Before formal instruction, preschoolers represent words in print in various degrees of conventionality. Unlicensed letters are letters that have no connection to the word that the child is aiming to write; they are neither licensed by phoneme-grapheme rules nor by orthographical representations in the mental lexicon. In the current paper, we…

Writing systems differ in various aspects. English and Korean share basic principles of the alphabetic writing system. As an alphabetic script, Korean Hangul has relatively more regular mapping between graphemes and phonemes; however, its letters are written in syllable units, which encourages phonological retrieval at the syllable level.…

Although most studies in the field of literacy development suggest that writing and reading are two sides of the same coin, very little is known about writing in kindergarten in comparison to the vast number of studies on reading. In this study, we explored the connections between writing and reading using correlation and regression analyses…

The objective for beginning writers is to learn how to generate alphabet-letters which are recognisable and easy to read. This study investigated the accuracy of Year 1 and 2 children's alphabet-letter-writing by evaluating their alphabet and orthographic knowledge, following evidence which identifies these skills as important for correctly…

A brief experiment was designed to examine cognitive flexibility practice embedded in beginning phonics instruction for kindergarteners with limited early literacy learning. Previously tested phonics content included single- and high-frequency two-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs), introduced at a rate of 2-4 correspondences per week.…

Two experiments explored rates for introducing grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and the types of correspondences taught for optimal alphabet and early literacy skills learning. In both studies, children entered with minimal alphabet knowledge and were randomly assigned within classrooms to one of two treatments delivered individually over…

The present study addresses the scope of the writing difficulties observed in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients with AD, patients with MCI and healthy controls performed a written picture-naming task and a direct copy transcoding task in which phonology-to-orthography (P-O) consistency was…

We tested the effects of orthography on text reading by comparing reading measures in Arabic and Hebrew-speaking adults. The languages are typologically very similar, but use different orthographies. We measured naming speed of single letters, words and nonwords, and visual processing. Arabic-speakers also performed some of the tasks in Hebrew. We…

Working memory has been proposed to account for the differential rates in progress young children make in writing. One crucial aspect of learning to write is the encoding (i.e., integration) and retrieval of the correct phoneme-grapheme pairings, known as binding. In addition to executive functions, binding is regarded as central to the concept of…

Orthographic knowledge, the general ability to learn, store, and use information about the orthographic form of words (Stanovich & West, 1989), is a crucial skill for supporting literacy. Although the development of first language (L1) orthographic awareness is impacted by the characteristics of a learner's L1 writing system, relatively little…

Concurrent associations between teacher ratings of inattention, hyperactivity and pre-reading skills were examined in 64 pre-schoolers who had not commenced formal reading instruction and 136 school entrants who were in the first weeks of reading instruction. Both samples of children completed measures of pre-reading skills, namely phonological…

In the present study we investigated the extent to which child level factors (i.e., phonological awareness) and letter level factors (i.e., letter name structures, letter frequency, visual similarity, and letter order) contributed to letter name and sound acquisition, using data from Korean-speaking children (N = 169) and cross-classified…

The present longitudinal study aimed to investigate the development of word decoding skills during incremental phonics instruction in Dutch as a transparent orthography. A representative sample of 973 Dutch children in the first grade (M[subscript age] = 6;1, SD = 0;5) was exposed to incremental subsets of Dutch grapheme-phoneme correspondences…

Learning the sounds of letters is an important part of learning a writing system. Most previous studies of this process have examined English, focusing on variations in the phonetic iconicity of letter names as a reason why some letter sounds (such as that of b, where the sound is at the beginning of the letter's name) are easier to learn than…

This longitudinal study examined (a) the second-grade reading outcomes of 368 children who participated in either experimental or school-designed supplemental intervention in kindergarten, and (b) the influence and interactions of learner variables and type of intervention on reading achievement. Descriptive findings indicated that percentages of…