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This study investigated the role of domain-specific and domain-general factors in predicting early literacy skills in Italian children. A sample of 239 first-grade students was evaluated using a broad neuropsychological battery to assess their cognitive skills. The results showed that phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, speed of processing, and attentional control all played a role in predicting reading and writing abilities. These findings support the importance of considering not just domain-specific language skills, but also domain-general cognitive skills when identifying children at risk of difficulties in reading and writing. The study supports the adoption of a multifactorial-probabilistic model to accurately diagnose specific learning disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lernen und Lernstörungen is the property of Hogrefe AG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this study was to identify effective strategies and intervention tailored to address the spelling difficulties faced by particular group of learners. This study is quantitative research utilizing correlational research design to determine the relationship exist between spelling difficulties among the learners and the letter blocks intervention to the development of the learners (Grade4); to assess their progress in spelling difficulties (based on their scores on the Pre-test assessment. Moreover, with an overall mean score of 71.80 that demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention in enhancing learners' spelling sills; interactive and engaging methods, such as using letter tiles and other manipulatives object, significantly enhance students' spelling abilities by providing concrete experiences that support phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge. This hands-on approach allows students to physically manipulate letters and sounds, reinforcing their learning through multi-sensory engagement. Educators might consider devoting additional attention to improve spelling difficulties among the learners through various interventions especially learners in primary level. The pre-test results revealed that the students' spelling abilities were below the expected level, indicating low proficiency. However, the post-test scores showed a marked improvement, with the students' scores rising after the letter blocks intervention was introduced. This suggests that the letter blocks intervention effectively enhances spelling abilities among Grade 4 learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple neurocognitive processes are involved in the highly complex task of producing written words. Yet, little is known about the neural pathways that support spelling in healthy adults. We assessed the associations between performance on a difficult spelling-to-dictation task and microstructural properties of language-related white matter pathways, in a sample of 73 native English-speaking neurotypical adults. Participants completed a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scan and a cognitive assessment battery. Using constrained spherical deconvolution modeling and probabilistic tractography, we reconstructed dorsal and ventral white matter tracts of interest, bilaterally, in individual participants. Spelling associations were found in both dorsal and ventral stream pathways. In high-performing spellers, spelling scores significantly correlated with fractional anisotropy (FA) within the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus, a ventral stream pathway. In low-performing spellers, spelling scores significantly correlated with FA within the third branch of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, a dorsal pathway. An automated analysis of spelling errors revealed that high- and low- performing spellers also differed in their error patterns, diverging primarily in terms of the orthographic distance between their errors and the correct spelling, compared to the phonological plausibility of their spelling responses. The results demonstrate the complexity of the neurocognitive architecture of spelling. The distinct white matter associations and error patterns detected in low- and high- performing spellers suggest that they rely on different cognitive processes, such that high-performing spellers rely more on lexical-orthographic representations, while low-performing spellers rely more on phoneme-to-grapheme conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early literacy and writing development are inter-related, yet predictors of beginning writing are less well studied than beginning reading. This study investigated contributions of school-entry name-writing to writing skills after 1 and 2 years of school in New Zealand above and beyond school-entry oral language and early literacy skills. Participants were 102 children followed for 2 years from school-entry. Study variables correlated concurrently and predictively, although multivariate results varied by outcome measure. School-entry alphabet knowledge consistently contributed to spelling measures and teachers' judgments of writing progress at follow-up. School-entry phonological awareness uniquely contributed to one measure, pseudowords spelled correctly, at follow-up, with 1-year correctly spelled pseuodowords mediating the relation between school-entry phonological awareness and teachers' judgments of progress in writing (WritingOTJ) at 2-year follow-up. School-entry name writing predicted later handwriting and correct spelling of letter sounds at 1-year follow-up, with 1-year correctly spelled letter sounds mediating the relation between school-entry name-writing and 2-year WritingOTJ. Finally, predictive relations between school-entry oral language skills and WritingOTJ emerged at 2-year follow-up. Results document links between school-entry alphabet knowledge and beginning writing. Cognitive-linguistic skills differentially added to predictions of later skills, supporting posited contributions of phonological awareness to spelling and oral language to proficient writing of older students. School-entry name-writing, associated with handwriting and letter-sound writing at 1-year follow-up, may reflect beginning transcription skills in young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interchanges of 〈ο, ω〉 are commonly found in Greek documentary papyri and some of them were even corrected by the ancient scribes. In this paper I show that the majority of those corrections affected the interchange of 〈ο, ω〉 in morphemes, such as confusion between the case endings of the second declension in -ο/-ῳ and -ον/-ων and the suffix vowel of the oblique cases of the ν-, ντ-, ρ-, τ-stems of the third declension. Correction may be prompted by a change of mind on the exact formulation of the phrase, adapting the choice of morphemes accordingly, or a result of contemporary variation in spelling within the paradigm of the third declension. For the second declension endings, I argue that the later correction of homophonous morphemes by the scribes themselves indicates that these interchanges were not due to poor spelling skills but were rather a result of cognitive limitations during language processing, as has also been shown for spelling errors to grammatical homophones in modern languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the vernacular was re-assigned the functions that Latin fulfilled in the Middle Ages, close comparisons between these two languages stressed the urgent need for the standardisation of English. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England saw the rise of codification and prescriptivism, two stages in the standardisation process that succeeded the selection, diffusion and acceptance of certain linguistic forms. A large number of works were published within the umbrella of codification, including grammars, spelling lists, pronouncing dictionaries or linguistic treatises, each targeting different areas of the language. James and Leslie Milroy (2012: 57) claim that ‘just as dictionaries prescribe uniquely correct spellings, so handbooks of usage prescribe uniquely correct grammatical constructions’, thus establishing a parallelism between the two. Most dictionaries published during the Early and Late Modern periods declare themselves prescriptive in their aims to provide the ‘True-spelling’ (Preston 1674: title page) of the English language, as if there was a false or fake alternative, thus vetoing all other orthographic variants. However, there arises an issue in this endeavour: spelling had become widely standardised by the time these dictionaries were available, except for some of the remnants of variation that continue to exist today. This paper addresses the standardisation of colour- and theatre-type words in historical British English for the purpose of assessing the impact that linguistic prescription had, if any, on the speakers’ spelling habits. As a corpus-based study, the analysis relies on a close comparison of usage and precept that draws correspondences between these two dimensions of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Upper elementary grade students encounter increasingly complex texts with abundant morphologically complex words. Despite the positive effects of morphology‐based vocabulary instruction, emergent bilinguals with limited word reading skills may need additional support. Methods: This study investigated the effects of morphological analysis and morphophonemic analysis instruction on the orthographic and semantic learning of morphologically complex academic words. Fourth‐ and fifth‐grade Spanish–English bilingual students (N = 30) in the United States participated in two learning tasks. In learning task one, participants learned two sets of carefully matched derivational words under morphological and whole‐word learning conditions. In learning task two, the same participants learned two other sets of words under morphophonemic and whole‐word learning conditions. Each learning task included two learning sessions interweaved by meaning recall and spelling production assessments. Cross‐classified multilevel regression was used to assess the effects of intervention conditions, child and item predictors, as well as cross‐level interactions. Results: Findings showed no significant difference in meaning recall and spelling measures between morphological and whole‐word conditions. Students performed significantly better in the morphophonemic condition than in the whole‐word condition for both meaning and affix spelling outcomes. The effect of morphophonemic intervention over whole word condition was stronger for younger students and words of lower base frequencies. Student meaning and spelling performance was significantly predicted by their word reading skills. Conclusions: Morphophonemic analysis instruction enhances word meaning recall and spelling of complex derivative words. Highlights: What is already known about this topicUpper elementary emergent bilinguals experience challenges in comprehending complex texts largely due to their limited English vocabulary.Morphology‐focused interventions led to generally positive literacy gains among native English speakers and emergent bilinguals. What this paper addsCompared with whole‐word learning, morphophonemic analysis instruction enhanced word meaning recall and spelling of derivative words for bilinguals who were still developing word reading skills.Compared with the whole‐word learning approach, no advantage was observed for the morphology‐focused instruction on word meaning or spelling recall. Implications for theory, policy, or practiceMaking explicit linkages between word decoding and meaning enhances new word learning for emergent bilingual students.Emergent bilingual students with limited word reading skills benefit from additional phonological support in morphology instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the stability and developmental interplay of word reading and spelling in samples of Swedish (N = 191) and U.S. children (N = 489) followed across four time points: end of kindergarten, grades 1, 2, and 4. Cross-lagged path models revealed that reading and spelling showed moderate to strong autoregressive effects, with reading being more predictable over time than spelling. Regarding the developmental interplay, we found a bidirectional relationship between reading and spelling from kindergarten to Grade 1. However, starting in Grade 1, reading predicted subsequent spelling beyond the autoregressor but not the other way around. In all analyses, the findings were similar across the two orthographies. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some late Renaissance scholars, like Smith (1568); Hart (1569; 1570); Bullokar (1580); Mulcaster (1582), attempted to reform English spelling to reflect the pronunciation changes resulting from the Great Vowel Shift. Their goal was to align letters and phonology by devising a more stable and predictable new system. This study explores the impact and diffusion of these spelling proposals. It examines texts from 1300 to 1700, written by authors from different socio-demographic and biological backgrounds, and across various genres, registers and text-types. The sources used as linguistic materials are the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English Prose, an archival data source of prose pieces representing different genres from 1150 to 1500 and the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence, a collection of 4,970 authored documents written from 1410 to 1681 by informants from different social ranks. This study may allow us to trace the sociolinguistic and stylistic route and rate of adoption (if any) followed by these attempts at reforming the English spelling system within processes of diffusion of linguistic innovations at the level of orthography, as well as to reconstruct the sociolinguistic contexts of language variation and change in past communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work introduces the English Sublexical Toolkit, a suite of tools that utilizes an experience-dependent learning framework of sublexical knowledge to extract regularities from the English lexicon. The Toolkit quantifies the empirical regularity of sublexical units in both the reading and spelling directions (i.e., grapheme-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-grapheme) and at multiple grain sizes (i.e., phoneme/grapheme and onset/rime unit size). It can extract multiple experience-dependent regularity indices for words or pseudowords, including both frequency indices (e.g., grapheme frequency) and conditional probability indices (e.g., grapheme-to-phoneme probability). These tools provide (1) superior estimates of the regularities that better reflect the complexity of the sublexical system relative to previously published indices and (2) completely novel indices of sublexical units such as phonographeme frequency (i.e., combined units of individual phonemes and graphemes that are independent of processing direction). We demonstrate that measures from the toolkit explain significant amounts of variance in empirical data (naming of real words and lexical decision), and either outperform or are comparable to the best available consistency measures. The flexibility of the toolkit is further demonstrated by its ability to readily index the probability of different pseudowords pronunciations, and we report that the measures account for the majority of variance in these empirically observed probabilities. Overall, this work provides a framework and resources that can be flexibly used to identify optimal corpus-based consistency measures that help explain reading/spelling behaviors for real and pseudowords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphological awareness has been shown to contribute to the acquisition of literacy in various languages. The current study focuses on an explicit derivational morphology training program in French-speaking fourth graders with the aim of measuring direct effects on morphological awareness and transfer effects on spelling and reading. The intensive training given in class consisted of (1) learning how to segment words into smaller units and (2) understanding the meaning of affixes in relation to words. Thirty-six children received the morphology training and 34 age-matched participants followed an alternative visuo-semantic training matched for intensity. The results of this pre-post group comparison study show a significant Group by Time interaction: Substantial progress in morphological awareness is observed for the group trained in morphology, on both trained as well as on untrained items. A similar gain was observed for the spelling of morphologically derived words, for trained and untrained words. Both roots and affixes were spelled more accurately. For reading however, we found a learning effect in speed and accuracy on trained words, but no generalization to untrained words. All effects were maintained four months after training. These results highlight the role that morphology plays in children's literacy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presented, of reflection, exposes the results of the research Studies of spelling and writing efficiency in the Adelante newspaper, which was included in topic 1 of the Language and representation project of Camagüey's urban and national culture, associated with a National program. The errors located in the selected sample that affect written expression are described and their impact on the spelling and writing efficiency of the publication is assessed based on the type of error and frequency of use. Its general objective was to assess the incidence of errors in writing that affect the precision of the information offered and the style used in accordance with the norms and rules of Spanish. The methodology followed a documentary analysis, in the review and tabulation of spelling, morphosyntactic and semantic errors, and the determination of their frequency in the efficiency of journalistic use. This provides essential reflections for the drafting and eradication of the nature of such errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the heterogeneity of literacy profiles for adolescents with and without a specific learning disability (SLD) in the U.S. state of Florida Student subgroups displaying common patterns of performance in word-level skills and reading comprehension were identified through latent profile analysis. Results indicate most of the total sample demonstrated below-average performance in one or both areas with word-level skill difficulties being more common than difficulties in reading comprehension alone. Changes in reading performance by profile over time (Grades 6–8) were examined through a latent transition analysis revealing consistent patterns in the SLD sample and variable patterns in the typically developing sample. Resulting profiles were utilized to predict performance on an end-of-year broad reading comprehension measure indicating very little change in performance over time. Findings suggest large numbers of adolescents with concurrent word-level and reading comprehension difficulties likely need sustained intervention in word-level skills to support their reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the development of spelling in a large sample (N = 503, boys: N = 219) of Greek-speaking children with (N = 41) and without (N = 462) reading difficulties. Children were initially tested in Grades 2–4 and then at five consecutive measurement points over a 3-year period, focusing on how initial reading ability, grade, and gender may moderate the rate of spelling growth. Individual growth curve modeling revealed continuous growth of spelling performance in the total sample, although the growth rate decreased over time for children first tested in Grades 3–4. Spelling growth rate was also significantly slower among children with reading difficulties between Grades 2–4 and 3–5. The two reading groups displayed similar growth rates between Grades 4 and 6. Spelling growth rates did not vary significantly with gender. Overall, our study highlights the persistence of spelling difficulties even after 6 years of systematic teaching in children with reading difficulties. The severe and persistent spelling deficits of Greek-speaking children with reading difficulties may be attributed to the rich morphological system of the Greek language, the intermediate Greek orthographic transparency (in the direction of writing), and their limited experience with print. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The studies on lexical availability emerged in France with a clearly didactic purpose, aiming to facilitate the acquisition of French by the inhabitants of what was then called the French Union, by foreigners and by immigrants who had arrived in the country. Despite the diversification of their applications, there is an aspect—namely, errors made by respondents—that remains underexplored, especially in the field of foreign language learning. This present study addresses, within this framework of availability, the examination of lexical errors in English among a sample of 75 participants from three different educational levels: primary, secondary, and university. Based on data collected from 6 areas of interest, the study pursues a dual objective: first, to conduct a detailed analysis of the spelling situation in the sample to create a corpus of the most frequent misspellings; and second, to analyse how these errors evolve throughout the process of learning English as a foreign language. The results obtained indicate that the errors made most frequently by the respondents are of a graphic nature, followed by errors of a phonetic-phonological nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread tendency among Spanish speakers to adhere to spelling rules, presumably linked to the maintenance of their own image. Deviations tend to respond, especially in youth or virtual environments, to a deliberate desire to belong to a group or to ignorance. One of the phenomena with the greatest orthographic difficulties is the use of the prefix super- as intensifier, recently rising. For this reason, this study proposes a pan-Hispanic analysis of the frequencies of the different graphic variants and their distribution in corpora with different degrees of familiarity, while seeking to identify potential causes. Additionally, it examines if certain initial consonants in the base words may influence the selection of these variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of literacy challenges among dyslexic adults remains a significant concern. This study investigates spelling deficits among highly educated adults with dyslexia learning a transparent orthography. Thirty-eight Italian dyslexic university students were examined and compared to a group of age- and education-matched typical readers. Firstly, we analyzed spelling performance using a Passage Dictation Test. Additionally, lists of words varying in length and word frequency were dictated under two experimental conditions: a normal condition (NC) and an articulatory suppression condition (ASC). The ASC assessed the participants' ability to spell with interference to the phonological (sublexical) spelling procedure, i.e., the most likely compensated spelling strategy of Italian dyslexic spellers. The results clearly indicated that, in spelling the meaningful passage, dyslexic participants underperformed compared to the controls, with a prevalence of lexical errors, despite the comparison with the normative reference data showing only mild spelling difficulties. In spelling isolated words in normal conditions, dyslexic participants performed within the reference norms and as accurately as control participants across all stimuli (short words, high- and low-frequency words), except for long words, where their spelling difficulties were evident. Articulatory suppression significantly impaired dyslexics' performance on short stimuli, reducing the usual sublexical advantage associated with them, and exacerbated misspellings on long words. Additionally, articulatory suppression disproportionately affected dyslexics' performance on high-frequency words, diminishing the typical lexical advantage associated with these words. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical, clinical, and educational implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid integration of online platforms into learners' academic lives has impacted their skills and competence, to which writing is highly connected. Spelling is among the most affected aspects. The current study explores and examines the indirect effects of digital tools, namely keyboard prediction, on EFL learners' spelling competency, where mobile phones are the most commonly used device among learners. Learners who depend too much on online platforms must use various digital devices. For this purpose, forty students from the English Department at Soran University, ranging from Stage One to Four, were randomly chosen to participate in the study. The study designed a special sheet containing questions and a writing area, which were then offered to participants. After answering some questions, the participants had to write eight sentences on paper from dictation. The sentences included at least one common challenging word in terms of spelling. Furthermore, using Cook's (1999) spelling error analysis framework, university students' performances were evaluated in spelling errors. The results showed the shockingly negative effect of using keyboard prediction tools on EFL learners' spelling performance. Learners had an average of 23 misspelt words. The effect was mainly due to learners improperly using keyboard prediction and spell correctors on smartphones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the spelling rules of a language is one of the important elements of language planning for the standardization of that language. This issue is still an ongoing process in Kurmanji Kurdish and it is necessary to know that there are many issues that have not been addressed yet. The formation and writing styles of adverbs and adverbial phrases are one of these issues and have not been discussed properly. In this study, we catagolize the adverbs in Kurmanji Kurdish under the subheadings of adverb types and focus on their formation and writing styles. In determining these adverbs, we take into account local and oral uses, apart from the written sources of Kurmanji Kurdish. In this context, after identifying the different writing styles of each envelope type, we offer our own solution suggestions in order to determine the standard usage in the written language. At the end of this study, it was determined that the use of inflective suffixes, regional and oral usage differences, and the writing styles of compound adverbs are important problems in writing adverbs and adverbial phrases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spelling difficulties are commonly associated primarily with spelling errors. However, it is not uncommon for spelling challenges to transform the whole writing process into a formidable struggle. This paper delves into the exploration of whether and to what extent analyses of children's writing processes can enhance our understanding of their difficulties, potentially contributing to the assessment of spelling challenges. We focused particularly on the degree of hesitation within words and the ability to detect and correct spelling errors among children with and without reading and spelling difficulties, as well as how these processes impact the quality and lexical diversity of their texts. Additionally, we sought to contribute to disentangling the influence of spelling and decoding abilities on these processes. A cohort of 47 children, aged 10–13, participated in the study, comprising 16 typically developing children, 16 with predominantly spelling difficulties, and 15 with both reading and spelling difficulties. Our analysis encompassed their spelling performance in both standardized tests and task-oriented writing samples, as well as an examination of their pausing and revision behaviour. As expected, we found robust correlations between the children's spelling test scores and the proportions of spelling errors in their texts. Furthermore, our findings indicated that children encountering spelling difficulties exhibited a reduced ability to detect and correct errors compared to their peers without such challenges. Additionally, they displayed a slightly higher tendency to experience word-internal interruptions, aligning with prior research. The children who also had reading difficulties produced fewer words and processed words more slowly compared to children in both the other groups. Intriguingly, process data did not reliably predict text characteristics, suggesting that dysfluent writing may not significantly detriment the overall quality of the text, contrary to our initial expectations based on prevailing writing development models. Nevertheless, the study revealed considerable individual variation, with some participants demonstrating a high degree of struggling and dysfluency, resulting in poorer text outcomes, but also others whose struggling processes led to better outcomes. We posit that the crucial aspect lies in identifying these individuals within a classroom context and gaining insights into their processes to provide them with appropriate, formative feedback and adequate writing tools to facilitate their writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with reading difficulties typically experience difficulties in both reading and spelling. Little is known about the use of spelling for identifying reading difficulties across languages that possess different orthographic depths, among multilingual readers. In the current study, we investigated whether multilingual Primary 1 poor readers were also poor spellers in two different orthographies, namely Malay and English. The sample comprised 866 Primary 1 Malaysian public school students from diverse backgrounds. A cut-off point of 25th percentile and below was used to operationalise students with deficits in word reading accuracy and spelling across both languages. A majority of the students who were poor readers in Malay and English, correspondingly, were also poor spellers in both languages. Spelling and word reading accuracy were highly correlated and considered as good indicators for identifying struggling young multilingual readers. These results indicate the importance of assessing spelling in both Malay and English for identifying reading difficulties, especially among young multilingual Malaysian learners. Implications for practice and future directions are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated spelling errors in English and Spanish essays by Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 1, 2, and 3 (N = 278; 51% female) enrolled in either English immersion or English-Spanish dual immersion programs. We examined what types of spelling errors students made, whether they made spelling errors that could be due to crosslinguistic influence, and whether errors were associated with instructional program, English learner status, and grade level. Compositions were transcribed and coded using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software. Spelling errors were suggestive of crosslinguistic influence that was mostly unidirectional from one language to the other rather than bidirectional. Spelling errors were related to instructional program such that students in Spanish-English dual immersion made more English spelling errors in English compositions due to Spanish influence, and students in English immersion made more spelling errors in Spanish compositions due to English influence. Students in higher grades also made less English spelling errors in English compositions due to Spanish influence than students in lower grades. These findings suggest that dual language learners acquire spelling patterns in one language influenced by instruction and home language, which transfers to spelling in the other language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One aim of this article is to shift mindsets from the traditional identification of written language abilities that are “missing” in students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) to writing assessment as the discovery of more complex language strengths foundational to success across disciplines. The multiple language-levels (MLL) perspective is grounded on identifying strengths in written language that may be present in students’ responses to classroom writing activities. We used MLL to examine the compositions of 19 students in grades 4–9 who were classified with SLDs and struggled with academic writing. Their writing assignment was to explain how astronauts wrote about space exploration. The MLL approach revealed hidden strengths at the big picture (global or thematic) and close-up (local) levels of composing. Patterns of strengths discovered at the global and local levels are described with four case examples and instructional implications are noted. Suggestions for treatment are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges faced by heritage language (HL) learners in mastering spelling and orthography are well-documented. Despite these documented difficulties, this aspect of HL linguistic knowledge has received limited attention from HL researchers. Beyond instructional implications, the study of spelling and orthography in HL speakers holds significance to building a finer understanding of the nature of heritage languages, since the development of orthographic skills is intricately linked to the knowledge of phonology and morphology as well as to metalinguistic awareness in these two areas. The study presented in this paper attempts to contribute to this area of research by turning its attention to orthographic skills of Russian heritage learners with English as their dominant language. The corpus-based research presented here categorizes orthographic errors in adjectival endings in hand-written essays produced by college-age HL learners of Russian of various writing proficiency levels and attempts to provide preliminary explanations for the source of these errors. While this paper is exploratory in nature and limited in scope by focusing only on adjectival endings, our results emphasize the need for further exploration in this underrepresented area to enhance our understanding of heritage language development and improve instructional strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lernen und Lernstörungen is the property of Hogrefe AG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Spelling ability is a key dimension of orthographic knowledge and a crucial component literacy skill that supports automatic word recognition and fluent reading. There has been substantial research on first language (child) English speakers' spelling ability, including the effectiveness of instruction interventions for improving spelling knowledge. However, there is relatively little research on spelling in adult learners of English as a second language, and even less examining instructional interventions for improving their spelling. The current study addressed this gap by implementing an adaptation of a phonics-based instructional intervention in a university-based intensive English reading class. Compared to two different control cohorts, the cohort receiving the intervention significantly improved their ability to accurately identify whether an English word was spelled correctly or not. Analyses also considered the influence of a variety of lexical characteristics as well as participants' L1 writing system. The results demonstrate the efficacy of this intervention in adult L2 English learners and also highlight the importance of considering word characteristics and participants' language background when examining spelling performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lexical quality (LQ) hypothesis predicts that a skilled reader's lexicon will be inhabited by a range of low- to high-quality items, and the probability of representing a word with high quality varies as a function of person-level, word-level, and item-specific variables. These predictions were tested with spelling accuracy as a gauge of LQ. Item-response based crossed random effects models explored simultaneous contributions of person-level (e.g. participant's decoding skill), word-level (e.g. word's transparency rating), item-specific (e.g. participant's familiarity with specific word), and person-by-word interaction predictors (e.g. decoding by transparency rating interaction) to the spelling of 25 commonly misspelled irregular English words in 61 undergraduate university students (M = 19.4 years, 70.49% female, 39.34% Hispanic, 81.97% White). Substantial variance among individuals in item-level spelling accuracy was accounted for by person-level decoding skill; item-specific familiarity, proportion of schwas correctly represented, and correctly identifying the word from its mispronunciation; and an interaction of transparency rating by general decoding skill. Consistent with the LQ hypothesis, results suggest that one's ability to form a high-quality lexical representation of a given word depends on a complex combination of person-level abilities, word-level characteristics, item-specific experiences, and an interaction between person- and word-level influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims at exploring in an irregular orthographic system like French, if spelling is related to written composition. French spelling is particularly interesting because it includes phonographic irregularities (i.e., inconsistencies), lexical difficulties and numerous morphological silent marks (e.g., plural noun, adjective, and verb agreement). In a longitudinal study from the beginning of Grade 3 to the end of Grade 4, pupils (N = 173) were asked twice in every grade to compose narrative texts from strips. Text length, text completeness and three categories of spelling errors were coded and analyzed through multilevel growth curve models. Results show (1) a growing relationship between text production and orthographic performance, (2) that this relationship varied according to whether it related to text length or to text completeness, and (3) its strength and evolution depended on the type of errors (phonographic, lexical, or morphological). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most children across the world learn to read and write in non-alphabetic orthographies such as abjads (e.g., Arabic), abugidas (e.g., Ethiopic Ge'ez), and morphosyllabaries (e.g., Chinese). However, most theories of reading, reading development, and dyslexia derive from a relatively narrow empirical base of research in English—an outlier alphabetic orthography—and a handful of mainly Western European Roman alphabets. Consideration of the full spectrum of the world's writing systems reveals multiple dimensions of writing system complexity, each of which could possibly create obstacles for the developing reader. Daniels and Share (Sci Stud Read 22:101–116, 2018) proposed a multi-dimensional framework for assessing a range of writing system characteristics likely to challenge literacy acquisition: linguistic distance, non-linearity, visual uniformity and complexity, historical orthographic inertia, spelling constancy despite morphophonemic alternation, omission of phonological elements, allography, dual purpose letters, ligaturing, and symbol inventory size. The present study examines the applicability of these ten dimensions to understanding reading and spelling acquisition in Malayalam, a non-European language written in a non-alphabetic script. Malayalam, a south Indian language spoken by some 35 million people, employs a writing system typical of the Brahmi-derived Indic scripts used by almost two billion people throughout South and Southeast Asia. We found that a majority (7/10) of the D&S dimensions are indeed useful for understanding the challenges of learning to read and write in Malayalam. Three dimensions are not applicable, and an additional dimension, word length, needs to be added to the framework. The popular uni-dimensional approach of characterizing orthographies as shallow/transparent or deep/opaque (mis)classifies Malayalam as a highly transparent or shallow script simply because the characters almost invariably have a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound. Clearly, however, there are many other dimensions of complexity, such as non-sequentiality, visual similarity, allography, ligaturing, and inventory size, that challenge the learner and prolong the task of learning to read and write. We conclude that the popular uni-dimensional characterization of writing system variation along a single continuum of spelling-to-sound consistency fails to do justice to the multi-dimensional complexity of many, perhaps most, of the world's writing systems and the challenges they pose for literacy learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Letter knowledge and word identification are key skills for reading and spelling. Letter knowledge facilitates the application of sublexical letter-sound mappings to decode words. With reading experience, word identification becomes a key lexical skill to support decoding. In transparent orthographies, however, letter knowledge might be an enduring predictor of decoding and spelling, even in children with some reading experience. This study investigated the association of children's sublexical (letter knowledge) and lexical skills (word identification and vocabulary) with word decoding and spelling accuracy in Spanish, which is a transparent orthography. The sample consisted of 117 Spanish-speaking children, aged 8 to 10. Results revealed that (1) letter knowledge and word identification were independently associated with childre's word spelling; (2) word identification was uniquely associated with word decoding; and (3) children's vocabulary level was associated with word identification. The implications of these findings were examined within the framework of reading models and the characteristics of a transparent orthography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One-to-one rehabilitation therapy is effective in supporting people with moderate and severe aphasia to improve their written spelling with the aim of using writing to augment limited spoken language abilities. To date, there has been little exploration of therapy for dysgraphia in a group format. The present study was designed to evaluate treatment outcomes for impairment-based group therapy for dysgraphia supplemented with home practice exercises. Three individuals with very severe, severe and moderate aphasia engaged in eight group sessions of impairment-based spelling therapy incorporating game formats. Outcome measures included written naming of trained and untrained words and carer ratings for communicative effectiveness and functional use of writing. All participants made gains in their written accuracy. Carer ratings also indicated an increased use of writing and/or communicative effectiveness following intervention. A group format, embedding written naming in a social context can be a successful means of delivering impairment-based therapy for dysgraphia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have explored how Language-Minority Bilingual Children (LMBC) read and comprehend, while the way they learn to spell and write has received less attention. This study aimed to assess a comprehensive profile of spelling and writing skills in LMBC, comparing performances of 4th and 5th grade bilingual (n = 74) and monolingual (n = 131) children in word and nonword reading and multilevel spelling and writing tasks (word, nonword and passage dictation, and written narrative production). Furthermore, we explored the role of linguistic and cognitive predictors (nonverbal Intellectual Quotient, verbal knowledge, morphosyntactic comprehension, nonword repetition) in spelling and writing outcomes. Our findings showed that, overall, LMBC did not reach a monolingual-like proficiency in spelling by the end of primary school, while they were similar to monolinguals in reading tasks and were able to produce written narratives with adequate macrostructure, syntactic complexity, and lexical variety. Moreover, morphosyntactic comprehension predicted spelling in both groups. Nonverbal intelligence and verbal knowledge predicted spelling skills only for the bilingual group. With regards to writing skills, morphosyntactic comprehension emerged as a predictor exclusively in the bilingual group. These results are discussed with reference to educational and clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In learning to read, children learn to integrate orthographic, phonological, and semantic codes into highly specified and redundant lexical representations. The aim is to test a proposed model for the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) as mediated by word reading (WR) and spelling (SP) in children with developmental dyslexia (DD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and mild intellectual disability (ID). Methods: The relation between PA and RAN was found to be mediated by WR and SP in children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID. Three groups of children were included: DD children (N = 70), ADHD children (N = 68), and ID children (N = 69). This is a quantitative correlational, cross-sectional study investigating the strength and direction of relationships among proposed variables. Results: The relation between PA and RAN was found to be mediated by WR and SP. Based on their correlation analysis, the researcher concluded that there are significant correlations between PA, RAN, WR, and SP. PA correlates positively with RAN and SP. RAN correlates positively with WR and SP. Conclusion: The study extended our knowledge of the relationship between PA and RAN as mediated by WR and SP in children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID. In practice, this is conducive to promote the utilization of "PA" and "RAN" so as to improve the early literacy skills (WR and SP) among children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of bilig: Journal of Social Sciences of the Turkish World is the property of bilig: Journal of Social Sciences of the Turkish World and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This text analyses Father António Vieira’s spelling practices in História do Futuro based on a new conservative manuscript reading. Written, for the most part, between 1664 and 1665, the fragments of the História do Futuro that have come down to us, attached to Vieira’s inquisitorial process, are working texts, unpolished versions, which, therefore, may eventually reveal some marks of the “classic” period of Portuguese. On the other hand, taking into account that Vieira’s training in spelling falls within the “etymological” period and that his reputation places him among the “good authors”, also in terms of spelling, we seek to identify the conservative and innovative marks and, eventually, the manifestation of an individual practice, which, as is known, was, in Vieira’s time and until the beginning of the 20th century, a notorious trend, particularly among great writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatization of handwriting and typing is sustained by both sensorimotor and linguistic abilities that support the integration of central-linguistic processes with modality-specific peripheral-motor programs. How this integration evolves when handwriting and, especially, typing is not fully automatized has not been well-understood yet. In the present work, we had two main aims: (1) to understand how spelling processing affects handwriting and typing word production in a sample of 9th-grade Italian students who have extensive handwriting practice but less experience with typing, and (2) to unveil if reading and visual-motor integration skills of the writer/typists have a role in integrating spelling processing and motor execution. Thirty-six 9th-grade participants handwrote and typed to dictation words and pseudowords of different lengths and orthographic complexity. To test spelling processing during handwriting and typing, we collected measures of latency (RTs)—i.e. the interval between spoken stimulus availability and starting to write—, of interletter interval mean—i.e., the mean of the intervals between consecutive letters—, and whole response duration—i.e. the execution time of the entire stimulus. We further assessed participants' reading and visual-motor integration skills to analyze their impact on the chronometric measures as a function of the linguistic proprieties of the stimuli. Our findings show a different pattern of processing for handwriting, the automatized process for our participants, and for typing, for which stronger lexical and sublexical effects emerged. Furthermore, reading and visual-motor skills interacted differently with the two transcription modalities unveiling a modality-specific role of individual skills according to the automatization of handwriting and typing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spelling and handwriting are related skills which are critical for writing but are typically assessed separately. Doing so makes it more difficult to understand their respective development. We describe the creation and evaluation of a tool for their concurrent assessment: the Spelling and Handwriting Legibility Test (SaHLT). We examined whether (a) sentence spelling and handwriting legibility could be reliable and valid, independent measures of English spelling and handwriting legibility and (b) whether spelling and handwriting legibility can be measured concurrently. A total of 1461 primary-aged children (Mage = 9.14 years-old, SD = 12.80) completed the SaHLT and background tests. The SaHLT was a sensitive, reliable, and valid measure of spelling and handwriting. Multi-group factor analyses revealed the test to be a robust concurrent measure. The SaHLT offers a cost and time saving method of measuring two key skills of writing. This is important for assessments in practice and for furthering our understanding of the relationship between spelling and handwriting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translation is a much more complicated task than it really seems. It is a work in which nuances, knowledge, culture, and the transmission of science are important. The aim is to study the translation errors made by the students of the Translation - 2 course at the University of Al al-Bayt in order to improve their level and learn about and solve the difficulties that our students have. We have asked them to translate a text taken from the book Uncle Hamdī's Tales, which is considered a simple literary text full of sentences with different tenses and highly varied vocabulary. We have detected that there are many spelling difficulties, problems with the semantic meanings in the translation, and failures in terms of correctly translating the syntactic structure of Arabic sentences into Spanish. We have proposed several ways to solve these problems, including spending more time in the course to review tenses with students, strengthening their vocabulary, and having optional tasks to raise their level of writing and spelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Human Sciences Journal / Revue des Sciences Humaines is the property of Universite des Freres Mentouri Constantine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Even in the age of spellcheck and other assistive tools, spelling remains an important skill. Learning how to spell can be challenging, especially for students with high-incidence disabilities. Fortunately, tools such as graphic organizers may assist students with spelling. In this study, we evaluated the effects of a novel flowchart tool on spelling outcomes for two students with disabilities in a behavior-focused alternative school. We used a multiple probe across spelling concepts to measure the intervention's effects on spelling as well as accuracy of flowchart usage. Following training, students used the flowchart with fidelity, and their spelling accuracy improved. Both students sustained increases over an extended maintenance phase. Implications for practice, limitations, and directions for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-eight Albanian-Greek bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder and 28 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder but no language impairment, along with 28 typically-developing, age-, Performance IQ- and socioeconomic status-matched bilingual children were asked to produce two expository texts which were coded for spelling (phonological, grammatical, orthographic) errors, stress and punctuation use. The children's expressive vocabulary, current language use and home language history were also measured. The results show that the bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder were particularly vulnerable to spelling errors, while their bilingual peers with Autism Spectrum Disorder were rather challenged by stress and punctuation. The evidence speaks in favor of distinct patterns of writing impairment across the bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to describe Indonesian language errors contained in the 2023 STAIN Majene New Student Admission Socialization Letter and the factors that cause or influence Indonesian language errors in the letter. This research uses a qualitative paradigm by paying attention to syntax, and spelling of writing official letters. The results of this study are, (1) Indonesian language errors in the Technical Socialization Letter for New Student Admissions STAIN Majene there are errors in the level of syntax and spelling, and (2) The factors that cause or influence these errors are the lack of adequate mastery of Indonesian (according to EBI), the understanding of the letter writer does not attach importance to writing according to spelling (which is important the intention is conveyed) or there is no motivation to respond to the advice of the Dinas Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan in 2015 on languages (Preserving Regional Languages, Prioritizing Indonesian, and Mastering Foreign Languages), there has never been an official letter writing training/workshop at STAIN Majene, and the language of letter writers is also influenced by the mother tongue (regional language). The suggestion in this study is that it is hoped that soon official letter writing training and socialization of the use of Indonesian Spelling (EBI) is valid in 2015-present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ereğli Faculty of Education Journal / Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Ereğli Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Eregli Faculty of Education Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The acquisition of handwriting skills is a crucial goal in early primary school. Yet our comprehension of handwriting development, encompassing graphomotor skills and spelling, remains fragmented. The identification of predictors for handwriting skills is essential for providing early support. This longitudinal study aimed to explore the predictive roles of gender, working memory, and motivation to handwrite for graphomotor skills six months later and spelling skills one year later. Paper-and-pencil tasks (graphomotor skills, spelling), a tablet task (working memory), and a questionnaire (teachers' ratings of children's handwriting motivation) were employed. This study included 363 first-grade children (49.8% girls) aged 6–9 years. Results from a structural equation model, controlling for age and socioeconomic background, revealed that girls exhibited superior performance in graphomotor skills, while boys tended to spell more accurately. Furthermore, working memory predicted graphomotor skills but not spelling. Additionally, motivation to handwrite predicted both first-grade graphomotor skills and second-grade spelling. This study extends contemporary evidence, demonstrating that graphomotor skills predict spelling while considering gender and motivation. The findings underscore the pivotal role of graphomotor skills in spelling acquisition and suggest their contribution to spelling difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correctly spelling an English word requires a high-quality orthographic representation. When faced with spelling a complex word without a high-quality representation, spellers often rely on other knowledge sources (e.g., incomplete stored orthographic forms, phonological to orthographic relationships) to spell it. For bilinguals, another potentially facilitative source is knowledge of a word's lexical and sublexical representations in another language. In the current study we considered simultaneous effects of word-level (e.g., frequency, cognate status) and person-level (e.g., English spelling skill, prompting, bilingual status) predictors on college students' complex English word spelling. Monolinguals (English; n = 42) significantly outperformed bilinguals (Spanish and English; n = 76) on non-cognate spelling; no group differences emerged for cognate spelling accuracy. Within bilinguals, significantly higher spelling performance on cognates compared to non-cognates suggests cognate facilitation, with no prompting effects. Findings expand an interdisciplinary framework of understanding bilinguals' activation and use of cross-linguistic representations in spelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spelling is a prevalent strategy to teach children to read. However, research on the mechanism underlying the contribution of spelling to reading comprehension in Chinese children is limited. Methods: The primary aim of this study was to investigate the concurrent and longitudinal associations between spelling and reading comprehension and further test the mediating role of word reading fluency with 127 Chinese children (Mage = 76.01 months). Children were required to perform the tasks of nonverbal intelligence, expressive vocabulary, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, spelling, word reading fluency and reading comprehension at Grade 1. Then, reading comprehension was measured again 1 year later at Grade 2. The concurrent and longitudinal mediation models were fitted to the data by structural equation modelling. Results: The results showed that spelling was related to reading comprehension concurrently, and it predicted reading comprehension 1 year later while controlling for nonverbal intelligence, age, expressive vocabulary, metalinguistic awareness and the autoregressive effect of reading comprehension. Moreover, word reading fluency played mediating roles in the influence of spelling on reading comprehension in the concurrent and longitudinal models. Conclusions: These findings provided evidence that spelling is an important factor of reading comprehension and shed light on the nature of this association, highlighting the role of word reading fluency in linking spelling and Chinese children's reading comprehension. Highlights: What is already known about this topicThere may be a close relationship between spelling and reading comprehension.Spelling may be related to word reading fluency, which is also necessary for reading comprehension. What this paper addsSpelling was related to reading comprehension significantly for children in Grade 1 (G1) and predicted reading comprehension 1 year later (G2) significantly even when controlling for nonverbal intelligence, age, expressive vocabulary, metalinguistic awareness and the autoregressive effect of reading comprehension.G1 word reading fluency mediated the effect of G1 spelling on G1 reading comprehension concurrently.G1 word reading fluency mediated the effect of G1 spelling on G2 reading comprehension longitudinally. Implications for theory, policy or practiceOur findings emphasise the necessity to include spelling in Chinese children's reading instruction.Providing instruction on spelling could support increases in word reading fluency, which may have cumulative effects, and then improve children's reading comprehension over time.Practitioners should consider training the skills of spelling and word reading fluency when designing the programmes of reading intervention at least for Chinese beginning readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study examines whether there are differences in expressive vocabulary between participants with and without dyslexia in personal narratives in response to the Global TALES protocol. Methods: 22 monolingual Dutch-speaking participants aged 11–16 with dyslexia and 22 age and gender-matched peers without dyslexia were assessed on measures of decoding, reading comprehension, and spelling of words, pseudowords, verbs, and sentences. The participants also produced personal narratives in response to the six prompts contained in the Global TALES protocol. We analyzed the personal narratives for expressive vocabulary and counted the total number of different words (TNDW). Results: The study revealed a significant relationship between TNDW and reading comprehension (r = 0.45, p = 0.002, BF10 = 17.70), spelling words (r = 0.42, p = 0.005, BF10 = 8.93), and spelling and writing conventions in sentences (r = 0.37, p = 0.016, BF10 = 3.11). The Global TALES protocol was successful in eliciting personal narratives in the Dutch-speaking participants with and without dyslexia. Participants with dyslexia used fewer different words (M = 192.27, SD = 64.37; 95% CI: [151.84–232.71]) compared to peers without dyslexia (M = 265.50, SD = 116.28; 95% CI: [225.06–305.93]; F(1, 42) = 6.68; p = 0.013; η2 = 0.14). When we compared the probability of models, Bayesian factors revealed moderate evidence for group differences in TNDW (BF = 3.94). Conclusion: Our findings indicate that older school-age participants with dyslexia may lag behind their peers in expressive vocabulary in a personal narrative discourse task that is relevant to everyday functioning. The results of this study highlight the relationship between expressive vocabulary and reading comprehension and the importance of the assessment of spoken language skills in children with dyslexia. Reading problems might lead to less advanced spoken language, which in turn may negatively affect the expressive vocabulary growth in individuals with dyslexia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined affix letter spelling among 6th grade Hebrew-speaking children with dyslexia compared with chronologically age-matched and reading level-matched controls. As different languages are characterized by multiple dimensions of affix spelling complexity, we specifically targeted the following unique dimensions relevant to Hebrew: (i) affix envelope transparency; (ii) affix letter prevalence; (iii) internal morpho-phonological competition; (iv) overtness of the phonological-orthographic link; and (v) phono-morpho-orthographic consistency. The research instrument was a spelling task of 244 words containing affix letters, covering all non-root morphological roles, both inflectional and derivational. Results show that for both frequent and infrequent words, 6th graders with dyslexia perform similarly to reading age-matched controls when spelling involves morphological competition or when the phonological morphological and orthographic link is inconsistent. In frequent words the similarity in performance between the groups extends to the overt phonology criterion as well. In addition, 6th graders with dyslexia were assisted by affix letter prevalence but not by demarcation of the affix envelope, compared with reading age-matched controls. Regarding these criteria, the discrepancy between regular and irregular affix spelling was different between dyslexic children and non-dyslexic controls. These findings indicate that morphological knowledge in dyslexia is not a unified system, and while some morpho-orthographic regularities are acquired more easily, other morpho-orthographic regularities are quite challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to encode (spell) is an integral writing skill needed to communicate effectively. The ability to spell, also, enhances decoding as spelling and decoding are reciprocal skills that rely on knowledge of the same subskills. Spelling can also be particularly difficult for students with literacy and phonological-processing difficulties such as dyslexia. Because of the multiple benefits of knowing how to spell correctly, it is important for teachers to know the structure of the English language, so they can explicitly teach spelling. Through the administration of a survey, this study assessed 324 U.S. teachers' knowledge of English spelling patterns (Part 1). In addition, the inclusion of survey items intended to measure teachers' awareness of how children's spelling can be influenced by either African American English or the overlap between Spanish and English in emergent bilinguals. African American English and Spanish were chosen due to the underperformance of many African American and Hispanic/Latinx students on national and state reading assessments. Part 2 of the survey assessed teachers' self-efficacy in teaching spelling, while Part 3 assessed teachers' philosophy about spelling and teaching spelling. The Rasch analyses revealed that teachers whose primary area of teaching was reading outperformed those whose primary area of teaching was not reading. Additionally, teachers who taught Emergent Bilinguals outperformed those who did not on the constructs measuring words with possible influences of Spanish language on the spelling of English words. Several spelling patterns posed problems for all groups of teachers, while others were the least difficult for teachers. Practical and research implications are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]