Spelling Development of Kindergarten Students: A One Year Longitudinal Study

Yang, Minwha

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2009;14(1): 14-33.

Minwha Yang^`

양민화(Minwha Yang)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
Due to the transparent correspondence between the letters and letter sounds, Hangul is considered to be a shallow orthography. Since there is a great consistency in the phonetic regulation, Korean beginning learners are expected to experience an advantage in acquiring phonetic strategies. In order to develop effective phonetic curriculum, teachers should understand how these young children develop their literacy skills. However, there has been lack of information about Korean literacy development. This study aims to discover the characteristics of the orthographic development in young Korean learners by analyzing their spelling performances throughout a kindergarten year.
Methods
A total of 32 kindergarten students who were 5 years old were asked to spell ten words in four different periods of a school year. These ten words were selected by the researcher in order to observe the students' spelling development in nine linguistic features. The spelling results were analyzed by Fisher's exact test and percentage accuracy. The students' spelling errors were also qualitatively analyzed in order to investigate students' logic behind the errors.
Results
Fisher's exact test results showed that the principal vowel, initial consonant, co-articulated (tense) initial consonant, co-articulated final consonant, and co-articulation of the initial and final consonant combination were the linguistic features that were developed during the kindergarten year. Among these features, the principal vowel, initial consonant, and co-articulated (tense) initial consonant were found to be fully developed by the end of the kindergarten year. In addition, it was discovered that kindergarten students primarily used phonetic strategies in their spelling and began to apply pattern strategies in later kindergarten year. Conclusion & Discussion: Korean children had strength in spelling vowels comparing to other orthography users. The results of this study revealed that there is a systematic cevelopmental course in orthographic development of Korean young children. The author suggested that kindergarten curriculum should reflect this developmental progression.