Pollo, T., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2008). Preschoolers use partial letter names to select spellings: Evidence from Portuguese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29, 195–212. DOI 10.1017/S0142716407080095
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Two studies examined children’s use of letter-name spelling strategies when target phoneme sequences match letter names with different degrees of precision. We examined Portuguese-speaking preschoolers’ use of h (which is named /aˈɡa/ but which never represents those sounds) when spelling words beginning with /ɡa/ or variants of /ɡa/. We also looked at use of q (named /ke/) when spelling /ke/ and /ɡe/. Children sometimes used h for stimuli beginning with /ɡa/ and /ka/, and q when spelling words and nonwords beginning with /ke/ and /ɡe/; they did not use these letters when stimuli began with other sequences. Thus, their spellings evinced use of letter-name matches primarily when consonant–vowel sequences matched, such that vowels must be exact but consonants could differ in voicing from the target phoneme.
Last change 2008-08-12 18:21:22 -0500