AN ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION IN SELECTED THIRD AND FOURTH GRADE CHILDREN (ORTHOGRAPHY, PAPAGO, O'ODHAM).

Abstract

This study explores various aspects of the spelling and punctuation development of six Tohono O'odham (Papago) children during their third and fourth grade years. The data used, which was collected in a prior study, consisted of 215 texts (13,793 words) written in natural classroom settings as part of the teacher's ongoing writing curriculum. Field notes decribing what the subjects did as they wrote, as well as written interviews, supplemented the texts themselves. A number of specific features were examined to explore the subjects' use of various level of linguistic information about spelling. Those features included: initial letters, vowel phonemes, consonant digraphs, the letters C and G, consonant gemination, bound morphemes, and homophones. Spellings involving permutation (changes in letter order) and the letters E and Y as final markers, as well as those spellings which were real words, were also examined. Finally, differences between spellers, the subjects' use of punctuation and capitalization, and orthography in the classroom context were analyzed. A number of conclusions were drawn from the analysis. The subjects spelled most words conventionally. The more frequently a word appeared in the subjects' writing, the more likely it was to be spelled conventionally. Selected orthographic features varied widely in how conventionally they were spelled, with those which were less predictable or more abstract tending to be more difficult. Almost every spelling feature examined showed growth from third to fourth grade. The invented spellings of particular features tended to reflect understandable, logical processes. Invented spellings which were either real words or permutations of the intended word were common. There were differences between children not only in how conventionally they spelled but in the types of invented spellings they produced. Punctuation was more difficult than spelling for the subjects, and its use varied greatly between subjects. Capitalization was comparable to spelling in how conventionally it was used. Children used a variety of linguistic information and spelling strategies as they wrote. There was evidence that punctuation usage was driven (at least in some cases) by conscious hypotheses about how it works. Children's metalinguistic knowledge about orthography may or may not parallel their use of it.