Learning about letters is an important foundation for literacy development. Should children be taught to label letters by conventional names, such as /bi/ for "b", or by sounds, such as /b[inverted e]/? We queried parents and teachers, finding that those in the United States stress letter names with young children, whereas those in…

Researchers found that children who were lexical readers (those who read words as units) tended to make more errors involving partial lexical information when spelling irregular words than those who were sublexical readers (those who translated letters into sounds when reading). Sublexical readers tended to spell non-words better and to make more…

Examines young children's ability to use simple morphological relations among words as a source of information about the words' spelling. Found that children used morphological relations among words only to a small extent. Suggests that although phonology plays an important role in early spelling, young children can also use other sources of…