Lexical processing and distributional knowledge in sound–spelling mapping in a consistent orthography: A longitudinal study of reading and spelling in dyslexic and typically developing children

ABSTRACT

This study examined the ability to master lexical processing and use knowledge of the relative frequency of sound–spelling mappings in both reading and spelling. Twenty-four dyslexic and dysgraphic children and 86 typically developing readers were followed longitudinally in 3rd and 5th grades. Effects of word regularity, word frequency, and probability of sound–spelling mappings were examined in two experimental tasks: (a) spelling to dictation; and (b) orthographic judgment. Dyslexic children showed larger regularity and frequency effects than controls in both tasks. Sensitivity to distributional information of sound–spelling mappings was already detected by third grade, indicating early acquisition even in children with dyslexia. Although with notable differences, knowledge of the relative frequencies of sound–spelling mapping influenced both reading and spelling. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Consistent orthography
• dyslexia
• reading
• sound–spelling mappings
• spelling

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Dr. Claire Montagna for the style editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Chiara Valeria Marinelli http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8806-5655

Pierluigi Zoccolotti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6351-2455

Paola Angelelli http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9870-6009

Notes

1 Stress is only marked in the infrequent case in which it occurs on the last letter of a word (for example Società “Society”).

2 In Italian, the orthographic transcription of sequences involving [k], [g], [t∫], [dn] is determined by context-sensitive rules and depends on the letters that follow—for example, [k] in [kaza], (home) is spelled CASA, but in [kiesa], (church) is spelled CHIESA.

3 *The asterisk marks nonlexical spelling errors.

4 The error scores for inconsistently spelled words were the mean error scores of words with atypical and typical mappings.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fondo di Sviluppo e Coesione 2007–2013–APQ Ricerca Regione Puglia Programma regionale a sostegno della specializzazione intelligente e della sostenibilità sociale ed ambientale–FutureInResearch.