Early development of text writing in two contrasting orthographies : English and Spanish
Current thinking about writing considers spelling skills to be a crucial factor in its development. However, most research evidence to date comes from studies in English, which has a highly inconsistent orthography. Since the rate of spelling development is affected by degrees of orthographic consistency, cross-linguistic investigations are thus needed to determine whether English-based assumptions may be extended to more consistent orthographies. This work reports the results of a longitudinal investigation of early writing development from a cross-linguistic viewpoint. The writing development of children learning to write in English, a very inconsistent orthography, and children learning to write in Spanish, a very consistent orthography, was contrasted. Specifically, the studies included in this thesis explored the extent to which orthographic complexity moderated gains in a number of microstructural writing features, as well as whether it shaped the relationships between different levels of text construction. Finally, preschool-Year 2 predictors of writing outcomes were explored. The results showed that orthographic complexity moderates gains in wordlevel features of text writing, but, beyond the word
Salas, NaymĂ©
Early development of text writing in two contrasting orthographies : English and Spanish. Current thinking about writing considers spelling skills to be a crucial factor in its development. However, most research evidence to date comes from studies in English, which has a highly inconsistent orthography. Since the rate of spelling development is affected by degrees of orthographic consistency, cross-linguistic investigations are thus needed to determine whether English-based assumptions may be extended to more consistent orthographies. This work reports the results of a longitudinal investigation of early writing development from a cross-linguistic viewpoint. The writing development of children learning to write in English, a very inconsistent orthography, and children learning to write in Spanish, a very consistent orthography, was contrasted. Specifically, the studies included in this thesis explored the extent to which orthographic complexity moderated gains in a number of microstructural writing features, as well as whether it shaped the relationships between different levels of text construction. Finally, preschool-Year 2 predictors of writing outcomes were explored. The results showed that orthographic complexity moderates gains in wordlevel features of text writing, but, beyond the word
early_development text write two_contrast orthography english_spanish current_think write considers spell skill crucial_factor development however evidence date come study english highly inconsistent orthography since rate spelling development affect degree orthographic consistency cross_linguistic investigation thus need determine_whether english based assumption may extend consistent orthography work report longitudinal investigation early write development cross_linguistic viewpoint write development child_learn write_english inconsistent orthography child_learn write spanish consistent orthography contrast specifically study include explored extent orthographic complexity moderate gain number writing feature well whether shape relationship different_level text construction finally year predictor write outcomes explore show orthographic complexity moderate gain feature text writing beyond word