The study's aims were to (a) evaluate preschoolers' use of private speech (overt talk to themselves) during spelling; and (b) study how it is affected by the nature of orthography. Participants were 197 Hebrew speaking Israeli preschoolers (109 girls and 88 boys) (M = 5.6 years). Children spelled 12 words (N =44 letters) that represented one of…

Compared 28- to 53-month-olds' writing and drawing. Scores on a writing scale composed of graphic, "writing-like," and symbolic schemes improved with age. Recognition of drawings as drawings preceded recognition of writings as writings. Writing and drawing scores were substantially correlated, even with age partialed out, suggesting that…

Analyzed 80 nursery school and kindergarten children's use of referential and phonetic strategies in reading and writing. Results indicated that there was a shift with age from the use of referential to phonetic strategies. (RJC)

Studied emergent literacy in Hebrew by analyzing nursery and kindergarten children's attempts to write and read pairs of nouns. Found that, with age, children's sensitivity to phonology increased and sensitivity to semantics decreased and that these sensitivities played a greater role in literacy acquisition than did sensitivity to morphology. (MM)