Abstract
Letter names are stressed in informal and formal literacy instruction with young children in the US, whereas letters sounds are stressed in England. We examined the impact of these differences on English children of about 5 and 6 years of age (in reception year and Year 1, respectively) and US 6 year olds (in kindergarten). Children in both countries spelled short vowels, as in bag, more accurately than long vowels, as in gate. The superiority for short vowels was larger for children from England, consistent with the instructional emphasis on letter sounds. Errors such as gat for words with long vowels such as gate were more common among US children, reflecting these children’s use of vowels’ names as a guide to spelling. The English children’s performance on a letter knowledge task was influenced by the fact that they are often taught letter sounds with reference to lowercase letters and letter names with reference to uppercase letters, and their spellings showed some effects of this practice. Although emphasis on letter sounds as opposed to letter names influences children’s patterns of performance and types of errors, it does not make the difficult English writing system markedly easier to master.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by NICHD Grant HD051610 and by a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship to RT. We thank Nicole Rosales and Jennifer Russ and the members of the Reading and Language Lab for their assistance and for comments on a draft of the manuscript.
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Appendix
Appendix
Long vowel items
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Words: bike, bone, gate, huge, keep, kite, tame
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Nonwords: bime, dape, goke, gope, peam, pute, tibe
Short a, e, i, o items
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Words: bag, beg, bill, dock, pat, pet, top
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Nonwords: bim, dap, gock, gop, pab, pem, tib
Short u, initial stop consonant items
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Words: bus, buzz, cup, cut, duck, gum, tub
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Nonwords: bub, dup, gub, gug, pum, tud, tup
Short u, initial sustained consonant items
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Words: fun, fuzz, mud, mug, nut, suck, sun
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Nonwords: fup, mub, nup, sud, sug, vum, zub
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Treiman, R., Stothard, S.E. & Snowling, M.J. Instruction matters: spelling of vowels by children in England and the US. Read Writ 26, 473–487 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9377-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-012-9377-4