Spelling error analysis performed on 27 dyslexic fourth to eighth graders and 27 normal second graders revealed no significant differences in phonetic accuracy, level of maturity, or incidence of serial order confusion. Findings did not support prevailing approaches characterizing dyslexic students as phonetically inaccurate spellers. (CL)

A cohort of 92 children was followed through sixth grade to investigate the relationship of preschool skills and first-grade phonological awareness to later reading and spelling abilities. In particular, the focus was on the changing roles of letter naming, orthographic awareness, and phonological processing in prediction of reading vocabulary,…

An auditory rhyme detection task was employed to examine orthographic code development in 27 reading-disabled and 27 normally achieving children (ages 7-11 years). It was concluded that children with a reading disability have a lessened ability to automatically access and make available stored lexical information relating to orthography.…

This study of 115 children with attention deficit disorder (ages 6-12) found that those with hyperactivity performed more poorly on a nonword reading task than did those without hyperactivity, that neither age nor gender interacted with subgroup class, and that poorer performance on written spelling/written language measures relative to reading…

A study compared 28 children (ages 6-10) with dyslexia, 23 with reading disabilities, 15 low verbal intelligence good readers, and 24 reading-level matched younger children. Results found most of the poorest readers (nearly all were dyslexic) had a double or triple deficit in phonological, naming-speed, and orthographic skills. (Author/CR)

A study of 114 12-year-olds in the Netherlands found that dyslexia was associated with deficits in: (1) phonological recoding, word recognition in both Dutch and English, and spelling skills; and (2) naming speed for letters and digits. Dyslexia was not associated with other cognitive and motor skills evaluated. (Contains extensive references.)…

This study examined the hypothesis that spelling errors involving vowels are linked to difficulties in vowel perception. Second to fourth graders (n=155) were grouped by reading skill and given vowel discrimination and identification tasks. Vowel identification errors were linearly associated with reading skill and with vowel spelling errors.…

Two groups of first graders (n=63) participated in a 10-day intervention study in which they were instructed in the spelling of five final letter patterns in monosyllabic words. Children receiving phoneme instruction improved accuracy of final pattern spelling as well as speed of word reading over children receiving rime instruction. (Contains…

In this review, three perspectives on spelling theory, research, and instruction are examined. Traditional classroom-based, developmental, and structured language approaches are outlined and their implications for assisting poor spellers explored. Instructional recommendations are made by drawing from and combining some of the strengths of each…

This paper describes characteristics of 10-year-old children (n=422) with normal reading ability, but with some signs of dyslexia. Findings indicated these children obtained different results on five measures associated with dyslexia than did other normal achievers without such signs. Measures were underachievement at word recognition, spelling,…