The effect of orthography on the acquisition of literacy skills

Abstract

The effect of the regularity of orthography on the acquisition of literacy skills was studied by comparing the reading and spelling of 70 Italian children aged 6–11 years with that of 90 English children learning traditional orthography (t.o.) and 33 children aged 6–7 years learning the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.), using an Italian passage for adults which was also translated into English. The Italian children learned to read at an earlier age than the English t.o. children, but not than the English i.t.a. children. The English t.o. and i.t.a. children could read more words than they could spell, whereas the Italian children could spell most of the words they could read and even some they could not read.The English children read fast and inaccurately, whereas the Italian children read slowly and accurately using a systematic, phonological strategy until 10 years, when they read fast and accurately. All the children used a phonological strategy in spelling, but only the Italians were mostly successful. Thus the results suggest that, if the orthography is predictable and invariant, the children use a systematic, phonological strategy and learn to read and spell more quickly and accurately.