Background: Phonological processing skills have been found to contribute to spelling development across different orthographies; however, less is known about the role of orthographic knowledge. This longitudinal study explores the contribution of phonological and orthographic knowledge to spelling development in a semi-transparent orthography…

Orthographic forms (spellings) can affect pronunciation in a second language (L2); however, it is not known whether the same orthographic form can affect both L2 pronunciation and metalinguistic awareness. To test this, we asked 260 speakers of English--first-language (L1) English speakers, L1 Italian and L2 English sequential bilinguals, and L1…

The present article investigates how phonotactic rules constrain oral reading in the Russian language. The pronunciation of letters in Russian is regular and consistent, but it is subject to substantial phonotactic influence: the position of a phoneme and its phonological context within a word can alter its pronunciation. In Part 1 of the article,…

Developing literacy in two languages can be challenging for young bilingual children. This longitudinal study investigates the effects of bilingualism in the spelling strategies of English-Portuguese speaking children. A total of 88 six- to-seven-year-old bilinguals and monolinguals were followed during one academic year and data gathered on a…

Error analyses using a multidimensional measure were conducted on the misspellings of Kindergarten children speaking English as a first (EL1) and English as a second language (ESL) in order to detect any differences in early spelling ability between language groups. Oral vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, phonological processing, letter/word…

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

Working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) can raise questions about whether language and literacy delays and difficulties are related directly to late and limited access to spoken language, to co-occurring language learning disabilities (LLD), or to both. A new Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills, which incorporates…

This cross-sectional study examines the importance of English phonological and orthographic processing skills to English word reading and spelling in 3 groups of younger (8-9 years) and older (11-12 years) children from different language backgrounds: English monolingual, English first language (L1)-Mandarin second language (L2), and Mandarin…

Spelling is a prerequisite to expressing vocabulary in writing. Research has shown that children with dyslexia are hesitant spellers when composing. This study aimed to determine whether the hesitant spelling of children with dyslexia, evidenced by frequent pausing, affects vocabulary choices when writing. A total of 31 children with dyslexia,…

This study compared the writing motivation of students with language impairments (LI) and their typically developing (TD) peers. For the study 272 students (33 students with language impairments, 242 TD peers) aged 8-10 years, in 11 elementary schools, were sampled. The two groups completed self-report measures of writing motivation and 20…

Research on dyslexia has largely centred on reading. The aim of this study was to assess the writing of 13 children with and 28 without dyslexia at age 11?years. A programme for keystroke logging was used to allow recording of typing activity as the children performed a sentence dictation task. Five sentences were read aloud twice each. The task…

The study investigated cognitive deficits associated with dyslexia and familial risk of dyslexia (endophenotypes) by comparing children from families with and without a history of dyslexia. Eighty-eight school-aged children were assessed on measures of phonology, language and rapid automatized naming. A series of regression analyses with family…

In order to examine the effect of the home language on the spelling development in English in children who are learning English as a second language (ESL learners), it is best to directly compare groups of ESL learners from various home language backgrounds. This study compared the oral language, phonological awareness, reading, and spelling…

This longitudinal investigation on Dutch children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) aimed at determining the predictive value of statistically uncorrelated language proficiencies on later reading and spelling skills in Dutch. Language abilities, tested with an extensive test battery at the onset of formal reading instruction, were…

The study was conducted to look at differences between children who outgrew and did not outgrow an early diagnosis of mathematical learning disorder (MD; n=13), and peers without MD (n=13). Children were tested at 5, 6, 7 and 10 years of age. About 54% of the children with an early diagnosis of MD still experienced mathematical difficulties at the…