Beyond the first steps in reading and spelling
Peter Bryant
First thoughts
 Orthographies are only partly systems for encoding
the sounds of oral language
 They are also systems for representing deeper
linguistic distinctions, like the “-ed” spelling for past
tense inflections
 Perhaps it is wrong and dangerous for psychologists
and teachers to ignore these deeper regularities,
 Perhaps it would be quite easy to encourage children
to be interested in these regularities and to learn about
them
The view that children are taught GPCs and then
learn everything else for themselves
 Most current models of reading and spelling at word
level argue that children should first acquire the basic
phonological/alphabetic rules-grapheme-phoneme
correspondences (GPCs) with the help of teachers,
 and then can work out the rest of the system for
themselves
 Current approaches to teaching in the UK adopt this
approach too: teach children about phonology and
the alphabet and the children will take care of the
rest of the learning for themselves
 Spelling rules beyond the GPCs are largely ignored
by theorists and teachers alike
Spelling rules beyond alphabetic
correspondences (GPC)
There are at least two kinds of spelling rule beyond
GPCs:
Conditional rules, like:
 the split digraph (hop vs hope),
 other digraphs,
 the /k/ ending
Morphemic spelling rules, like the spelling for the
past tense ending “ed”: kissed, rolled, wanted
Nunes T. & Bryant. P. (2009)
Children’s Reading & Spelling: beyond the first steps
Wiley-Blackwell
Morphemic spelling rules in many languages
(French, English, Greek, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic)
 when the same sound is spelled in different ways
for morphemic reasons
fox
education
socks
magician
 when different sounds are spelled in the same way
for morphemic reasons
kissed
rolled
cats
heal
dogs
health
waited
 when spelling represents silent morphemes
la maison
les maisons
Morphemic spelling rules exist……..
 But do people actually use these rules to spell such
words correctly?
 The alternative is that they learn the specific spellings
for each word (word-specific learning)
Three parts to the talk
Despite lack of teaching, children construct
morphemic rules for themselves
Actually that’s not right: many children and adults
don’t construct morphemic rules for themselves
You can teach morphemic rules to all children
English children construct morphemic rules
for themselves: spelling the “-ed” regular past
verb ending
Spelling the endings of /d/ and /t/ non-verbs
/d/ ending /t/ ending
bird
cold
field
gold
ground
belt
except
next
paint
soft
Nunes, Bryant & Bindman
Mean correct phonetic spellings of non-verbs
ending in /d/ or /t/ (out of 10) in 3 sessions over a
period of 21 months
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
start
7m later
21m later
N=297
6yr5m
7yr5m
Nunes, Bryant & Bindman
8yr7m
Spelling the endings of regular past verbs with
/d/ and /t/ inflections
/d/ ending /t/ ending
called
covered
filled
killed
opened
dressed
kissed
laughed
learned
stopped
Mean correct “-ed” spellings (out of 10)
in 3 sessions over a period of 21 months
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
start
7m later
21m later
6yr5m
7yr5m
Nunes, Bryant & Bindman
8yr7m
N=297
Phonetic endings instead of the correct
“-ed” ending
 most of the mistakes
with regular verb
endings are phonetic
transcriptions: e.g.
“kist” for “kissed”
 these inappropriate
phonetic transcriptions
are made even by
some 10 year olds
Number of incorrect
phonetic transcriptions of
regular verb endings
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
6
7
8
9
10
Generalisations and overgeneralisations of the
“-ed” ending
 many children put “-eds” on the ends of irregular
past verbs (sleped) (71%), and also of non-verbs
(sofed, necsed) (59%) as well as of regular past
verbs (kissed)
 the generalisation to irregular verbs is incorrect but
grammatically appropriate
 the generalisation to non-verbs is incorrect and
inappropriate grammatically
Nunes, Bryant & Bindman
Incorrect generalisations of the “ed” ending to
irregular verbs “sleped” & to non-verbs “necsed”
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
s
yr
10
rs
8y
rs
to nonverbs
to irreg
vbs
6y
 at first the children make
the two types of
generalisation roughly
equally
 but by 8 yrs they make
many more generalisations
to irregular verbs than to
non-verbs
Nunes, Bryant & Bindman
/d/ and /t/ endings are spelled
as “d” and “t”
grapheme-phoneme rule
/d/ and /t/ endings are sometimes spelled
as “d” and “t” and sometimes as “ed”
“ed” endings are for past verbs:
“d” and “t” endings are for everything else
extension of
grapheme-phoneme rule
morpho-phonemic rule
Greek children construct morphemic rules for
themselves: spelling stems and affixes
A study of Greek children’s learning of how to
spell vowel sounds in inflections and in stems
 Greek is a highly regular orthography as far as
reading is concerned
 Spelling is less predictable because there are very few
vowel sounds in Greek, and there is more than one
way of spelling three of the vowels
 e.g. /i/ is represented by: ι , η , ει, οι


/o/ is represented by: ο , ω
/e/ is represented by: ε , αι
 There is no rule for which spelling to adopt for the
vowels in stems, but in inflections the spelling is
determined morphemically
Sound in real
word stems
Sound in real
Sound in pseudoword inflections word inflections
τόπι(ball)
νερό(water)
βεσό
/o/sound
φωνή(voice)
μιλάμε(we talk)
δίνω(I give)
λιβώ
παιδί(child)
θότι
πόλη(town)
ρέκη
/i/ sound
μήλο(apple)
μιλάμε (we talk)
δίνω (I give)
φιλώ (I kiss)
ρίχνομαι (I fly into)
τόπι (ball)
παιδί (child)
βόδι (ox)
νησί (island)
θότι
νεπί
σόβι
κιφί
ψήνει (s/he cooks)
μήλο (apple)
κήποι (gardens)
νησί (island)
ζώνη (waistband)
πόλη (town)
θέση (place/seat)
φωνή (voice)
λόχη
κόση
ρέκη
βοπή
κλείνομαι (I am shut
up in)
θείοι (uncles)
δείχνουμε (we show)
πειράζει (s/he teases)
ψήνει (s/he cooks)
δένει (s/he ties)
πειράζει (s/he teases)
κοιτάζει (s/he looks
at)
πέφει
γίβει
σιφάγει
διπάγει
κοιμάμαι (I sleep)
τοίχοι (walls)
κοιτάζει (s/he looks
at)
ανοίγουμε (we open)
τοίχοι (walls)
θείοι (uncles)
κήποι (gardens)
καιροί (days/times)
λίροι
μίοι
νίγοι
σεποί
32
30
28
26
24
22
20
18
Real Word Stems
16
Real Word Inflections
14
Pseudoword Inflections
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Session A (Mean age:
6y10m)
Session B (Mean age:
7y6m)
Session C (Mean age:
8y6m)
Chliounaki & Bryant (2007)
Number of children (out of 90) significantly above
chance level (+) or not (-) with real word inflections
(RW) and pseudo-word inflections (PW)
Session A
Session B
Session C
Significantly above
chance level on
3
pseudowords
RW-PW-
35
10
RW+PW-
30
23
17
RW-PW+
0
1
0
RW+PW+
25
56
70
Session A 27.8%
Session C 77.8%
Chance level .375: 18+/32 above chance level
Session A
Real word
inflections
.434**
Session B
Real word
inflections
-.036
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Session A
Real word
inflections
.434**
Session B
Real word
inflections
-.036
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Chliounaki & Bryant (2007)
Session B
Real word
inflections
.390**
Session C
Real word
inflections
-.010
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Session B
Real word
inflections
.390**
Session C
Real word
inflections
-.010
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Chliounaki & Bryant (2007)
Session B
Real word
stems
.253
Session C
Real word
stems
.197
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Chliounaki & Bryant, 2007
Session A
Real word
stems
.146
Session B
Real word
stems
.172
Pseudoword
inflections
Pseudoword
inflections
Chliounaki & Bryant, 2007
Conclusions from the Chliounaki & Bryant study
Children get to spell inflections correctly in real
words before pseudowords
However in their first two years at school most
children learn the morphemic spelling rules for
inflections pretty well
Cross-lagged correlations between real and pseudoword spelling of inflections suggest a causal
connection:
It is that word-specific learning lays the basis for
inferring the morphemic spelling rules
At this stage we were confident that pretty nearly all
children constructed the basic morphemic spelling
rules by themselves
Many English people don’t construct some of
the morphemic spelling rules for themselves
Do children learn the morphemic spelling rule
about the English plural ending?
 In English one of the most basic morphemic
spelling rules is that the last sound in buns and
dogs is /z/ but it is spelled as “s” because “s” is the
spelling for the plural morpheme in English
 but there is also a non-morphemic, frequency rule:
which can account for the spelling of many words
ending in /z/. In almost every word that ends in
a /z/ which is preceded by a consonant, the /z/
ending is spelled as “s”: dogs, bastards
 Exceptions are rare words : adze, bronze
The children saw two ________ on a plate
The children saw two ________ on a plate
The children saw two beans on a plate
The children saw two bees on a plate
The children saw two pleens on a plate
The children saw two prees on a plate
Children’s “-s” spellings of the /z/ sound at the
end of plural words and pseudo-words (%)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
beans
bees
Real plural words
pleens
prees
Plural pseudo-words
Kemp & Bryant, 2003
Adults’ “-s” spellings of the /z/ sound at the end
of plural pseudo-words
100
90
Educational Levels
80
70
Secondary
60
50
40
30
Tertiary
20
10
0
pleens
prees
Kemp & Bryant, 2003
2nd experiment – on /z/ and /ks/ ending words
 The Kemp & Bryant result with adults was so surprising
that we decided to extend the /z/ end sound data to onemorpheme vs two-morpheme verbs as well (praise, plays:
sneeze, sees) and also nouns and verbs ending in /ks/
 In this experiment, with 18-25 year old military recruits,
we used pseudo-words, as well as a real word control, and
we gave them a choice between two spellings
The wily old
fox
focks
That magician always
was very cunning.
tricks
trix
his audience.
Jim sometimes
We often
gricks
grix
yox
yocks
after work.
in the garden.
The children saw two
.
klees
kleeze
proos
at school .
The children saw a
at school .
prooze
Frequencies of correct choice for /z/ ending
verbs in 205 young adults
35
30
Number
of
25
participants
out of 20
205
15
10
5
0
9
11
13
15
17
19
Number of correct choices
out of 30
21
23
25
27
10% of sample significantly above chance
29
Frequencies of correct choice for /z/ ending
nouns in 205 young adults
40
Number 35
of
30
participants
out of 25
205
20
15
10
5
0
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
Number of correct choices
out of 30
23
25
27
12% of sample significantly above chance
29
Frequencies of correct choice for /ks/ ending
verbs in 205 young adults
40
Number 35
of
30
participants
out of 25
205
20
15
10
5
0
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
Number of correct choices
out of 30
15% of sample significantly above chance
29
Frequencies of correct choice for /ks/ ending
nouns in 205 young adults
30
25
Number
of
20
participants
out of
15
205
10
5
0
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
Number of correct choices
out of 30
17% of sample significantly above chance
29
Frequencies of correct choice for /z/ ending
nouns in 72 young university students
25
20
15
10
5
0
14
16
18
20
22
24
Number of correct choices
out of 30
26
28
87.5% of sample significantly above chance
30
Frequencies of correct choice for /z/ ending
verbs in 72 young university students
25
20
15
10
5
0
14
16
18
20
22
24
Number of correct choices
out of 30
26
28
83% of sample significantly above chance
30
Percent significantly above chance in choice of
correct endings in the three samples
N
z nouns
ks nouns
10-14 year olds 190
40
44
20 year recruits 205
12
17
20 year students
88
92
72
Conclusions from English and Greek studies
 The developmental process of children inferring rules
on the basis of their word-specific knowledge seems
to work better for Greek than for English children
 It also works much better for some English
individuals than for others, probably for cultural
reasons
 The reason for the striking individual differences in
the English-speaking populations may be partly due
to differences in exposure to text
 They are probably also due to the lack of explicit
teaching about morphemic spelling rules
You can teach morphemic rules to all
children
Three phases in the intervention programme
There were phases in our studies of classroom
intervention :
 Laboratory intervention studies with pairs of children
conducted by our researchers
Classroom intervention studies with classroom
conducted by teacher, but closely scripted and
supervised by ourselves
Classroom intervention studies with our material (on
a CD) and the programme decided by the teachers
T. Nunes & P. Bryant (2006) Improving literacy
through teaching morphemes Routledge
Phase 1:
A laboratory intervention with the ion/ian rule
barbarian
confession
Christian
conversation
comedian
combination
magician
discussion
mathematician
imagination
musician
invitation
Nunes, Bryant, Pretzlik & Hurry
Group pre-test
Two intervention sessions: pairs
Immediate post-test
Two month interval
Delayed post-test
Four kinds of intervention
We included four groups:
Explicit (morpheme)
N=40 C.A. 9y6m
Implicit (morpheme)
N=42 C.A. 9y7m
Mixed (morpheme) (implicit followed by
explicit)
N=42 C.A. 9y7m
Control (comprehension)
N=76 C.A. 9y5m
protect
protection
infect
infection
?
magic
magician
music
musician
?
The gang made a ____________________ to the police.
confession
The __________________________ was wonderful.
musician
Joe was a _______________ .
Christian
Mean adjusted correct spelling of ion/ian
endings in real words (out of 16)
14
12
10
8
P re -te s t
Im m e d ia te p o s t-te s t
D e la y e d p o s t-te s t
6
4
2
0
E x p lic it
m e th o d
M ix e d Im p lic it
m e th o d m e th o d
C o n tro l
Nunes, Bryant, Pretzlik & Hurry
Mean correct endings (out of 8) with pseudowords ending in –ian & -ion
6
5
4
P r e -te s t
Im m e d ia te p o s t-te s t
D e la y e d p o s t-te s t
3
2
1
0
E x p lic it
m e th o d
M ix e d
m e th o d
Im p lic it
m e th o d
C o n tr o l
Phase 2: A teacher intervention on –ion and –ian
endings
Number correct “-ion” and “–ian” spellings in pre- and posttests, when children were taught about “-ion” and “-ian”
endings in classrooms by teachers
14
12
10
8
P r e -te s t
Im m e d ia te p o s t-te s t
D e la y e d p o s t-te s t
6
4
2
0
T aught group
C o n tr o l g r o u p
Nunes T. and Bryant P. (2006) Improving Literacy
Through Teaching Morphemes. (Routledge)
Phase 3:
Intervention conducted by teachers in their
own way: outcome measure vocabulary as
well as spelling
Group pre-test: spelling & vocabulary
Approximately
seven intervention sessions: classroom
Immediate post-test : spelling & vocabulary
8-10 weeks interval
Delayed post-test : spelling & vocabulary
Pre- & post-test vocabulary measures
logical
illogical
focal
To solve maths problems you need to be very ___________________.
painless
painful
pointless
The doctor told Georgia not to worry because the injection would be _________________.
disapprove
disregard
regard
Because Tom had been lying the judge told the jury to __________________ his evidence.
bluntness
idleness
alertness
The teacher was very cross with John because he had been lazy. He said ‘ I am fed up with your _____’.
Experimental Group
N=319
Control Group
N=182
Ages 7-12 years
Intervention material
er
ist
Example: making agents
cleaner
A person who cleans is a _______.
er
ist
scientist
A person who works in science is a ________.
er
ist
robber
A person who robs banks is a ________.
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
? ?
Can you think of some more people
words that end with:
…er
?
? ?
?
…ist
?
?
?
? ?
?
er ist ian
magician
er ist ian
library
er ist ian
librarian
Morphemes change
the meaning of words
Count the
morphemes and compare
them with your neighbour’s
un tied
un dis im in
un dis im in
dishonest
fortunate
un fortun ate
ness re ing ed er ian tion s un less ful
The
The
boy
boy
was
was
______with
unhappy
with
hishis
work
work
Because he had finished
allallhis
hiswork
workhehewas
wasfull
fullof
of________.
happiness.
1
un happy
happy
happiness
happy
unhappiness
Tom was full of
_________
unhappiness because
his mother had told
him off.
Tell me who the person is
er
or
ian
music…
ian
ive
ist
1) reader
9) magician
2) director
10)dancer
3) cleaner
11)scientist
4) librarian
12)singer
5) fighter
13)musician
6) detective
14)write….
7) artist
8) painter
Identify the prefix and stems.
What number is in the
prefix?
What does the made-up word
mean?
What is the most important
difference between a bicycle
and a tricycle?
Bicycle
What is it about the word
that gives you a clue about
this difference?
Tricycle
Binoculars
Triangle
What is it about the word
that gives you a clue about
the meaning?
Experimental & Control Groups’ vocabulary test
adjusted mean correct scores – out of 40
23
22
21
20
19
Experimental group
Control Group
18
17
16
15
Pre-test
Immediate
post-test
Delayed
post-test
Conclusions
 The ‘phonology plus word-specific knowledge’
approach is inadequate: children to some extent do
learn spelling rules: and they NEED to
 Greek children learn about morphemic rules for
themselves with the help of word-specific knowledge,
but English children don’t do so well
 Some English children/adults acquire explicit and
effective knowledge of morphemic spelling rules:
others have a much weaker knowledge of these rules
 The reasons for these differences among English
children are probably cultural
 These sharp individual differences would almost
certainly disappear if children were taught about
spelling rules systematically and entertainingly
Final thoughts
 Orthographies are only partly systems for encoding
the sounds of oral language
 They are also systems for representing deeper
linguistic distinctions, like the “-ed” spelling for past
tense inflections
 Our evidence suggests (1) that it is wrong and
dangerous for psychologists and teachers to ignore
these deeper regularities,
 and (2) that it is quite easy to encourage children to
be interested in these regularities and to learn about
them