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Abstract:
We investigated three possible sources of spelling problems
in skilled readers: the formation, storage, and retrieval of
orthographic representations of words. Participants were
categorized as proficient or poor spellers based on the results of
a spelling test containing commonly misspelled words. Subjects were
taught the spelling of 60 non-words and were subsequently given
spelling and recognition tests on these non-words. The non-word
recognition test revealed whether spelling errors resulted from
problems with the formation of new orthographic representations.
Given that the correct spellings could be recognized, the non-word
spelling test revealed whether spelling errors resulted from
problems in short-term retrieval of new orthographic
representations. Similarly, a real-word recognition task was used
to test whether spelling errors resulted from problems with
long-term storage of established orthographic representations.
Overall, poor spellers performed significantly worse than
proficient spellers on the recognition of real words. The groups
did not differ on non-word recognition and non-word spelling tasks;
however, a subset of poor spellers demonstrated deficits on both
non-word tasks. This pattern of results implies that poor spellers
have difficulty with the long-term storage of orthographic
representations. In addition, a subset of poor spellers may have
further difficulty with the formation and/or short-term retrieval
of new orthographic representations.
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