The present study aimed to extend understanding of preschoolers' early spelling using the Vygotskian ("Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes," Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1978) paradigm of child development. We assessed the contribution of maternal spelling support in predicting children's word…

To evaluate the orthographic and phonological processing skills of developmental dyslexics, we (a) examined their abilities to exploit properties of orthographic redundancy and (b) tested whether their phonological deficit extends to spelling-to-sound connections for large-grain size units such as syllables. To assess the processing skills in…

Gaining facility with spelling is an important part of becoming a good writer. Here we review recent work on how children learn to spell in alphabetic writing systems. Statistical learning plays an important role in this process. Young children learn about some of the salient graphic characteristics of written texts and attempt to reproduce these…

Precommunicative, semiphonetic, phonetic, transitional, and correct spelling are the developmental stages in the acquisition of spelling competency. Samples of children's early spelling patterns are presented. A system for classifying early spelling strategy is outlined. (DF)

The difficulties children face as they are learning to read is the focus of this book, which is a collection of children's work (drawings and handwriting), with statements exploring their implications. The introduction discusses the relationship between early writing and early reading, individual differences, the question of age norms, questions…

A program to be used by teachers working with children at the stage of emergent writing, generally kindergarten and grades 1 and 2, and based on recognition of young children's development, is outlined. The project operates on the premise that children can independently learn to write by writing if they are immersed in the appropriate social and…