Predictive influence of phonological processing, morphological/syntactic skill, and naming speed on spelling performance

This paper focuses on the predictive influence of phonological awareness, morphological/syntactic skill, and naming speed on spelling. The retrospective study correlated spelling performance in a group of 199 French-speaking children at the end of grade 2 with earlier capacities for phonemic manipulation, morphological/syntactic correction, and naming speed, assessed at the end of grade 1. The results are consistent with an integrative model that challenges the unitary phonological disorder hypothesis and confirmed that in French, as in other languages, naming speed is an independent predictor of reading performance. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.