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A longitudinal study of the effects of syllabic structure on the development of reading and spelling skills in French

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Liliane Sprenger-Charolles  and
Linda S. Siegel
Liliane Sprenger-Charolles
Affiliation:
CNRS/Universite René Descartes
Linda S. Siegel*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
*
Linda Siegel, Educational Psychology and Special Education, 2123 Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T IZ4, Canada
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Abstract

The central hypothesis of this study was that phonological mediation plays a critical role in the early development of reading and spelling in French. Therefore, the phonological structure of items, as opposed to their visual characteristics, was expected to be a significant determinant of performance. This hypothesis was tested in a short-term longitudinal study with a group of first graders (N = 57) who were administered a reading and a spelling task involving pseudowords of different syllabic structures. The first prediction was that there would be better performance on pseudowords with a simple structure (CVCVCV) than on pseudowords with a complex structure (CCVCVC or CVCCVC), and that errors on syllables with a complex structure would involve the deletion of codas or the simplification of complex onsets. We also predicted that errors would be consistent with a sonority hierarchy; for example, we expected more deletions of liquids than obstruents in clusters.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1997 , pp. 485 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

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