Effects of reading skill on component spelling skills

This study examined the influence of reading experience on the development of component spelling skills. Three groups of sixth-grade children were identified - good readers-good spellers (Good), good readers-poor spellers (Mixed), and poor readers-poor spellers (Poor). The children completed three different spelling tasks that assessed component spelling skills involving the use and knowledge of sound-spelling, orthographic, morphological, and visual information. Good subjects performed consistently better than Mixed and Poor subjects. Mixed and Poor subjects did not differ on measures requiring use and knowledge of sound-spelling, orthographic, and visual information. Mixed subjects performed better than Poor subjects on measures assessing use and knowledge of morphological information. It is suggested that, as a result of their greater experience with print, Mixed subjects have better knowledge of some of the linguistic, but not the visual, characteristics of words.