Writing & Spelling (W5) Flashcards
Is writing equivalent to the process of transcribing your speech?
No.
What do you have to do when you write?
You have to plan -be aware of syntactic structures, etc.
What are the main components of writing? (5)
- Automatic letter formation and/or keyboarding
- Accurate and fluent spelling
- Sentence construction
- Ability to compose a variety of different text structures with coherence and cohesion
- Transcription & composition
Spelling plays what role in educational, vocational, and social circles?
A gatekeeping role
Spelling requires what kind of memory?
Visual memory
What is the historical view of spelling?
-A “low level,” “mechanical” skill - taught by memorizing a list of words
There is a recent interest in the spelling in what field, and why?
- Developmental psycholinguistics
- Because it’s a cognitive-linguistic skill and has a predictable developmental course.
What is orthography?
The spelling system for words
What is a grapheme?
A letter or series of letters that corresponds to a sound
Is English a deep or shallow orthography?
DEEP
Is the irregularity of English orthography automatically good, or bad?
If all words were faithful to pronunciation, meaning relations would be obscured. (ex: sine and signachur rather than sign and signature)
-It’s a hard system for beginnings but a good system for experienced readers/writers
Spelling, as a language skill, involves the following kinds of knowledge: (5)
- Phonology
- Orthography
- Morphology
- Semantics
- “mental graphemic representations” (or mental orthographic images)
What are the 3 major sources of English words?
- Anglo-Saxon
- Norman French
- Latin & Greek
Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon words
- Oldest words in English
- Most frequent, especially in conversation & early reading material
- Irregular, exception words
Which type of words are Anglo-Saxon words?
- Prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries, many common nouns (a lot of little, function words)
- Irregular- exception words ‘you, does, would,’ etc.
Characteristics of Norman French words
- About 40% of English words come from French
- Words tend to be “harder” than anglo-saxon words, but “easier” than Latin words
- Many of the patterns of English spelling came from French (esp. vowel patterns.)
Which types of words are influenced by Norman French?
- ex: royal, chamber, conquer, etc.
- vowel patterns: meal, nourish, plain
Characteristics of Latin & Greek words
Types of words that appear in academic text - contributed to invented connections for joining syllables and units of meaning (e.g., prefixes and suffixes)
-Latest words that kids learn to read/spell
Examples of Latin & Greek influenced words
-Calculate, maximum, nucleus, hemisphere, etc.
T/F: Learning to spell is a lot like learning to read.
TRUE
What are two characteristics of learning to spell?
- It requires mastery of the alphabetic principle
- It is largely self-taught
What is the correlation between spelling and reading ability?
Strong correlation (.70) between reading and spelling ability so that poor spellers are usually poor readers and vice versa.
T/F: Decoding and spelling is not heritable
FALSE – STRONG heritability factor for decoding and spelling
What is the implication for what we know about learning to spell?
De-isolate spelling
