teachers’ perception of spelling patterns and children’s spelling errors: a cross-linguistic...
TRANSCRIPT
Teachers' perception of spelling patterns andchildren's spelling errors:A cross-linguistic perspective
March 19, 2001
Dorit RavidTel Aviv UniversitySchool of Education andDepartment of CommunicationsDisordersTel Aviv 69978Israeltel.: +972 3 6408626fax: +972 3 5360394e-mail: [email protected]
Steven GillisUniversity of Antwerp – UIACenter for Dutch Language and Speech–CNTSDepartment of Linguistics – GERUniversiteitsplein 1B-2610 WilrijkBelgiumtel.: +32 3 8202766fax.: +32 3 8202762e-mail: [email protected]
Acknowledgements
Preparation of this paper was partly sponsored by the Flemish Government and the
University of Antwerp through a GOA-grant (contract G98/3). We thank Chaviva
Zavda for her help with data collection.
2
Abstract
This paper is a cross-linguistic examination of teachers’ perception of
morphologically-mediated spelling patterns, compared with children’s actual spelling
performance on these same patterns. The study was conducted on two languages
differing greatly in their typologies: Hebrew and Dutch. The research design of this
study consisted of two spelling tests, one for Hebrew and one for Dutch. Each spelling
test contained 32 target items with homophonous graphemes, equally divided into
four groups of conditions, differing in degree of morphological and morpho-
phonological cues. These spelling tests were first administered to 192 Israeli and 192
Belgian gradeschool children. Hebrew-speaking children generally scored higher than
Dutch-speaking children, and found the conditions which required
morpho(phono)logical analysis easier to spell than Dutch-speaking children.
40 Israeli and 40 Belgian college- and university-trained L1 teachers were
given the 32 items of these respective spelling tests and asked (i) to identify the pairs
of items that made up the test; and (ii) to motivate their identification. On both
identification and motivation, Dutch teachers generally scored higher than Hebrew
teachers, and they did better exactly on those conditions that Hebrew-speaking
children found easier than Dutch-speaking children.
One conclusion of this study is that the underpinnings provided by the
language structure determine learning patterns in spelling development. Another
conclusion is that patterns of spelling regularity, easily perceived by language
teachers, may not be so easily grasped by their learners. We hypothesize that the
explicit metalinguistic formulation of consistencies underlying spelling patterns
operates differently than natural information processing in language use.
3
1.0 Introduction
Languages often challenge their speaker/writers with phonologically
homophonous segments with alternative spellings. This opacity may lead to spelling
errors. At the same time, homophonous spelling may encode morphological units,
which may help in the decision on letter choice. For example, the English adjective
suffix <-ic> has three different phonetic values in <electric>, <electricity>, and
<electrician> ([k], [s], and [S] respectively), but is spelled consistently with the same
letters <ic>, formally representing its unity as a morphological construct. Previous
research has shown that learning patterns of homophonous segments are mediated by
typological features of the language being learned, especially by the degree of
morphological complexity of the language (Gillis & Ravid, 2000; Pacton, Perruchet,
Fayol & Cleeremans, in press). This paper is a cross-linguistic examination of
teachers’ perception of morphologically-mediated spelling patterns, compared with
children’s actual spelling performance on items spelled according to these same
patterns. The study was conducted on two languages differing greatly in their
typologies: Hebrew, a Semitic language with a highly synthetic morphology, and
Dutch, a Germanic language with a sparse morphology.
The study focuses on teachers’ explicit knowledge of the role of
morphological and morpho-phonological cues in spelling homophonous graphemes in
Hebrew and Dutch, with alternative spellings for the same sound, e.g., [t] spelled by
<d> or <t> in Dutch, [t] spelled by TAF or TET in Hebrew. In both languages,
homophonous graphemes may have morphological function, e.g., signifying stem or
affix, verb tense or lexical category, which serve as spelling cues. Spelling may also
be recoverable through morpho-phonological cues, e.g., by pluralizing Dutch words to
retrieve the [t] or [d] pronunciation, or by checking if stops and spirants alternate in
4
Hebrew to determine the appropriate grapheme. Our study of spelling development in
Hebrew- and Dutch-speaking children indicates that they make differential use of
these cues in their spelling, in line with the inherent typologies of their respective
languages (Gillis & Ravid, 2000, in press). In the current study we investigate
Hebrew- and Dutch-speaking teachers’ metalinguistic ability to detect
morpho(phono)logical cues in the spelling tests administered to children and to
motivate them in linguistic terms.
Awareness of spelling patterns is treated in this paper from two points of view.
One provides the background perspective: to what extent do Israeli and Belgian
children make use of morpho(phono)logical cues in spelling homophonous segments
in the two targeted languages and what factors govern this usage. A second point of
view, constituting the main or focal perspective of our paper, seeks to determine (i) to
what extent children’s knowledge and use of morphology in spelling Hebrew and
Dutch is matched by their teachers’ ability to explicitly identify and explain the
underlying motivation for such spelling patterns; and (ii) whether Israeli and Belgian
teachers receiving their training in teachers’ colleges differ in their ability to identify
and explain spelling motivation from teachers being trained at universities.
In the following sections we discuss two major themes, each relating to the
two perspectives of this study. One theme (section 1.1 below) relates to the difference
between implicit language knowledge and its usage versus explicit and analytical
language awareness (or metalanguage). Another theme (section 1.2 below) discusses
the components of linguistic knowledge relevant to correct spelling.
1.1 Language usage and language awareness
Language knowledge, like knowledge in many other domains such as face
recognition or geometry, is essentially implicit. This complex system is typically used
5
rather than addressed as a separate body of knowledge. In the natural context of
discourse, speakers normally focus on maintaining or changing the discourse topic
and their role as speaker or addressee, rather than on the linguistic form. The purpose
of a linguistic transaction is usually informative, and so language users focus on
content to achieve their communicative goals. Therefore, while performing any
‘natural’ and authentic linguistic act where language is used rather than analyzed,
linguistic knowledge is applied holistically, to construct (or comprehend) a totality
that integrates phonology, morphology and lexicon, syntax and semantics in a given
context (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2000).
Side-by-side with the development of implicit language knowledge, and with
increasing experience in different linguistic contexts, language users develop another
linguistic facet of explicit and analytic awareness (Gombert, 1992; Karmiloff-Smith,
Grant, Sims, Jones & Cuckle, 1996). This alternative mode treats language as a
formal problem space, focusing analytically on its components as a cognitive goal in
its own right. Metalanguage requires the ability to introspect on the linguistic
components that blend together naturally in language usage - phonemes, morphemes,
words, syntactic structures, and discourse types. Thus it involves an analytical
perception of units of language, the ability to represent each unit separately,
disassociating form from semantic content, and conscious monitoring of one’s own
linguistic knowledge (Bialystok, 1986).
Much of the metalinguistic research has typically focused on the onset and
development of phonological awareness in preschoolers (Goswami, 1999). More
recently, researchers have begun to look at morphological awareness, a knowledge
domain that involves introspecting about the morphemic structure of the word
(Carlisle & Nomanbhoy, 1993; Ravid & Malenky, in press; Wysocki & Jenkins,
6
1987). Language awareness is not a uniform phenomenon. It increases in explicitness
and concurrently involves representational reorganization into more coherent, denser
and more accessible forms (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). For example, perception of the
consonantal root elements in Hebrew emerges early on, but becomes more explicit in
older subjects (Ashkenazi & Ravid, 1998; Ravid, in press a). Tasks requiring
controlled, analytical, explicit verbalization of linguistic processes and constructs are
beyond the capacities of young children, and may not be fully achieved before
adolescence (Ashkenazi & Ravid, 1998; Nippold, 1998). Moreover, metalinguistic
insights reflect different perceptions of language at different ages (Nippold, Uhden &
Schwarz, 1997). For example, in becoming efficient readers and writers, the most
important morphological aptitude in English learners is the growing ability to
segment, extract and discuss stems and affixes (Henry, 1993; Lewis & Windsor,
1996; Smith, 1998; Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987), and Israeli gradeschoolers have been
shown to benefit from morphological awareness in text comprehension and prosodic
reading (Appel-Mashraki, 2001).
The changing nature of linguistic awareness is a combined result of
development, language experience, and school instruction. Being able to represent
and access linguistic form and meaning at will is the result of a complex, unified,
coherent body of linguistic knowledge is thus possessed only by linguistically literate
adults (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2000).
Despite its enormous importance in developing literacy, linguistic awareness
is not the primary target in teaching gradeschool and highschool students, but rather
an indirect means of getting a handle on a solution to problems in coming to grips
with written language as both a discourse style and a notational system; and as a
factor that explains children’s choice of strategy in approaching language problems.
7
School children normally cannot and are not expected to provide a comprehensive
explanation of the linguistic underpinnings of language tasks such as spelling
homophonous graphemes. Rather, they are expected to spell correctly. Teachers are a
different matter: L1 language teachers are indeed expected to understand the linguistic
structure of their native tongue, to have a systematic knowledge of its linguistic
categories and concepts, and to be able to relate and analyze them explicitly, using
conventional linguistic terminology. This meta-knowledge about language is a
component of what makes them teachers and presumably enables them to understand
what processes children go through in their literate development, to evaluate this
development and to provide remedial treatment when necessary (Wilson, Shulman &
Richert, 1987).
1.1.1 Spelling and language awareness
Spelling, though belonging to the written domain and related to school-type
activities, is an authentic linguistic act which usually addresses the spelled word as a
whole when conducted in the natural course of writing. When attending to a spelling
test, spellers may need to pay more attention to specific sites in the word which are
likely to cause trouble. Thus the task of spelling requires a certain degree of language
awareness, but this does not go beyond identifying the set of possible graphemes to be
inserted in the word. Reconstructing a spelling test on linguistic grounds, and
providing the motivation for the selection of spelling items, is a very different matter.
It calls for the ability to represent a number of linguistic systems, examine them from
phonological, morphological and syntactic points of view, and map linguistic
categories onto a set of graphemes in accordance with specific conventions. This
requires a highly analytical ability, access to a broad array of linguistic structures,
systematic knowledge of the language domains involved, and the ability to relate
8
domains in novel ways as well as verbalize the process. This is the type of language
awareness that Karmiloff-Smith terms E2/E3: levels where linguistic knowledge is
recoded so as to make conscious access and verbal report possible, which have not
been investigated empirically so far (1992: 22-23).
Section 1.2 below discusses the language domains which are relevant to
spelling, on the one hand, and which need to be accessed and integrated in order to
understand and represent the structure of a spelling test with a linguistic agenda, on
the other.
1.2 Knowledge domains relevant to spelling
Four knowledge domains are relevant to spelling alphabetical orthographic
systems develops in four domains: Mapping phonology onto graphemic segments;
learning about internal conventions of the orthographic system; learning about the
reflection of morphological regularities in the spelling system; and mapping morpho-
phonological segments onto written representation (Gillis & de Schutter, 1996;
Nunes, Bryant, & Bindman, 1997; Ravid, in press a; Totereau, Theverin, & Fayol,
1997).
1.2.1 Phonology
Homophonous graphemes, which provide alternative spellings for the same
phoneme frequently occur in many orthographies. Therefore, plotting out the spelling
of specific words and learning to spell systematically also means learning to
overcome opacity in mapping phonemes onto graphemes (Goswami, 1999). The two
languages investigated in this study differ in their “orthographic depth”, yet both have
homophonous graphemes, e.g., the segment [k] and the graphemes <Q> and <K> in
Hebrew; the segments [e], [E] and schwa and the grapheme <e> in Dutch.
1.2.2 Internal orthographic conventions
9
Alphabetic orthographies are governed by internal principles and internal
consistencies that have to be figured out by learners (Treiman & Cassar, 1997). One
such issue is vowel representation: Dutch, like all languages using Latin and Cyrillic
script, has a vocalized orthography. This means that both consonants and vowels are
represented consistently using graphemic units from the same domain, namely, letters.
Hebrew, in contrast, has two orthographic versions: a vocalized orthography
representing consonants by letters and vowels by diacritic marks as well as by letters;
and a nonvocalized orthography, representing all consonants, with vowels partially
and ambiguously represented by the letters <AHWY>. This is the default version of
written Hebrew which we used in the Hebrews spelling test described in this paper.
Knowledge in this domain also includes precise information about sites of
word segmentation and how to segment content and function words. In Hebrew, some
of the function letters designate syntactic constructs – conjunctions such as ‘and’,
‘that’, the definite article, and four prepositions - which are written attached to the
next word, e.g., the written string <WHBYT> [vehabajit] ‘and the house’ (Koriat,
Greenberg & Goldshmid, 1991; Ravid, in press a).
1.2.3 Morphology
Orthographic systems often express morphological regularities in their units,
which can be assumed to exist in the linguistic cognition of mature spellers and to
facilitate conventional spelling despite the disrupted phoneme-to-grapheme mapping
(Jones, 1991; Treiman & Cassar, 1996, 1997; Treiman, Zukowski & Richmond-
Welty, 1995). Morphology is crucially important to the current study, since the two
languages under investigation differ in the degree of their morphological syntheticity,
which may affect spelling patterning in development (Ravid & Tolchinsky, 2000).
10
In Hebrew, affix letters – inflectional, derivational and clitic morphemes - are
all spelled regularly and consistently. For example, Hebrew [t] has two alternative
spellings: <T> and <T >(the latter representing a neutralized historically emphatic
coronal stop). However, affixal t, as in past-tense suffix –ti, is always spelled <T>.
Previous work has shown that Hebrew speakers make use of this information from
early on, and that affix letters are spelled correctly earlier than root letters in Hebrew
(Ravid, in press a).
A morphological principle guides the spelling of Dutch words: The "principle
of similarity", entails that a word, stem, prefix or affix is always written in the same
way; and "the principle of resemblance" holds that words that are formed in the same
way are written in the same way. In the orthography this results in highly
morphologically transparent word forms. For instance, the simple present, third
person singular is formed by adding the suffix <t> to the stem of the verb (except
when the stem ends with a <t>). Thus 'he plays' is written in Dutch as <hij speelt>
(<speel> + <t>); 'he answers' is spelled <hij antwoordt> (<antwoord> + <t>); and the
exception is 'he eats', which is not written with a final geminate: <hij eet> (instead of
<hij eett>). In other words, Dutch orthography abstracts away from the effects of
phonological rules such as final devoicing, voice assimilation, and other rules of
connected speech, in order to preserve the identity of morphemes (Instituut voor
Nederlandse Lexicologie, 1997).
1.2.4 Morpho-phonology
In addition to encoding meaning-carrying morphemes, alphabetic
orthographies also express morpho-phonological information in systematic ways. This
information may be used to recover underlying phonological distinctions by
11
extracting morpho-phonological segments, analyzing them and comparing
morphologically related words. Recovering neutralized phonological distinctions in
Hebrew may involve comparing stop/spirant pairs [p,b,k] / [f,v,X] as in [miXtav]
‘letter’ / [ktuba] ‘marriage contract’, both from root k-t-b. Some of these stop/spirant
alternants are homophonous with other phonological segments. For example, [X] can
derive from either a spirantized /k/, spelled <K>, or from /Ì/ (pharyngeal fricative)
neutralized to [X], spelled <H>. Being able to juggle word forms in one’s mind to see
if the spirant in the word alternates with a stop may help in selecting the correct letter
in spelling. Since the [X] in [miXtav] alternates with [k] in words from the same
morphological family sharing the same root such as [ktav] ‘writing’, [ktovet]
‘address’, [ktuba] ‘marriage contract’, it can be assumed that it is spelled with <K>. In
contrast, the [X] in [maXs&ev] ‘computer’ never alternates with [k] in related words,
e.g., [Xis&ev] ‘computed’, [Xas&av] ‘thought’, [hitXas&vut] ‘consideration’, therefore it
should be spelled with <H>.
Another type of morpho-phonological clue in learning to spell in Hebrew
involves vowel lowering. Though pharyngeals and glottals are no longer pronounced
in mainstream Israeli Hebrew, they nonetheless continue to operate at the morpho-
phonological level, mainly by attracting low vowels in their environment. For
example, [dereX] ‘road’ and [keraX] ‘ice’ share the same pattern CéCeC (in which Cs
stand for root consonants) as well as a final segment [X]. This segment derives from a
spirantized /k/ in [dereX], which accounts for the spelling <DRK>; and from a
neutralized pharyngeal fricative /Ì/ in [keraX], which accounts for both the deviant
phonological form CéCaC with the low vowel [a], as well as for the spelling <QRH>.
The association of low vowels, especially [a], with one of the possible letters, may aid
in choosing the correct spelling.
12
One of the main morphophonological clues that can be used in Dutch involves
'undoing' the final devoicing of voiced segments in auslaut: The voiced segment
surfaces when it is pronounced in intervocalic position. For instance, the final
devoiced [d] in {av´nt}, written as <avond> ('evening'), surfaces in the plural
{av´nd´}, and the final devoiced [d] in the verbform {Antwort} <antwoord> ('answer')
surfaces in the simple past form {Antword@´}.
Given this background, our study investigates the domain of spelling
acquisition in two languages with differing typologies: Hebrew, a Semitic language
with a rich morphology and a “deep” orthography, and Dutch, a Germanic language
with a sparse morphology and a “shallow” orthography. The goal of this paper is to
find out to what extent Dutch- and Hebrew- teachers with different training
backgrounds (teachers’ colleges versus universities) are able to detect and explain the
linguistic motivation underlying a spelling test in their native tongue.
2.0 The children’s spelling study (Gillis & Ravid, 2000, in press)
Despite the typological and orthographic differences between Hebrew and
Dutch, they share the same phenomenon: homophonous graphemes. For different
reasons, certain phonological distinctions in both Dutch and Hebrew are neutralized,
yet these segments are mapped onto distinct graphemes. Such opaque or “deep”
phonology-to-orthography mapping constitutes an obstacle to the acquisition of
orthographic, or conventional, spelling. For example, the two Dutch words <arend>
(/arEnt/, ‘eagle’) and <agent> (/aVEnt/, ‘officer’) share a final [t] in speech due to
final devoicing, however written Dutch retains the <t>/<d> distinction in the spelling.
Similarly, Hebrew [tarim] (/tarim/ ‘you,SgMasc-will-lift’) and [ta’im] (/ta9im/ ‘tasty’)
share an initial [t] due to historical neutralization processes, however written Hebrew
makes a distinction between the spellings of <TRYM> and <T9YM1>. The spelling
13
study which forms the basis for the current teachers’ study was concerned with the
ways Dutch and Hebrew learners employed morphological and morpho-phonological
cues in order to spell phonologically neutralized segments.
In order to compare similar, though not identical phenomena in two
typologically divergent languages with different orthographies, we created identical
test conditions (see below).
2.1 Subjects and procedure
The study population consisted of 192 Israeli and 192 Belgian monolingual
schoolchildren with a middle-high socio-economic background from grades 1-6, all
native speakers of Hebrew and Dutch respectively. Subjects were presented with a
spelling test containing neutralized phonological segments. They were asked to spell
the target words, which were given in a sentential context to ensure clear and non-
ambiguous understanding. Each target word contained one target grapheme.
2.2 Materials
Condition I: Morphological and morpho-phonological cues
In both Hebrew and Dutch, Condition I of the spelling tests contained 8
homophonous target segments recoverable through both morphological and morpho-
phonological cues. In Dutch, Condition I consisted of pairs of verbs in present tense
and in past participle ending with surface [t] due to final devoicing, e.g., {b´tov´rt}
spelled <betovert> ‘bewitch, present tense’ / <betoverd> ‘bewitch, past participle’
with <t> and <d> respectively. There are two ways to recover the difference in the
spelling: (1) through morphology, that is present tense spelled with <t>, past
participle spelled with <d>; (2) through morpho-phonology, by converting the past
participle forms to an adjective or to the simple past, {b´tov´rd´} both spelled
<betoverde>, thus recovering the <d> spelling.
14
In Hebrew, Condition I consisted of pairs of words containing the same
surface segment [v] which may be spelled either by <W> or <B>, following the
historical form of the word, and according to its morphological role as either function
or root letter. For example, in the form [vair] ‘and-city’, the [v] designates a function
letter ‘and’, spelled <W>. In [uvair] ‘and-bright’ [v] is a root letter spelled with <B>.
The different spellings may be recovered either through morphology - [v] as function
letter is always spelled <W>, whereas [v] as root letter may be spelled either as <B>
or <W>; or through morpho-phonology: <W> always represents a spirant, whereas
<B> represents an alternating pair of stop and spirant, which can be detected by
morphological conversions.
Condition II: Morpho-phonological cues
Condition II contained 8 homophonous items with a morpho-phonological, but
not a morphological, conversion cue for each language. In Dutch, Condition II
consisted of pairs of nouns ending with surface [t] due to final devoicing, e.g.,
<arend> ‘eagle’/ <agent> ‘officer’. The final segment is part of the stem, with no
separate morphological value, however it is morpho-phonologically recoverable by
preventing final devoicing through pluralization: singular [arEnt] ‘eagle’ is pluralized
to [arEnd´] ‘eagles’, spelled <arenden>; whereas singular [aVEnt] ‘officer’ is
pluralized to [aVEnt´] ‘officers’, spelled <agenten>.
In Hebrew, Condition II consisted of pairs of words in the same morphological
pattern, containing a surface [X]. This identical segment is a root letter in both cases,
which is morpho-phonologically recoverable through the low vowel associated with
[X] deriving from low guttural /Ì/ and spelled <H>, e.g., [kerax] ‘ice’ <QRH >.
Condition III: Morphological cues
15
Condition III contained 8 homophonous items with a morphological, but not
morpho-phonological, conversion cue for each language. In Dutch, Condition III
consisted of pairs of verbs containing a surface [t], which may be spelled either as a
single <t> or a geminate <tt>. There is no morpho-phonological conversion rule,
however the members of each pair have distinct morphological functions: [t] spelled
as <t> occurs in adjectives, e.g., <verplichte> ‘required, adjective’, whereas [t] spelled
as <tt> occurs in simple past, e.g., <verplichtte> ‘required, simple past’.
In Hebrew, Condition III consisted of pairs of words containing a parallel
segment [t] which may be spelled as either <T> or <T>. There is no morpho-
phonological conversion rule in Modern Hebrew to recover the neutralized
phonological segments /t/ and /t/2 respectively, however the members of each pair
have distinct morphological functions: [t] standing for a function letter is always
spelled <T>, e.g., [kas&ot] ‘hard, Fm,Pl’ is spelled <Qs&WT> with a final feminine
suffix; whereas [t] standing for a root letter may be spelled as either <T> or <T>, e.g.,
[mas&ot] ‘oar’ is spelled <Ms&WT> with a final root letter <T>.
Condition IV: No Cues
Condition IV consisted of 8 homophonous segments with two possible
spellings with no recoverability through either morphological or morpho-phonological
cues. In Dutch, the test items were pairs of words containing the diphthong [Eê], which
can be spelled as either <ij> or <ei>, for historical reasons3, e.g., <zwijnen> ‘pigs’ /
<treinen> ‘trains’. This is how minimal orthographic pairs like <leiden> 'guide' and
<lijden> 'suffer' are created. In Hebrew, the test items were pairs of words containing
the vowel [i], which may be either spelled by <Y> or else not represented at all in
non-vocalized Hebrew spelling, e.g., [min] ‘from’ spelled <MN> compared with
[min] ‘gender’ spelled <MYN>. The linguistic conditions under which these two
16
spellings occur are either arbitrary or available only to specialists in historical Hebrew
phonology.
Table 1 presents the overall schema of the spelling test, the set of testwords
can be found in the Appendix.
INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
2.3 Predictions
Our straightforward prediction was that we could expect better results, that is,
fewer spelling errors, in both languages in the more motivated conditions with
morpho-phonological and morphological cues. Thus we expected the children to
make the least errors in items from Condition 1 and most errors on items from
Condition 4.
2.4 Results
On the whole, Hebrew- speaking children did better on the spelling test than
their Dutch-speaking counterparts. In Figure 1 the success scores are plotted out per
grade and per language.
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
Moreover, our predictions seemed to work very well for Hebrew and to
predict the learning behavior of Israeli children, but did not work well for Dutch. In
Figure 2 we present a general picture of the results: for each condition the percentage
of correct responses in each language is plotted out. The Hebrew results show that,
indeed, the motivated condition (Condition 1, C1) led to the least results, and the least
motivated condition (C4) led to the most errors in the spelling test. In Dutch however,
children made most errors in Conditions 1 and 3 (C1, C3) and least errors in
Conditions 2 and 4 (C1, C4).
INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE
17
Full details and a discussion of the children’s spelling study are given in Gillis
& Ravid (2000, in press). The most relevant finding of the spelling study, the one that
will also be investigated in the teachers’ study, is the patterning of the experimental
conditions. Figure 1 shows that in Dutch there are two clear clusters: Dutch-speaking
children score relatively low on the morphologically motivated conditions
(Conditions 1 and 3) and high on the morphologically unmotivated conditions
(Conditions 2 and 4). The scores of the Hebrew-speaking children are much closer,
and, more importantly they achieve their highest score on the morphologically
motivated conditions (Conditions C1 and C3) and the lowest scores on the
morphologically unmotivated conditions (Conditions C2 and C4). Morpho-
phonological recoverability is not prominent for Dutch children while it is a good cue
provider for Hebrew-speaking children.
3.0 The teachers’ study
In Gillis & Ravid (2000, in press) the difference between the Dutch-speaking
and the Hebrew-speaking children was attributed to typological differences in their
mother tongue. Briefly summarized, we hypothesized that growing up in a
morphologically rich language makes children more attuned towards the role of
morphology, and hence it is easier for Hebrew-speaking children to deal with spelling
puzzles that require morphological sensitivity (such as the correct spelling of
homophonous graphemes that have a morphological function). Dutch-speaking
children acquire a morphologically sparse language. Their attention is drawn much
less to morphology and hence they find it much more difficult to deal with
homophonous graphemes the correct spelling of which depends crucially on
morphological analysis.
18
However, there is an alternative explanation that does not put the burden of
explanation on the children’s linguistic functioning, but on teachers’ knowledge of
spelling difficulties and on their knowledge of spelling rules. Starting from the
observation that in general Hebrew-speaking children were better spellers than Dutch-
speaking children, it can be hypothesized that teachers of Hebrew as L1 are more
aware than teachers of Dutch as L1 of the spelling patterns that cause problems for the
children and/or that they are more knowledgeable of the spelling rules and
morphological underpinnings of the difficult cases. This hypothesis leads to two
specific predictions that were tested in the experiment that we will report on in this
section.
The first prediction is that if Hebrew teachers in Israel are more sensitive than
teachers of Dutch in Belgium of the specific difficult spelling patterns for their pupils,
they would be more successful in identifying the word-pairs in the children’s dictation
task. In other words, if we ask the teachers to identify the pairs of words that were the
target items in the children’s spelling test, we would expect Hebrew-speaking teachers
to attain a higher score than Dutch-speaking teachers.
The second prediction is that when asked to formulate the spelling rules
governing the pairs of target items, Hebrew-speaking teachers are expected to exhibit
a better mastery or higher degree of proficiency in spelling out the rules than their
Dutch-speaking colleagues.
3.1 Population
40 Hebrew-speaking and 40 Dutch-speaking L1 novice teachers participated
in this study. Half of the population consisted of students of a teacher training college
(henceforth, TTC) and the other half were university students enrolled in a teaching
qualification program (henceforth, UNI).
19
The Israeli TTC students were in the 4th and last year of their professional
training. From their first year, TTC trainees had had extensive practical training and
experience in teaching in gradeschool and junior highschool under the supervision of
teacher trainers and training teachers. From a curricular point of view, the Hebrew
department at the teacher training college we sampled is affiliated to the Hebrew
language department at Tel Aviv University, and the syllabus is similar. Their college
degree allows them to teach Hebrew in gradeschool and junior highschool.
The UNI students were graduates of the Hebrew Language Department and
enrolled in the teacher training program at the School of Education where they take
courses on psychology, pedagogy and language learning and undergo a training
program, mainly in junior highschool and highschool, similar in principle to that of
TTC trainees but less extensive. Their teacher qualification allows them to teach
Hebrew junior highschool and all levels of highschool.
The Belgian population consisted of students of a teacher training college
(“pedagogisch hoger onderwijs”). They were all in their third and final year of
professional training. From their first year of training onwards, these students have
had extensive practical training and experience in teaching in gradeschool. Almost
their entire third year of training is spent in gradeschools teaching under the
supervision of a training teacher and a teacher trainer.
The university students come from the department of Germanic languages
where they are enrolled in a full curriculum in literature and linguistics. In addition
these students take a teaching qualification in the pedagogical department of the
university. During two years they attend classes on various theoretical aspects of their
future profession (such as developmental psychology, fundamental and applied
didactics, etc.). Their practical training is far more restricted in comparison with the
20
TTC students: on the whole they spend one week in a secondary school actually
teaching. Their teacher qualification allows them to teach Dutch, English and/or
German in the upper three years of secondary schools.
3.2 Materials and procedure
The 32 items of the Gillis & Ravid spelling test were randomized and
presented in a written list, stripped of the sentential context in which they had
appeared. Participants were told that these were items which comprised a spelling test
for gradeschool, and were asked: (i) to identify the pairs that the spelling test
originally consisted of (pairing task); (ii) to justify and motivate their choice in
writing (motivation task). Examples were provided.
3.3 Scoring
Pairing (identification) task. For each correct identification, participants
received 1 point, and for each incorrect identification they received 0.
Motivation task. In order to evaluate participants’ responses for Hebrew and
for Dutch, we mapped out the linguistic phenomena involved in the correct spelling of
the four conditions. A scale of 0-3 was then constructed to compare participants’
responses against this grid. Thus, across the two languages under consideration, the
scales reflect the internal motivation of the original categories:
Condition I requires the discussion of two cues (morphological and morpho-
phonological) for a maximal score; Condition II requires the discussion of one cue
(morpho-phonological) for a maximal score; Condition III requires the discussion of
one cue (morphological) for a maximal score; Condition IV requires an explicit
statement of the arbitrary spelling of the pair. In general, the motivation for assigning
0-3 scores across the two languages was as follows:
21
• 0 points. Incorrect or no identification, totally incorrect and irrelevant
motivation.
• 1 point. Identification of the relevant graphemes or phonemes, or a vague non-
specific generalization, e.g., that’s how you spell verbs.
• 2 points. Identification of the relevant graphemes or phonemes, and a partial,
incomplete, or convoluted motivation.
• 3 points. Identification of the relevant graphemes or phonemes and a full,
explicit verbalization of the phenomena involved, though not necessarily
matching the degree of linguistic explicitness provided above.
3.4 Predictions
Given the finding of our previous study that Hebrew speaking children are
better spellers than Dutch speaking children, we expected children's performance to
be reflected in the teachers' results in both tasks. The underlying hypothesis was that
the Hebrew-speaking children scored better than the Dutch-speaking children on the
spelling test because their teachers were better tuned to where the spelling problems
are and had a better mastery of the spelling rules, and hence they were more efficient
in overcoming those problems.
More specifically, on the identification task, we expected target pairs to be
more readily identified by the Hebrew-speaking teachers, and less well identified by
the Dutch-speaking teachers. On the motivation task, we expected Hebrew-speaking
teachers to be better in formulating the spelling rules than the Dutch-speaking
teachers. We also expected the recoverability cues to be more readily stated by the
Hebrew-speaking teachers than by their Dutch-speaking colleagues, since the
Hebrew-speaking children scored much better for the recoverable items than for the
non-recoverable ones.
22
As to the difference between the TTC and the UNI students, we expected a
major difference between the two languages. In the Belgian population we expected a
large difference between the TTC and the UNI teachers. Given the assumption that
TTC teachers would have difficulties in identifying the pairs and in formulating the
spelling rules, UNI teachers were predicted to score higher on both tasks since they
would benefit from their comprehensive training in linguistics. In the Israeli
population, on the other hand, we did not expect a major difference between the TTC
teachers and their UNI colleagues: The UNI teachers would benefit from their training
in abstract thinking about (their) language as their Belgian colleagues. But since the
TTC teachers were expected to perform well on the identification and the motivation
task, their performance should hardly differ from the UNI teachers.
Given the finding that Dutch children's results show a clustering of conditions
and that the Hebrew children's results do not show a similar clustering, we expected to
find similar clusterings in the teachers' results. More specifically: Dutch speaking
children made significantly more errors in Conditions 1 and 3 (their performance was
around 50%) than in Conditions 2 and 4. We expected to find the same clustering in
the Dutch teachers' results. Hebrew speaking children's results showed no similar
clustering, and hence we did not expect a significant difference between the teachers'
performance in the pairing task. In other words, we expected to find the children's
spelling performance to be reflected in the teachers' results.
4.0 Results
We first present the results on the pairing task and then on its motivation.
4.1 Identification (pairing) task
We first present the results on the pairing task, i.e., identifying the original
pairs of the spelling test. A 2 (Language) x 2 (Type of Teacher: UNI-TTC) x 4
23
(Condition: the four experimental conditions) Wald Chi Square effect test was
performed on the pooled data. The Language effect was significant (X2 = 23.36, p <
0.0001), as well as the Type of Teacher (X2 = 8.18, p < 0.0042), the Condition effect
was not significant: X2 = 3.32, p < 0.3445). There were significant interactions
between Language and Type of Teacher (X2 = 10.37, p < 0.0013), and Language and
Condition (X2 = 21.0, p < 0.0001). All other interactions turned out to be
insignificant.
The test results indicate that language is a significant main effect. The relevant
data are displayed in Table 2. But contrary to our expectations - we expected Israeli
teachers to score higher than the Belgian teachers - the Dutch-speaking subjects were
significantly more successful in identifying the pairs of test words than the Hebrew-
speaking subjects. Thus although the Dutch-speaking children scored lower on the
spelling test than the Hebrew-speaking children, the Dutch-speaking teachers were
significantly better in identifying the word pairs than their Hebrew–speaking
colleagues.
INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
We expected a significant interaction between Language and Condition. The
effect test revealed that there was indeed such an interaction between those two
variables. The relevant data are displayed in Table 3.
INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE
The marked difference between the conditions in the Dutch-speaking
population was expected, but contrary to our expectations there is also a marked
difference in the Hebrew population. Recall that our expectations were based on the
results of the children’s tests and we expected teachers to show a similar picture Thus
for Dutch the morphologically motivated conditions (Conditions 1 and 3) should
24
show a lower success score than the morphologically unmotivated conditions
(Conditions 2 and 4). For Hebrew the opposite pattern was expected to show up,
judging from the results of the children’s tests. In Table 4 the results for the
morphologically motivated conditions and the morphologically unmotivated ones are
shown for both languages. These data are graphically represented in Figure 3, and for
the sake of clarity we also show the results of the children’s tests.
INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE
INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE
The teachers’ results (Table 4, Figure 3, bottom) are almost an exact mirror
image of the results of the children (Figure 3, top). Table 4 shows that for the
morphologically unmotivated conditions (Conditions 2 and 4), Hebrew and Dutch
teachers score approximately at the same level. The main difference lies in the
morphologically motivated conditions (Conditions 1 and 3). Contrary to what was
expected on the basis of the children’s performance of the spelling tests, the Dutch-
speaking teachers score very high on these conditions (95%) while the children scored
at approximately chance level (see also Figure 3, top). The score of the Hebrew-
speaking teachers is around 75%, while the children almost reached a ceiling score for
those conditions at the end of gradeschool.
The population consisted of TTC and UNI students. In Table 5 the percentage
of correct responses for the two subgroups of subjects in the two languages is
provided.
INSERT TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE
The effect test showed a significant interaction between Language and Type of
Teacher. In the Dutch population there is virtually no difference between UNI and
TTC. In Hebrew TTC students score markedly lower than UNI students. Both results
25
are contrary to our expectations: since Dutch-speaking children scored much lower
than Hebrew-speaking children, we hypothesized that the Belgian teachers would find
it much more difficult to identify the pairs of target words than their Israeli
colleagues. However, the contrary is the case: although the children are poorer
spellers, the Dutch-speaking teachers had no difficulty at all to detect the relevant
pairs. On the other hand, the Hebrew-speaking teachers from TTC score remarkably
low: they were not able to identify 30% of the pairs of test words. As predicted, UNI
students scored at the same level: both Hebrew- and Dutch-speaking attain around
90% correct pairings. However the décalage between the Israeli TTC and UNI
teachers as well the almost equal results for Belgian TTC and UNI students were both
unexpected.
4.2 Motivation task
The aim of the motivation task was to find out if the teachers could reconstruct
the reasons why the pairs of items featured in the tests. This meant that they had to be
aware of the locus of the spelling difficulty (what are the target graphemes?),
formulate in some detail the spelling rules (if any) involved and indicate the
recoverablility conditions (if any). The answers were scored on a four-point scale, and
each consecutive point on the scale indicates a growing sophistication of the answer.
Similar to our predictions for the pairing task, we expected Hebrew-speaking subjects
to outscore the Dutch-speaking subjects.
In order to test our predictions a 2 (Language, Hebrew vs. Dutch) x 2 (Type of
Teacher, TTC vs. UNI) x 4 (Condition, the four experimental conditions) Wald Chi
Square effect test was performed on the pooled data. Language yielded a significant
effect (Wald Chi Square = 61.22, p < 0.0001) as well as Type of Teacher (Wald Chi
26
Square = 19.70, p < 0.0002) and Condition (Wald Chi Square = 163.18, p < 0.0001),
but these effects are less important for the present study. More interestingly there was
a significant interaction between Language and Type of Teacher (Wald Chi Square =
14.05, p < 0.0028), as well as between Language and Condition (Wald Chi Square =
71.36, p < 0.0001) and between Type of Teacher and Condition (Wald Chi Square =
19.22, p < 0.0234). There was no significant three way interaction between Language,
Type of Teacher and Condition (Wald Chi Square = 12.05, p < 0.2106).
We will first give an overview of the scores per language.
INSERT TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE
First of all, the mean score for the Dutch-speaking subjects is 1.69 (SD = 1.03)
and for the Hebrew-speaking subjects the mean score is 1.21 (SD = 1.16). Thus
contrary to our expectations, Dutch-speaking subjects attain a better overall score than
Hebrew-speaking subjects. This difference also appears when we look at the
distribution of the scores. Table 6 shows per language what percentage (N = 640) of
the answers was assigned the respective scores. Hebrew-speaking subjects have more
than twice as many 0-scores, which means that either they did not identify a correct
pair of words, or they did not identify the correct pair of target graphemes or sounds.
For the identification of the target graphemes or sounds (score 1), Hebrew-speaking
and Dutch-speaking subjects score almost identically: in almost 30% of the answers,
only the target letters or sounds were identified by the subjects. Score 2 accounts for
30% of the answers of the Belgian teachers and only 12% of the answers of the Israeli
teachers. This means that in one answer out of three, the Dutch-speaking teachers
identify the target graphemes or sounds and they point at the morphological (or
morphosyntactic) regularity that underlies the correct spelling of the target grapheme.
27
In the case of the Hebrew subjects, this type of answer occurs much less often. A
complete answer, viz. one in which the target graphemes or sounds are correctly
identified, the morphosyntactic regularity is correctly phrased and the recoverability
(if any) is indicated, occurs almost as frequently in both populations.
The children’s results on the spelling test revealed a striking difference
between the two languages with respect to the morphological function of the target
letters (see Figure2): when morphological function was involved, Dutch-speaking
children scored much lower than when no morphological function was involved.
Moreover, the Dutch-speaking children’s scores were significantly lower than the
Hebrew-speaking children’s score for those conditions. We predicted that the same
picture would occur for the teachers. This prediction was not confirmed: the mean
scores in Table 7a show that Dutch-speaking teachers score consistently higher than
their Hebrew-speaking colleagues. When grouped according to the morphological
function of the target letters (Table 7b), the results show even more clearly that (1) in
Dutch the morphologically motivated conditions score much better than the
unmotivated ones; and (2) while Dutch-speaking and Hebrew-speaking teachers show
the same pattern, the mean scores for Dutch are considerably higher than the ones for
Hebrew.
INSERT TABLE 7 ABOUT HERE
When we split up the results according to the type of teacher (TTC versus
UNI) in each language (see Table 8), it appears that the Dutch-speaking subjects score
in a highly comparable way. The mean scores of the TTC and the UNI students are
almost identical (respectively 1.68 and 1.69), and the distribution over the four scores
is also very similar. The results for the Hebrew-speaking teachers show a clearly
different picture: the TTC mean score is far below that of the university students: 0.94
28
versus 1.48. And the distribution over the scores is also very different: almost 50% of
the answers of the Hebrew-speaking TTC was scored as ‘0’, which means that either
they failed on the word pairing or they did not identify the correct target graphemes or
sounds. UNI students performed much better in this respect. In almost one fourth of
the cases, the Hebrew-speaking TTC teachers only identified the correct target
graphemes or sounds. The scoring categories ‘2’ and ‘3’ which imply that also the
morphological regularities were identified and / or the recoverability conditions were
clearly stated occurred much less often for the Hebrew-speaking TTC teachers.
INSERT TABLE 8 ABOUT HERE
5.0 Discussion
This study examined spelling performance and knowledge in two groups of
subjects: Hebrew- and Dutch-speaking gradeschool children, who took spelling tests
containing homophonous letters in their respective languages; and Hebrew- and
Dutch-speaking language teachers, whose task it was to analyze the same spelling
items linguistically so as to identify the test pairs and motivate their linguistic
relationship.
The children’s spelling results revealed higher scores in Hebrew than in Dutch
spellers, despite the fact that Dutch orthography is more transparent than Hebrew
orthography and does not encode as many complex morphological relationships.
Moreover, young Hebrew spellers did especially well in the conditions that required
morphological and morpho-phonological knowledge, and worse on those conditions
that did not require such knowledge. Young Dutch spellers did not find morphological
and morphophonological cues helpful, and did especially well on those conditions that
did not provide such cues.
29
Two kinds of explanations may account for these results. The typological
account claims that children’s spelling is motivated by knowledge patterns and
strategies deriving from their native tongue. Hebrew, a synthetic Semitic language,
encodes many syntactic and semantic notions in a wide array of morphological
devices, and therefore Israeli children treat both spoken and written words as complex
entities, looking for morphological regularities. Dutch, a morphologically sparser
language guides children to look for cues in the lexical and syntactic domains rather
than in morphology. Hence Israeli children’s better ability to handle
morpho(phono)logical cues in spelling, which appeared in 3 out of 4 conditions. The
teaching profile account claims that Hebrew teachers are better able to serve as
mediators between young Hebrew spellers and their spelling system than Dutch
teachers since they are themselves better aware of spelling patterns and their
underlying motivations than their Belgian counterparts.
The teaching profile account has not gained support by the results of this
study. Dutch teachers were more successful on both identifying original pairs as well
as on motivating their choice than Hebrew teachers. Thus children’s spelling
knowledge, at least of the type pinpointed by our tests, does not directly reflect their
teachers’ understanding of the underpinnings of spelling patterns in either language.
Moreover, teachers show a different pattern of responses, in some cases the
mirror image of what children’s responses reveal: On identifying the conditions
without morphological cues both teacher populations perform equally well, while
Hebrew teachers do worse than Dutch teachers on identifying morphologically
conditioned items – the reverse picture of children’s spelling scores. And on
motivating their choice in conditions with morphological cues, Dutch teachers again
do better than Hebrew teachers – again the reverse picture of children’s spelling
30
scores. Thus it cannot be the case that teaching Hebrew and Dutch spelling is directly
responsible for children’s spelling patterns.
A third finding relates to the two teacher populations – TTC and UNI students,
and it does not support the teaching profile account either. On both identifying the test
pairs and motivating their linguistic underpinnings, the two Dutch-speaking
populations are similar, but TTC Hebrew students do worse than do UNI students.
Current literature indicates that TTC trainees in Israel are not equal in academic
potential to UNI students (Ayalon & Yogev, 2000), which may explain their
differential performance. Thus those Israeli teachers who are in contact with
gradeschool children at the time when they are internalizing spelling patterns are
those who are least able to detect and explain these spelling patterns, while those
Belgian teachers who show high ability in detecting and motivating spelling patterns
do not seem to affect poor spelling knowledge in children.
Can the typological account provide an explanation for the current results in
addition to explaining the differences in children’s spelling? At first glance it seems
strange that teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge of spelling patterns is a mirror image
of children’s performance. If Israeli children’s strategies are morphological, why is it
the case that Israeli teachers do not form appropriate morphological hypotheses about
Hebrew spelling or at least properly detect pairs of items linked through morphology;
and why is it the case that Belgian teachers are so well-versed in the morphological
underpinnings of Dutch spelling that they are so successful at both detecting spelling
test pairs as well as explicitly stating in what ways they belong together?
Three points need to be clarified here. One is the difference between the kinds
of knowledge required from children and teachers in this study. A second point is the
31
mirror image relationship of the results. And a third relates to the discrepancy
between explicit knowledge and its procedural implications.
It seems that sensitivity to language typology is an implicit kind of knowledge
that directs linguistic behavior in certain directions from early on and in a sense
affects this behavior more than explicit teaching. A confluence of cues results in
linguistic patterns that are internalized by children during language acquisition, and
children find natural what is natural in their language, even when it looks complex
under a metalinguistic analysis. But explaining these patterns is the linguist’s job, and
requires both specialized knowledge about levels of representation in language –
phonetics, abstract phonology, morphological and syntactic constructs – as well as the
ability to identify linguistic regularities and systems. This kind of explicit analysis
does not come naturally to teachers, even those with language training. Thus a
spelling test with morphological cues may be easier for Hebrew-speaking children
who have been dealing with complex morphology from their first words than for
Dutch-speaking children for whom syntax is much more salient. But their teachers,
acting as amateur linguists, find it easier to explicitly formulate the simpler spelling
rules of Dutch than the complex spelling patterns of Hebrew. Moreover, Dutch
spelling rules are explicitly taught to Dutch spellers at all levels of literacy, whereas
the understanding of Hebrew spelling patterns requires specialized knowledge in
abstract Hebrew phonology and historical Hebrew periods, which is restricted to
theoretical discussions at university level alone.
Finally, knowledge of spelling rules by teachers does not ensure successful
performance by learners. Spelling, as we claimed in Gillis & Ravid (2000), is a
linguistic ability which is guided by the same principles of natural mother tongue
acquisition; and mother tongue is not taught at school nor is shaped by explicit rule
32
learning but rather evolves following its specific typology. Learning about spelling
rules resembles second or foreign language learning which uses alternative
mechanisms, drawing especially on people’s problem-solving capacities and
characterized by a discrepancy between stating linguistic rules and implementing
them. For example, adding the 3rd person singular in present-tense English verbs is a
very simple rule to formulate, taught and re-taught to second language learners, yet
non-native adults do not apply the rule even if they know about it (De Keyser, in
press). The discrepancy between the cognitive apparatus used to implement spelling
rules and the cognitive apparatus used to learn about them may explain why teachers’
levels of knowledge about spelling patterns are not causally related to students’
spelling performance.
33
Appendix
Test items used in Experiment 1 and 2
Dutch test items
Condition 1:
betovert ‘bewitches’ – betoverd ‘charmed’
versiert ‘decorates’ - versierd.’decorated’
betekent ‘means’ – betekend ‘meant’
vertoont ‘shows’ – vertoond ‘shown’
Condition 2:
agent ‘policeman’ - arend ‘eagle’
tomaat ‘tomato’ – sieraad ‘ornament’
fazant ‘pheasant ‘ - verband ‘bandage’
taart ‘cake’ – paard ‘horse’
Condition 3:
verplichte ‘obligatory’ - verplichtte ‘forced’
verwachte ‘expected’ - verwachtte ‘expected’
verroeste ‘rusty’ roestte ‘(got) rusty’
verlichte ‘lighted’ - verlichtte ‘(were) lit’
Condition 4:
krijsen ‘scream’ - reizen ‘travel’
34
lijnen ‘lines’ - kleine ‘small’
zwijnen ‘pigs’ - treinen ‘trains’
pijn ‘hurts’ - refrein.’chorus’
Hebrew test items
Condition 1:
ve-ala ‘and-went-up’ - be- vehala ‘in-fright’
va-ir ‘and-town’ - u-vahir ‘and-light’
ve-red ‘and-go-down’ – véred ‘rose’
va-adas&a ‘and-(a)-lens’ – va’adat – kis&ut ‘committee-(for)-decoration’
Condition 2:
dérex ‘road’ – kérax ‘ice’
oréxet ‘setting the table, Fm’ – oráxat ‘guest, Fm’
holex ‘walks’ - s&oléax ‘sends’
nix s&al ‘fails’ – nexs&av ‘is considered’
Condition 3:
tarim ‘lift,Imp,2nd,Sg,Masc’ – ta’im ‘tasty’
kas&ot ‘hard, Fm,Pl’ – mas&ot ‘oar’
mehirut ‘speed’ – karut ‘cut down, PP’
tapil ‘drop,Imp,2nd,Sg,Masc’ – takin ‘in order’
Condition 4:
hirgiz 'annoyed' - hirgiz 'annoyed'
35
min ‘from’ – min ‘gender’
lispor 'to count' - lipol 'to fall'
migrash 'empty lot' - nigash 'came nearer'
36
References
Appel-Mashraki, Y. 2001. Prosodic reading, text comprehension and meta-
morphological ability in 4th graders. MA thesis, School of Education, Tel Aviv
University, Tel Aviv.
Ashkenazi, O., and D. Ravid. 1998. Children’s understanding of linguistic humor: an
aspect of metalinguistic awareness. Current Psychology of Cognition 17:367-
387.
Ayalon, H., and A. Yogev. 2000. A window to the academic dream: Stratification and
diversity in the expansion of Israeli higher education. Paper read at Conference
of the Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility of the
International Sociological Association, August 2000, at Calgary, Canada.
Bialystok, E. 1986. Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness. Child Development
57:498-510.
Carlisle, J., and D. Nomanbhoy. 1993. Phonological and morphological awareness in
first graders. Applied Psycholinguistics 14:177-195.
De Keyser, R. in press. The robustness of critical period effects in second language
acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
Gillis, S., and G. De Schutter. 1996. Intuitive syllabification: universals and language-
specific constraints. Journal of Child Language 23:487-514.
Gillis, S., and D. Ravid. 2000. Effects of phonology and morphology in children’s
orthographic systems: a cross-linguistic study of Hebrew and Dutch. In
Proceedings of the 30th Annual Child Language Research Forum, edited by E.
V. Clark. Stanford: CSLI.
37
Gillis, S., and D. Ravid. in press. Language-specific effects on the development of
written morphology. In Proceedings of the 9th International morphology
Meeting 2000, edited by W. U. Dressler. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Gombert, J. 1992. Metalinguistic development. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Goswami, U. 1999. The relationship between phonological awareness and
orthographic representation in different orthographies. In Learning to read and
write: A crosslinguistic perspective, edited by M. Harris and G. Hatano.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Henry, M. 1993. Morphological structure: Latin and Greek roots and affixes as upper
grade code strategies. Reading and Writing 5:227-241.
Jones, N. 1991. Development of morphophonemic segments in children’s mental
representations of words. Applied Psycholinguistics 12:217-239.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1992. Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective of
cognitive science. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Karmiloff-Smith, A., J. Grant, K. Sims, M. Jones, and P. Cuckle. 1996. Rethinking
metalinguistic awareness: representing and accessing knowledge about what
counts as a word. Cognition 58:197-219.
Koriat, A., N. Greenberg, and Y. Goldshmid. 1991. The missing-letter effect in
Hebrew: Word frequency or word function? Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 17:66-80.
Lewis, D., and J. Windsor. 1996. Children’s analysis of derivational suffix meanings.
Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 39:209-216.
Lexikologie, Instituut voor Nederlandse. 1997. Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal. Den
Haag: Sdu Uitgevers.
38
Nippold, M. 1998. Later Language development: The school-age and adolescent
years. 2nd Edition. Austin: PRO-ED.
Nippold, M., L. Uhden, and I. Schwarz. 1997. Proverb explanation through the
lifespan: A study of adolescence and adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and
Hearing Research 40:245-253.
Nunes, T., P. Bryant, and M. Bindman. 1997. Morphological spelling strategies:
developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology 33 (637-649).
Pacton, S., P. Perruchet, M. Fayol, and A. Cleeremans. in press. Implicit Learning out
of the lab: The case of orthographic regularities. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General.
Ravid, D. 1995. Language change in child and adult Hebrew: A psycholinguistic
perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ravid, D. in press a. Learning to spell in Hebrew: Phonological and morphological
factors. Reading and writing.
Ravid, D. in press b. A developmental perspective on root perception in Hebrew and
Palestinian Arabic. In The processing and acquisition of root-based
morphology, edited by Y. Shimron. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ravid, D., and A. Malenky. in press. Awareness of linear and nonlinear morphology
in Hebrew: a developmental study. First Language.
Ravid, D., and L. Tolchinsky. 2000. Developing linguistic literacy: A comprehensive
model. In Working papers in "Developing literacy across genres, modalities,
and languages", Vol. III., edited by M. Aparici, N. Algerich, J. Perera, E.
Rosado and L. Tolchinsky. Barcelona: Institut de Ciències de l’Educació,
Universitat de Barcelona.
39
Sandra, D., S. Frisson, and F. Daems. 1999. Why simple verb forms can be so
difficult to spell: the influence of homophone frequency and distance in Dutch.
Brain and Language 68:277-283.
Smith, M. 1998. Sense and sensitivity: An investigation into fifth grade children’s
knowledge of English derivational morphology and its relationship to
vocabulary and reading abilit, Graduate School of Education, Harvard
University.
Totereau, C., M. Theverin, and M. Fayol. 1997. The development of the
understanding of number morphology in written French. In Learning to spell,
edited by C. Perfetti, M. Fayol and L. Rieben. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Treiman, R. 1993. Beginning to spell: A study of first-grade children. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Treiman, R., and M. Cassar. 1996. Effects of morphology on children’s spelling of
final consonant clusters. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 63:141-170.
Treiman, R., and M. Cassar. 1997. Spelling acquisition in English. In Learning to
spell, edited by C. Perfetti, M. Fayol and L. Rieben. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Treiman, R., M. Cassar, and A. Zukowski. 1994. What types of linguistic information
do children use in spelling? The case of flaps. Child Development 65:1310-
1329.
Treiman, R., A. Zukowski, and E. Richmond-Welty. 1995. What happened to the "n"
of sink? Children’s spelling of final consonant clusters. Cognition 55:1-38.
Wilson, S., L. Shulman, and A. Richert. 1987. ‘150 different ways’ of knowing:
Representation of knowledge in teaching. In Exploring teachers’ thinking,
edited by J. Calderhead. London: Cassell Education.
40
Wysocki, K., and J. Jenkins. 1987. Deriving word meanings through morphological
generalization. Reading Research Quarterly 22:66-81.
41
Figure 1: Percentage correct scores per grade on the Dutch and the Hebrew spelling
tests
0
25
50
75
100%
Cor
rect
Gra
de1
Gra
de2
Gra
de3
Gra
de4
Gra
de5
Gra
de6
Hebrew
Dutch
42
Figure 2: Interaction of language and condition (C1..C4 stand for the experimental
conditions, C1 = + Morphological function, +M, and + Morphophonological
recoverable, +R), C2 = -M and +R, C3 = +M and –R, C4 = -M and –R)
0
25
50
75
100
% C
orre
ct
Dut
ch
Heb
rew
Language
C4
C3
C2
C1
43
Figure 3: Percentage correct score in the children’s and the teachers’ tests (+M =
target has morphological function, -M = target has no separate morphological
function)
Children’s results
Teachers’ results
0
25
50
75
100
%C
orre
ct
Dut
ch
Heb
rew
Language
-M
+M
0
25
50
75
100
% C
orre
ct
Dut
ch
Heb
rew
Language
-M
+M
44
45
Notes
1 We represent the historical voiced Hebrew pharyngeal fricative AYIN (still
pronounced by some speakers of the Sephardi dialect) by the numeral 9.
2 Representing the historical emphatic coronal stop.
3 The diphthong /Eê/ is spelled as <ei> when it derives historically from Proto-
Germanic /Ai/ and as <ij> when it derives from long /i/.