Orthography

Orthography and Orthographic Mistakes

Orthography is all about spelling. When a child learns to write, this is one of our core language levels which we use for analysis.

Orthographic analysis

There a number of errors which you may wish to look for when analysing the data in the exam:
- Substitution – one letter is swapped for another letter.
- Omission – unstressed sounds get missed out.
- Insertion – spurious letter is added.

Orthographic analysis cont.

Transposition (or a transposed letter) – the letter is the wrong way around.
- Note: dyslexic children will often get the letters < b >, < p > and < d > mixed up.
Grapheme cluster substitution – a combination of letters are swapped for a different set of letters.

Read

Read states that children’s spellings are creative because they notice distinctions that adults are no longer aware of.
- For example, a child may spell ‘cruise’ as ‘crews’, as adults, as experienced writers, may have over-exposure to the word that we no longer think of the irregular spelling of the word.

Ferreiro

Ferreiro believes that children think that words must have several letters.
- For example, QWE could be a word, but QW could not.
In addition, he states that children believe that words should have different letters.
As a result, you may often see double letters in words missed out.

Biancardi

Biancardi believes that children think that the bigger the object, the bigger the word should be.
- For example, they may include more letters in ‘whale’ than in ‘ladybird’.

‘Statistical Learning’

Psychologists believe ‘statistical learning’ is key for children learning to read.

‘Statistical learning’

Psychologists believe ‘statistical learning’ is key for children learning to read.
This theory essentially states that children find patterns in spelling from exposure to forms of writing.
In this sense, you can link reading development to written development.

Seidenberg

The psycholinguist Seidenberg believes that pattern finding is all a part of finding connections between words.
- For example, a child may notice that lots of words end in ‘ed’ when we’re talking about things in the past.

Treiman

Treiman says that the child’s own name can have an influence on their orthography.
He states that quite often, the child will use a capital when there is no need because it is drilled into them that their name needs a capital.

Whole Word vs Phonic

As with reading, there is an argument over whole word or phonic in writing too.

Phonics

Reyner believes that children should be taught to write from ‘sounding out’ the word and writing down what they hear.

Issues

However, this method does not work well for words which do not have phoneme-grapheme correspondence or homonyms (everything the same, like ‘right’ in the sense of a direction and in the sense of being correct).

Whole word

On the opposite view, Curtis believes that children should be taught to write as whole words as this is more fluent and adult-like.
Curtis says that this aids comprehension over pronunciation.

Issues

However, if the child has not seen the word before, then this can make it very difficult to write, even if the word has phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

1Language Levels

1.1Assessment Objectives

1.1.1Assessment Objectives

1.2Lexis

1.2.1Introduction

1.2.2Common, Proper, Abstract & Concrete Nouns

1.2.3Collective Nouns

1.2.4Adjectives

1.2.5Main, Auxiliary & Copular Verbs

1.2.6Dynamic & Stative Verbs

1.2.7Transitive, Intransitive, Active & Passive Verbs

1.2.8Mood of Verbs

1.2.9Adverbs

1.2.10Personal, Possessive & Reflexive Pronouns

1.2.11Relative & Demonstrative Pronouns

1.2.12Determiners

1.2.13Conjunctions

1.2.14Synonyms, Antonyms & Phonological Features

1.2.15End of Topic Test - Lexis

1.3Grammar

1.3.1Morphology

1.3.2Clauses

1.3.3Phrases

1.3.4Present Tense

1.3.5Past Tense

1.3.6Future Tense

1.3.7End of Topic Test - Grammar

1.4Semantics & Pragmatics

1.4.1Semantics

1.4.2Pragmatics

1.5Discourse Structure, Graphology & Orthography

1.5.1Discourse Structure

1.5.2Graphology & Orthography

1.5.3End of Topic Test - Semantics, Graphology etc.

2Language, The Individual & Society

2.1Children’s Language Development

2.1.1The Exam

2.1.2Phonemes, Vocal Tract & Articulation

2.1.3Writing About Phonemes

2.1.4Phonological Simplification

2.1.5A Child's First Year & Consonant Acquisition

2.1.6Beginning Stages of Language

2.1.7Lexical Development

2.1.8Stages of Development

2.1.9End of Topic Test - Child Language Development

2.2Children's Language Development - Theories

2.2.1Behaviourism

2.2.2Interactionism

2.2.3Challenging Interactionism

2.2.4Nativism

2.2.5Nativism - Exam Answer

2.2.6Cognitivism

2.2.7Social Constructionism

2.2.8Writing About Spoken Acquisition

2.2.9End of Topic Test - Development Theories

2.3Literacy Development: Reading

2.3.1Introduction

2.3.2Phonics vs Whole Word

2.3.3Debates in Reading

2.3.4Modelling Reading Acquisition

2.3.5Other Reading Theories

2.3.6End of Topic Test - Reading

2.4Literacy Development: Writing

2.4.1Orthography

2.4.2Kroll's Theory

2.4.3Barclay's Theory

2.4.4Creativity vs Accuracy

2.4.5Other Writing Theories

2.4.6The Exam

2.4.7End of Topic Test - Writing

3Language Diversity & Change

3.1The Importance of Gendered Language

3.1.1Writing About Gender

3.1.2Dominance Theory

3.1.3Interruptions - Zimmerman & West

3.1.4Deficit Theory

3.1.5Difference Model

3.1.6Difference Model - Men

3.1.7Diversity Model

3.1.8End of Topic Test - Gendered Language

3.2Social Groups

3.2.1Writing About Social Groups

3.2.2Social Class

3.2.3Social Class 2

3.2.4Age

3.2.5Age - Teen Speak

3.2.6Milroy’s Belfast Study

3.2.7Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard Study

3.2.8End of Topic Test - Social Groups

3.3Occupational Groups

3.3.1Writing About Occupational Groups

3.3.2Jargon

3.3.3Conversations

3.3.4Hierarchy & Power

3.3.5End of Topic Test - Occupational Groups

3.4Accents & Dialects

3.4.1Writing About Accent & Dialect

3.4.2Introduction to Accents & Dialects

3.4.3Accents - Matched Guide Experiment

3.4.4Accents - Received Pronunciation & Brummie

3.4.5Dialects - Dialectal Variations

3.4.6Accent & Dialect Case Study - London

3.4.7End of Topic Test - Accents & Dialects

3.5Language Change

3.5.1Writing About Language Change

3.5.2Modelling Change

3.5.3Modelling Change 2

3.5.4Lexical Change

3.5.5Semantic Change

3.5.6End of Topic Test - Language Change

3.6History of English

3.6.1Old English

3.6.2Old English 2

3.6.3Middle English

3.6.4Middle English 2

3.6.5Early Modern English

3.6.6Late Modern English

3.6.7Present Day English

3.6.8Global English

3.6.9American English

3.6.10Modelling Global English

3.6.11End of Topic Test - History of English

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