Apprehending Spelling Patterns for Vowels: a Developmental Study

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Abstract
This study investigates the extent to which children and adults are responsive to orthographic regularities in their readings of nonsense sysllables that conform to the phonology and spelling conventions of English words. College students and children of the second, third and fourth years of elementary school read a list of nonsense monosyllables in which most common vowel spellings were presented. Their vowel responses were analyzed according to three categories: incorrect assignment of sound to spelling and correct assignments by context-free and context-dependent criteria. At all levels of reading experience, the proportions of responses falling into the two latter categories far exceeded expectations based on chance responding. These results showed that the children were able to take advantage of orthographic regularities when asked to read unfamiliar words, and, moreover, with increasing age and reading experience they were able progressively to delimit the contexts in which the different regularities apply. The implication is that in learning to read, children do not merely add items to a sight vocabulary by rote recognition of unanalyzed word wholes. Instead, they acquire a practical knowledge of spelling patterns which can readily be applied to new instances.

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