Children's Reading and Spelling

This book extends models of early literacy, analyzing how children’s reading and spelling skills develop throughout their school career.

• An account of how a child’s reading and spelling develop which goes beyond the early years
• Shows that there are radical changes in the way children read and spell as they get older
• Describes a new theory about the learning that goes on in the later stages of reading and spelling
• Makes clear the educational implications of this theory
• The authors' research has previously contributed to the 'literacy hour' – a government initiative to improve the teaching of literacy skills in UK schools

List of Figures.

List of Tables.

Preface and Acknowledgements.

1 Learning to Spell: What is the Problem.

2 From Letter-Sound to Grapheme-Phoneme Relationships: The Case of Consonant Digraphs.

3 Spelling Vowels: Digraphs and Split Digraphs.

4 How Children Learn and Can be Taught about Conditional Rules.

5 Morphemes and Spelling.

6 The Importance of Morphemes.

7 Teaching Children about Morphemes.

8 A Framework for Understanding how Children Learn to Read and Spell English Words.

References.

Index

Professor Terezinha Nunes, Department of Education, Child Development and Learning, University of Oxford.

Peter Bryant is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and a Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University.

Children's Reading and Spelling draws upon internationally renowned research to extend models of early literacy. While most psychologists have concentrated on the ways in which very young children begin to read and spell, here the focus shifts to how these skills are developed beyond the initial stages.

As children mature, their approach to reading and spelling alters radically, and evidence suggests these changes continue throughout their school career. Authors Terezinha Nunes and Peter Bryant theorize that children use both informal experiences as well as more formalized instruction to devise their own conditional spelling rules. Ideas are presented in an interesting and accessible way, and potential educational implications are thoroughly examined. This innovative research has much to offer professionals and parents alike.

“Teachers and researchers at every level will find fruitful guidance in this important book on the generative process of children’s reading and spelling and the effect of the learning environment. Nunes and Bryant have provided a rigorous, systematic, and thorough theory/research-into-practice analysis of using conditional rules in learning to read and spell and intervention strategies. They are among the first researchers to emphasize the connection between oral language and written language through morphological, syntactical, and word-specific knowledge over and above phonology. The book is a tour de force, rich in details, lucid and insightful.”–Che Kan Leong, Research Professor Emeritus, University of Saskatchewan, Canada and Hon. Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong

“I could not be more enthusiastic about this book. I would love to see this volume reach as many readers as possible in the research community and in the practitioner community. This book will become the ‘bible’ of the more advanced stages of spelling development that remain understudied.” –Keith E. Stanovich, Professor of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto

“Children's Reading and Spelling, by two pioneers in research on how phonological and morphological awareness contribute to written word learning, is a must-read for beginning and seasoned researchers, as well as psychology and education students.” –Virginia Berninger, Professor of Educational Psychology, Center on Human Development and Disability, University of Washington