/logographic or pre-alphabetic reading and so-called orthographic
recognition (Ehri, 1995; Frith, 1985).
Although both spelling and decoding share a mode of processing especially conducive
to orthographic learning, there are unique elements in spelling that led us to hypothesise
additional benefits for spelling production. In the case of novel words, aspects of spelling
production include identification of the successive phonemes in the spoken form,
selection of the corresponding grapheme and the motor-kinesthetic component (as well as
the visual-spatial component). The evidence reviewed in the introduction regarding the
unique role for motor-kinesthetic information in both letter learning and spelling, at least
among struggling readers (Fernald, 1943; Hulme, 1983; Hulme et al., 1987), may provide
an additional layer or network of connections in the traditional orthography
phonologymeaning triangle, thereby creating additional redundancies because the
motor-kinesthetic activity constitutes another layer of mnemonic information concerning
the orthographic form of a word.
Pinpointing those elements in the multidimensional spelling process that contribute
most to orthographic learning is the obvious next step in this line of research. Is the
phoneme-by-phoneme segmentation of the spoken form the critical element in
establishing new word-level spellingsound mappings, the comparatively onerous
retrieval processes involved in selecting the appropriate grapheme corresponding to a
given phoneme, or possibly the motor-kinesthetic dimension that has been emphasised in
the remedial reading literature? Or is it a combination of some or all of these ingredients
that holds the key? Future work would do well to tease out these various components.
More generally, the present research confirms the important reciprocal ties between reading
and spelling by pointing to yet another way in which spelling and reading collaborate.
Notes
1. The self-teaching hypothesis does not imply that the process of phonological recoding is necessarily a
purely overt letter-by-letter sounding out and blending process. In orthographies with digraphs or even larger
orthographic units (see Ziegler & Goswami, 2005), multi-letter sequences may be processed as integral units
in the process of sequentially decoding larger sub-lexical supra-graphemic units. Furthermore, this assembly
process may be either overt or covert (i.e. internalised).
2. The only real-life situation which comes to mind is the case of oral spelling of proper names. In most
everyday literacy contexts, especially in school, the learner would normally be writing/spelling words he or
she has previously read.
3. In the case of the glottal stop, however, in addition to the two standard letters (ALEF and AYIN), it has
become increasingly common for Hebrew speakers to write a third letter the letter HEY, which in certain
contexts (mostly word-final) has the same phonemic value. Because there were only nine instances of the
HEY in the entire sample representing fewer than 2% of the ALEF/AYIN/HEY productions, it was decided
to leave the designated chance levels unchanged (i.e. 25% and 50%).
4. Although an unconventional way of examining statistical reliability, it is worth noting that six consecutive
differences favouring spelling is well beyond chance according to the binomial distribution (265 .016).
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Appendix. Target words (in alternative
homophonic spelling) appearing
in test sentences
Received 8 May 2007; revised version received 19 August 2007.
Address for correspondence: David Share, Department of Learning Disabilities,University of Haifa Mount Carmel, 31905, Haifa, Israel.
E-mail: [email protected]
The symbol x represents the laryngeal fricative heard at the end ofthe word Bach.
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