Abstract
Three experiments investigated the effects of rime consistency on reading and spelling among developing readers ranging in age from 7 to 11 years. Experiment 1 found that children read words with inconsistent feedforward mappings between orthography and phonology (O → P) less accurately than consistent words. OP consistency interacted with chronological age, word frequency and age-of-acquisition (AoA). The effect of OP consistency on reading was larger for younger children than for older children and OP consistency had an effect for low frequency words and late-acquired words only. Experiment 2 found an effect of feedforward consistency between phonology and orthography (P → O) on children’s spelling but no interaction between PO consistency and AoA. Experiment 3 showed that the effects of feedforward consistency are independent of feedback consistency. Our results challenge models of reading and spelling that assume feedforward consistency effects are influenced by the frequency of exposure to words only and we suggest that interactions between consistency and AoA depends on the ratio of consistent to inconsistent OP mappings.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
J. Alegria P. Mousty (1994) On the development of lexical and non-lexical spelling procedures in French speaking normal and disabled children G.D.A. Brown N. Ellis (Eds) Handbook of spelling: Theory, process and intervention Wiley Chichester 211–226
J. Alegria P. Mousty (1996) ArticleTitleThe development of spelling procedures in French speaking, normal and reading disabled children: Effects of frequency and lexicality Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 63 312–338 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jecp.1996.0052
J. Backman M. Bruck M. Hébert M. Seidenberg (1984) ArticleTitleAcquisition and use of spelling and sound information in reading Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 38 114–133 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0022-0965(84)90022-5
P. Bonin M. Fayol M. Chalard (2001) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition and word frequency in written picture naming Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 54 IssueIDA 469–489
P. Bonin C. Barry A. Méot M. Chalard (2004) ArticleTitleThe influence of age of acquisition in word reading and other tasks: A never ending story? Journal of Memory and Language 50 456–476 Occurrence Handle10.1016/j.jml.2004.02.001
A. M. T. Bosman G. C. Orden ParticleVan (1997) Why spelling is more difficult than reading C. A. Perfetti L. Rieben M. Fayol (Eds) Learning to spell: Research, theory, and practice across languages Lawrence Erlbaum Associates London 173–194
J. A. Bowey (2002) ArticleTitleReflections on onset-rime and phoneme sensitivity as predictors of beginning word reading Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 82 29–40 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jecp.2002.2671
G. D. A. Brown (1997) ArticleTitleConnectionism, phonology, reading and regularity in developmental dyslexia Brain and Language 59 207–235 Occurrence Handle10.1006/brln.1997.1817
G. D. A. Brown R. P. W. Loosemore J. L. Romney F. L. Watson (1991) A neural net model of spelling development T. Kohonen K. Makisara K. O. Simula J. Kangas (Eds) Artificial neural networks Elsevier Science Amsterdam 1727–1730
G. D. A. Brown R. P. W. Loosemore (1994a) Computational approaches to normal and impaired spelling G. D. A. Brown N. Ellis (Eds) Handbook of spelling: Theory, process and intervention Wiley Chichester 319–335
G. D. A. Brown R. P. W. Loosemore (1994b) A computational approach to dyslexic reading and spelling C. K. Leong R. M. Joshi (Eds) Developmental and acquired dyslexia. Neuropsychological and neurolinguistic perspectives Kluwer Dordrecht, the Netherlands 195–219
G. D. A. Brown F. L. Watson (1987) ArticleTitleFirst in, first out: Word learning age and spoken word frequency as predictors of word familiarity and word naming latency Memory & Cognition 15 208–216
M. Brysbaert M. Lange I. Wijnendaele ParticleVan (2000) ArticleTitleThe effects of age of acquisition and frequency of occurrence in visual word recognition: Further evidence from the Dutch language European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 12 65–85
Buchanan, L. & Westbury, C. (2000). Wordmine database: Probabilistic values for all four to seven letter words in the English language. http://www.wordmine.org
J. Bullinaria (1994) Connectionist modelling of spelling A. Ram K. Eiselt (Eds) Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society Erlbaum Hillsdale, NJ 78–83
J. Bullinaria (1997) ArticleTitleModelling reading, spelling and past tense learning with artificial neural networks Brain and Language 59 236–266 Occurrence Handle10.1006/brln.1997.1818
M. Caravolas C. Hulme M. J. Snowling (2001) ArticleTitleThe foundations of spelling ability: Evidence from a 3-year longitudinal study Journal of Memory and Language 45 751–774 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.2000.2785
J. B. Carroll P. Davies B. Richman (1971) The American heritage word frequency book Houghton Mifflin Boston
M. Coltheart (1981) ArticleTitleThe MRC Psycholinguistic Database Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 33A 497–505
M. Coltheart K. Rastle C. Perry R. Langdon J. Ziegler (2001) ArticleTitleDRC: A dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud Psychological Review 108 204–256 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0033-295X.108.1.204
V. Coltheart V. J. Laxon C. Keating (1988) ArticleTitleEffects of word imageability and age of acquisition on children’s reading British Journal of Psychology 79 1–12
V. Coltheart J. Leahy (1992) ArticleTitleChildren’s and adults’ reading of nonwords: Effects of regularity and consistency Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 18 718–729 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.18.4.718
M. Cortese G. Simpson (2000) ArticleTitleRegularity effects in word naming: What are they? Memory and Cognition 28 1269–1276
Davies, R. A., & Weekes, B. S. (2005). Effects of spelling to sound consistency on reading and spelling in dyslexia. Dyslexia
R. P. A. Edwards V. Gibbon (1964) Words your children use Burke London
A. W. Ellis M. A. Lambon-Ralph (2000) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition effects in adult lexical processing reflects loss of plasticity in maturing systems: Insights from connectionist networks Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 26 1103–1123 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.26.5.1103
L. Ferrand J. Grainger (2003) ArticleTitleHomophone interference effects in visual word recognition Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 56A 403–420
S. Gerhand C. Barry (1998) ArticleTitleWord frequency effects in oral reading are not merely age-of-acquisition effects in disguise Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 24 267–283 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.24.2.267
K. J. Gilhooly M. L. Logie (1980) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity and ambiguity measures for 1944 words Behaviour Research Methods and Instrumentation 12 395–427
R. J. Glushko (1979) ArticleTitleThe organization and activation of orthographic knowledge in reading aloud Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 5 674–691
U. Goswami (1988) ArticleTitleChildren’s use of analogy in learning to spell British Journal of Developmental Psychology 6 21–33
M. W. Harm M. S. Seidenberg (1999) ArticleTitlePhonology, reading, and dyslexia: Insights from connectionist models Psychological Review 106 491–528 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0033-295X.106.3.491
C. Harrison (1980) Readability in the classroom Cambridge University Press Cambridge
Y. Hino S. J. Lupker (2000) ArticleTitleThe effects of word frequency and spelling-to-sound regularity in naming with and without preceding lexical decision Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26 166–183 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0096-1523.26.1.166
G. Houghton M. Zorzi (2003) ArticleTitleNormal and impaired spelling in a Connectionist dual-route architecture Cognitive Neuropsychology 20 115–162 Occurrence Handle10.1080/02643290242000871
A. M. Jacobs A. Rey J. C. Ziegler J. Grainger (1998) MROM-P: An interactive activation, multiple read out model of orthographic and phonological processes in visual word recognition J. Grainger A. M. Jacobs (Eds) Localist connectionist approaches to human cognition Erlbaum Mahwah, NJ 147–188
D. Jared K. McRae M. S. Seidenberg (1990) ArticleTitleThe basis of consistency effects in word naming Journal of Memory and Language 29 687–715 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0749-596X(90)90044-Z
D. Jared (1997) ArticleTitleSpelling–sound consistency affects the naming of high-frequency words Journal of Memory and Language 36 505–529 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.1997.2496
D. Jared (2002) ArticleTitleSpelling–sound consistency and regularity effects in word naming Journal of Memory & Language 46 IssueID4 723–750 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.2001.2827
D. S. Kreiner (1996) ArticleTitleEffects of word familiarity and phoneme–grapheme polygraphy on oral spelling time and accuracy The Psychological Record 46 49–70
H. Kuçera W. Francis (1967) Computational analysis of present-day American English Brown University Press Providence, RI
V. Laxon J. Masterson V. Coltheart (1991) ArticleTitleSome bodies are easier to read: The effect of consistency and regularity on children’s reading Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 43A IssueID4 793–824
V. Laxon J. Masterson R. Moran (1994) ArticleTitleAre children’s representations of words distributed? Effects of orthographic neighbourhood size, consistency and regularity of naming Language and Cognitive Processes 9 1–27
V. J. Laxon V. Coltheart C. Keating (1988) ArticleTitleChildren find friendly words friendly too: Words with many orthographic neighbours are easier to read and spell British Journal of Educational Psychology 58 103–119
M. Lewis S. Gerhand H.D. Ellis (2001) ArticleTitleRe-evaluating age-of-acquisition effects: Are they merely cumulative frequency effects? Cognition 78 189–205 Occurrence Handle10.1016/S0010-0277(00)00117-7
J. Masterson V. Laxon M. Stuart (1992) ArticleTitleBeginning reading with phonology British Journal of Psychology 83 1–12
K. Mayall (2002) ArticleTitleCase mixing effects on children’s word recognition: Lexical feedback and development Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 55A 525–542
M. S. Mayzner M. E. Tresselt (1965) ArticleTitleTables of single letter and diagram frequency counts for various word length and letter position errors Psychonomic Monograph Supplement 1 13–32
J. L. Metsala K. E. Stanovich G. D. A. Brown (1998) ArticleTitleRegularity effects and the phonological deficit model of reading disabilities: A meta-analytic review Journal of Educational Psychology 90 279–293 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0022-0663.90.2.279
J. Monaghan A. W. Ellis (2002) ArticleTitleWhat interacts with spelling–sound consistency in word naming? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 28 183–206 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.28.1.183
C. M. Morrison A. W. Ellis (2000) ArticleTitleReal age of acquisition effects in word naming and lexical decision British Journal of Psychology 91 167–180 Occurrence Handle10.1348/000712600161763
C. M. Morrison T. D. Chappell A. W. Ellis (1997) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition norms for a large set of object names and their relation to adult estimates and other variables Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Experimental Psychology 50A 528–559
C. M. Morrison K.W., Hirsh T. D. Chappell A. W. Ellis (2003) ArticleTitleAge and age of acquisition: An evaluation of the cumulative frequency hypothesis European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 14 435–459
K. Nation (1997) ArticleTitleChildren’s sensitivity to rime unit frequency when spelling words and nonwords Reading and Writing 9 321–338 Occurrence Handle10.1023/A:1007938810898
R. Peereman A. Content P. Bonin (1998) ArticleTitleIs perception a two-way street? The case of feedback consistency in word recognition Journal of Memory and Language 39 151–174 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.1998.2573
C. Perfetti (1996) The psycholinguistics of spelling and reading C. A. Perfetti L. Rieben M. Fayol (Eds) Learning to Spell: Research, Theory, and Practice Across Languages Lawrence Erlbaum Associates London 21–38
C. Perry (2003a) ArticleTitleA phoneme–grapheme feedback consistency effect Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 10 392–397
C. Perry (2003b) ArticleTitlePriming the rules of spelling Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 56 515–530
C. Perry J. Ziegler M. Coltheart (2002a) ArticleTitleA dissociation between orthographic awareness and spelling production Applied Psycholinguistics 23 43–73
C. Perry J. Ziegler M. Coltheart (2002b) ArticleTitleHow predictable is spelling? Developing and testing metrics of phoneme–grapheme contingency Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 55A 987–915
P. M. Pexman S. J. Lupker L. D. Jared (2001) ArticleTitleHomophone effects in lexical decision Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 27 139–156 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.27.1.139
P. M. Pexman S. J. Lupker L. D. Reggia (2002) ArticleTitleInvestigating the impact of feedback phonology in visual word recognition Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28 572–584 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.28.3.572
D. C. Plaut J. L. McClelland M. S. Seidenberg K. Patterson (1996) ArticleTitleUnderstanding normal and impaired word reading: Computational principles in quasi regular domains Psychological Review 103 56–115 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0033-295X.103.1.56
K. Rastle M. Coltheart (1999) ArticleTitleSerial and strategic effects in reading aloud Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 25 482–503
M. S. Seidenberg J. L. McClelland (1989) ArticleTitleA distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming Psychological Review 96 523–568 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0033-295X.96.4.523
P. H. K. Seymour M. Aro J.M. Erskine (2003) ArticleTitleFoundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies British Journal of Psychology 94 143–174 Occurrence Handle10.1348/000712603321661859
D. L. Share (1995) ArticleTitlePhonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition Cognition 55 151–218 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0010-0277(94)00645-2
M. Snowling (1994) Towards a model of spelling acquisition: The development of some component skills G. D. A. Brown N. C. Ellis (Eds) Handbook of Spelling: Theory, Process and Intervention John Wiley & Sons Ltd Chichester 111–128
G. O. Stone G. C. Orden ParticleVan (1994) ArticleTitleBuilding a resonance framework for word recognition using design and system principles Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20 1248–1268 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0096-1523.20.6.1248
G. O. Stone M. Vanhoy G. C. Orden ParticleVan (1997) ArticleTitlePerception is a two way street: Feedforward and feedback phonology in visual word recognition Journal of Memory and Language 36 337–359 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.1996.2487
E. Strain K. Patterson M. S. Seidenberg (1995) ArticleTitleSemantic effects in single word naming Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 21 1140–1154 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0278-7393.21.5.1140
M. Stuart J. Masterson (1992) ArticleTitlePatterns of reading and spelling in 10-year-olds related to pre-reading phonological abilities Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 54 168–187 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0022-0965(92)90034-4
M. Stuart J. M. Masterson Dixon P. Quinlan (1999) ArticleTitleInferring sublexical correspondences from sight vocabulary: Evidence from 6- and 7-year-olds Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 52A 353–366
R. Treiman J. Mullennix R. Bijeljac-Babic E. D. Richmond-Welty (1995) ArticleTitleThe special role of rimes in the description, use and acquisition of English orthography Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 124 107–136 Occurrence Handle10.1037/0096-3445.124.2.107
R. Treiman A. Zukowski (1988) ArticleTitleUnits in reading and spelling Journal of Memory and Language 27 466–477
G. C. Orden ParticleVan S. D. Goldinger (1994) ArticleTitleInterdependence of form and function in cognitive systems explains perception of printed words Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 20 1269–1291
G. S. Waters M. S. Seidenberg M. Bruck (1984) ArticleTitleChildren’s and adult’s use of spelling-sound information in three reading tasks Memory and Cognition 12 293–305
G.S. Waters M. Bruck M. Seidenberg (1985) ArticleTitleDo children use similar processes to read and spell words? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 39 511–530 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0022-0965(85)90054-2
B. S. Weekes R. A. Davies B. A. Parris G.A. Robinson (2003) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition effects on spelling in surface dysgraphia Aphasiology 17 563–584 Occurrence Handle10.1080/02687030344000030
B. S. Weekes A. Chan J. S. W. Kwok L. H. Tan J. Jin (2004) ArticleTitleAoA effects on Chinese language processing: An fMRI study Brain and Language 91 33–34
S. M. Zeno S. H. Ivens R. T. Millard R. Duvvuri (1995) The educator’s word frequency guide Touchstone Applied Science Brewster, NJ
J. D. Zevin M. S. Seidenberg (2002) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition effects in word reading and other tasks Journal of Memory and Language 47 IssueID1 1–29 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.2001.2834
J. D. Zevin M. S. Seidenberg (2004) ArticleTitleAge of acquisition effects in reading aloud: Tests of cumulative frequency and frequency trajectory Memory and Cognition 32 31–38
J. C. Ziegler G. O. Stone A. M. Jacobs (1997) ArticleTitleWhat is the pronunciation for -ough and the spelling for /u/? A database for computing feedforward and feedback consistency in English Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 29 IssueID4 600–618
J. C. Ziegler M. Montant A. M. Jacobs (1997) ArticleTitleThe feedback consistency effect in lexical decision and naming Journal of Memory and Language 37 533–554 Occurrence Handle10.1006/jmla.1997.2525
M. G. Zorzi Houghton B. Butterworth (1998) ArticleTitleTwo routes or one in reading aloud? A connectionist dual process model Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception and Performance 24 1131–1161
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weekes, B.S., Castles, A.E. & Davies, R.A. Effects of Consistency and Age of Acquisition on Reading and Spelling among Developing Readers. Read Writ 19, 133–169 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-005-2032-6
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-005-2032-6