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What Do Children Know Before Spelling Phonologically? Prephonological Spellers’ Knowledge Of Writing, Lan Zhang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most theories of literacy development have focused on children’s knowledge of the phonological aspect of writing. Relatively few studies have investigated children’s writing-related knowledge before they acquire alphabetic knowledge. The constructivist theory provides insights into what and how children know about other aspects of writing such as its graphic properties and symbolic function. The present study examined different aspects of the constructivist perspective. Preschool children with a mean age of 4 years and 4 months completed a spelling task and a recognition task. Participants who had not grasped conventional phoneme-grapheme correspondences in English were of primary interest. Consistent with the …