Spelling acquisition in English and Italian:a cross-linguistic study

Abstract

We examined the spelling acquisition in children up to late primary school of a consistent orthography (Italian) and an inconsistent orthography (English). The effects of frequency, lexicality, length, and regularity in modulating spelling performance of the two groups were examined. English and Italian children were matched for both chronological age and number of years of schooling. Two-hundred and seven Italian children and 79 English children took part in the study. We found greater accuracy in spelling in Italian than English children: Italian children were very accurate after only 2 years of schooling, while in English children the spelling performance was still poor after 5 years of schooling. Cross-linguistic differences in spelling accuracy proved to be more persistent than the corresponding ones in reading accuracy. Orthographic consistency produced not only quantitative, but also qualitative differences, with larger frequency and regularity effects in English than in Italian children.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01843
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
College of Health & Life Sciences > Clinical and Systems Neuroscience
College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Optometry > Vision, Hearing and Language
Additional Information: © 2015 Marinelli, Romani, Burani and Zoccolotti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Supplementary data availalbe on online :http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg. 2015.01843
Uncontrolled Keywords: children,cross-linguistic comparison,lexical effects,orthographic consistency,spelling acquisition,General Psychology
Publication ISSN: 1664-1078
Last Modified: 02 Oct 2024 07:14
Date Deposited: 02 Feb 2016 15:05
Full Text Link: http://journal. ... .01843/abstract
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2015-12-08
Accepted Date: 2015-11-13
Submitted Date: 2015-08-30
Authors: Marinelli, Chiara V.
Romani, Cristina (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-5693-4131)
Burani, Cristina
Zoccolotti, Pierluigi

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