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Phonemic segmentation skill and spelling acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Mary Rohl*
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
William E. Tunmer
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
*
Mary Rohl, Department of Education, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands 6009, Western Australia

Abstract

A spelling-age match design was used to test the hypothesis that deficits in phonologically related skills may be causally related to difficulties in acquiring basic spelling knowledge. Poor grade 5 spellers, average grade 3 spellers, and good grade 2 spellers matched on a standardized spelling test, and a group of good grade 5 spellers matched by chronological age with the poor grade 5 spellers were administered a phonemic segmentation test containing nondigraph pseudowords and an experimental spelling test containing words of the following four types: exception, ambiguous, regular, and pseudowords. Consistent with the hypothesis, it was found that when compared with the poor spellers, the average and good spellers performed better on the phonemic segmentation task, made fewer errors in spelling pseudowords, and made spelling errors that were more phonetically accurate.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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