Writing & Spelling (W5)

Question 1

Is writing equivalent to the process of transcribing your speech?

Answer 1

No.

Question 2

What do you have to do when you write?

Answer 2

You have to plan -be aware of syntactic structures, etc.

Question 3

What are the main components of writing? (5)

Answer 3

• Automatic letter formation and/or keyboarding
• Accurate and fluent spelling
• Sentence construction
• Ability to compose a variety of different text structures with coherence and cohesion
• Transcription & composition

Question 4

Spelling plays what role in educational, vocational, and social circles?

Answer 4

A gatekeeping role

Question 5

Spelling requires what kind of memory?

Answer 5

Visual memory

Question 6

What is the historical view of spelling?

Answer 6

-A “low level,” “mechanical” skill - taught by memorizing a list of words

Question 7

There is a recent interest in the spelling in what field, and why?

Answer 7

• Developmental psycholinguistics

- Because it’s a cognitive-linguistic skill and has a predictable developmental course.

Question 8

What is orthography?

Answer 8

The spelling system for words

Question 9

What is a grapheme?

Answer 9

A letter or series of letters that corresponds to a sound

Question 10

Is English a deep or shallow orthography?

Answer 10

DEEP

Question 11

Is the irregularity of English orthography automatically good, or bad?

Answer 11

If all words were faithful to pronunciation, meaning relations would be obscured. (ex: sine and signachur rather than sign and signature)
-It’s a hard system for beginnings but a good system for experienced readers/writers

Question 12

Spelling, as a language skill, involves the following kinds of knowledge: (5)

Answer 12

• Phonology
• Orthography
• Morphology
• Semantics
• “mental graphemic representations” (or mental orthographic images)

Question 13

What are the 3 major sources of English words?

Answer 13

• Anglo-Saxon
• Norman French
• Latin & Greek

Question 14

Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon words

Answer 14

• Oldest words in English
• Most frequent, especially in conversation & early reading material
• Irregular, exception words

Question 15

Which type of words are Anglo-Saxon words?

Answer 15

• Prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries, many common nouns (a lot of little, function words)
• Irregular- exception words ‘you, does, would,’ etc.

Question 16

Characteristics of Norman French words

Answer 16

• About 40% of English words come from French
• Words tend to be “harder” than anglo-saxon words, but “easier” than Latin words
• Many of the patterns of English spelling came from French (esp. vowel patterns.)

Question 17

Which types of words are influenced by Norman French?

Answer 17

• ex: royal, chamber, conquer, etc.

- vowel patterns: meal, nourish, plain

Question 18

Characteristics of Latin & Greek words

Answer 18

Types of words that appear in academic text - contributed to invented connections for joining syllables and units of meaning (e.g., prefixes and suffixes)
-Latest words that kids learn to read/spell

Question 19

Examples of Latin & Greek influenced words

Answer 19

-Calculate, maximum, nucleus, hemisphere, etc.

Question 20

T/F: Learning to spell is a lot like learning to read.

Answer 20

TRUE

Question 21

What are two characteristics of learning to spell?

Answer 21

• It requires mastery of the alphabetic principle

- It is largely self-taught

Question 22

What is the correlation between spelling and reading ability?

Answer 22

Strong correlation (.70) between reading and spelling ability so that poor spellers are usually poor readers and vice versa.

Question 23

T/F: Decoding and spelling is not heritable

Answer 23

FALSE – STRONG heritability factor for decoding and spelling

Question 24

What is the implication for what we know about learning to spell?

Answer 24

De-isolate spelling