Learning How to Spell in Turkish

Authors : Ecehan SÖNMEZ, Nalan BABÜR, Belma HAZNEDAR

Pages : 34-50

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Publication Date : 2015-01-01

Article Type : Other Papers

Abstract :In comparison to the large body of research on reading and its underlying processes in the field of literacy acquisition, the number of studies investigating the components of writing has remained rather limited (Treiman, 1993). Given that spelling is a fundamental aspect of the ability to write, understanding the nature of spelling may contribute to improvements in literacy instruction, in particular, for those who experience learning difficulties. The course of spelling development has been mostly studied in English (Ehri, 1986; Frith, 1980; Gentry, 1982; Henderson, 1985), a language known for its opaque orthography. In recent work there appears to be a growing interest to investigate spelling patterns in relatively transparent orthographies such as German (Wimmer & Hummer, 1990) and Czech (Caravolas, Volin & Hulme, 2005). However, only few studies to date have dealt with spelling performance in transparent orthographies such as Finnish (Lehtonen, 2006) and Turkish (e.g., Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2007; Erden, Kurdoğlu, & Uslu, 2002). The primary purpose of the present paper is to examine spelling development in Turkish across grades 1-3. We compared results obtained from different tasks (e.g., single word, sentence and text spelling tasks based on auditory and visual prompts) based on a comprehensive error categorization. Spelling performance in Turkish is analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively; and the findings are discussed in terms of development of spelling across grades and characteristics of error types according to varying spelling task demands. The most common error type was found to be grapheme substitution, followed by grapheme omission; and auditory prompts yielded more errors when compared to visual prompts, which was an expected outcome. Some implications are made regarding the role of universal processes and language specific characteristics in the emergence of spelling errors.
Keywords : Error types, Spelling, Transparent Orthography, Turkish