Phonemic Awareness Helps First Graders Invent Spellings and Third Graders Remember Correct Spellings

Abstract

The current study investigated the direct effects of phonemic awareness on spelling development and the relationship between phonemic awareness and the acquisition of orthographic representations of equivocal phonemes (i.e., phonemes with more than one rule-governed spelling), referred to as word-specific information. Phonemic awareness and word-specific information accounted for 54% of the variance in first-grade spelling scores and 70% of the variance in third-grade scores. The relationship between phonemic awareness changed from first grade to third grade, indicating that in first grade spelling is primarily a sequential encoding process whereas in third grade spelling relies more upon the use of memorized orthographic units. Scattergrams in both first and third grade supported the notion of phonemic awareness as a foundation for the development of word-specific information. Analyses of the spellings of children high and low in phonemic awareness also supported this finding.