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Influences of Writing Systems on Young Children’s Spelling in English and Portuguese
Tatiana Cury Pollo, Brett Kessler, & Rebecca Treiman
Introduction
Studies have demonstrated differences between English and other
languages in:
Study 1: Methods and Results
Corpora:
Accuracy and Learning Rate
 English-speaking children take longer to become accurate readers
(Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003).
 Reading accuracy in English is much lower than in other languages (Aro
& Wimmer, 2003).
Study 2: Results
Mean Number of Consonants and Vowels per Spelling
Brazil: Pinheiro, 1996 (3,621 words)
U.S.: Zeno et al., 1995 (6,232 words)
Calculated the number of letter names and
consonant-vowel ratio in Portuguese and English
words
Procedure:
Portuguese
Letter name analysis: More Vowel Letter Names in Portuguese
Vowel
Two letter
names
1.90
One Letter
name
1.42
Two Letter
names
1.58
Consonant
2.32
2.11
2.30
2.21
2
1.6
Portuguese
1.4
English
Proportion of Phonetically Plausible Letters in Children’s Spellings
Portuguese
1.2
Average number
of letter names
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
Anecdotal evidence for all-vowel spellings in:
Spanish
AO
sapo
frog
Portuguese
AAUA
tartaruga
turtle
Italian
IAEA
primavera
spring
All-consonant spellings in English (Kamii et al., 1990)
PNTM
punishment
0
 Children are more likely to include vowels in their spellings when the
vowel is a letter name.
 Number of words that have letter names varies across languages:
Portuguese has been claimed to have more vowel letter names in its
words than English.
 “Syllabic” spellings may result adventitiously from attempts to represent
letter names that children hear in words.
Consonants
Vowels
Letter type analysis: More Vowel Letters in Portuguese
1
0.8
0.6
Vowel/
Consonant
Ratio
Portuguese
0.4
English
0.2
0
Graphemes
How can we explain these early differences?
Letter Names
Vowel
Consonant
0.2
Total
Acquisition of Consonants and Vowels
Phonemes
 Children may be more inclined to use the letters and letter patterns they
have seen more often in their language.
 Number of vowel letters per word might vary between languages.
Pre-tests: Letter name, letter sound, and reading of simple words
1
Study 1: What are the differences between English and
Portuguese in their letter name systems and letter patterns?
Study 2: Do children take advantage of letter names when spelling
words, and do children differ in the use of consonants and vowels
across languages?
Two letter
names
One letter
name
Two letter
names
0.71
0.61
0.83
0.65
0.49
0.66
0.57
0.68
Two-letter spellings were not frequent:
Brazilian children
10%
American children
18%
Had children simply passed the syllabic stage?
No, even younger group of Portuguese speakers
produced only 19% of two-letter spellings.
Portuguese
0.6
0.4
English
0.2
0
Research Questions
One letter
name
Are children influenced by letter names?
 Yes: In both languages, the presence of vowel letter names in the words
leads children to use more vowels. Letter names also made spellings more
phonologically accurate in English and in Portuguese.
Do we find differences in spelling between English- and Portuguese-speaking
children?
 Yes: Portuguese-speaking children used more vowels. The higher
exposure to vowels by Portuguese-speaking children may explain the
higher usage of vowels by Brazilian children compared to American
children.
Participants:
 49 native speakers of Portuguese from Belo Horizonte, Brazil
 43 native speakers of English from St. Louis, U.S.
Mean age: 5 years, 6 months
% C o rrect
English
Study 2: Conclusions
Study 2: Methods
0.8
Letter Patterns
English
One letter
name
1.69
1.8
Stages of Spelling
Syllabic stage reported in:
Spanish:
Ferreiro & Teberosky (1983)
Portuguese: Martins & Silva (2001)
Italian:
Pontecorvo & Zuchermaglio (1988)
Little or no evidence of syllabic stage in English-speaking children.
e-mail: [email protected]
Letter name
Letter sound
Reading
Spelling Test:
Two-syllable words (CVCV).
Two categories based on the number of letter names in the word:
 One letter name (only the second vowel is a letter name)
BUNNY
 Two letter names (both vowels in the words are letter names)
PONY
General Conclusions
 Portuguese-speaking children rely on a letter-name strategy when trying to
spell.
 Letter names can influence children to a greater or lesser amount
depending on the writing system.
 All-vowel spellings (e.g., OA for sapo) may reflect children’s use of letter
names rather than being evidence for a syllabic stage of spelling
development.
 Other factors besides consistency of sound-letter relatioships nfluence and
distinguish children in their early spellings, providing an additional
explanation of the difficulty of acquiring English spelling.