Word Regularity Affects Orthographic Learning

Share's self-teaching hypothesis proposes that orthographic representations are acquired via phonological decoding. A key, yet untested, prediction of this theory is that there should be an effect of word regularity on the number and quality of word-specific orthographic representations that children acquire. Thirty-four Grade 2 children were exposed to the sound and meaning of eight novel words and were then presented with those words in written form in short stories. Half the words were assigned regular pronunciations and half irregular pronunciations. Lexical decision and spelling tasks conducted 10 days later revealed that the children's orthographic representations of the regular words appeared to be stronger and more extensive than those of the irregular words.