Abstract
To compare children’s memory for silent and pronounced letters in familiar spellings of words, 7- to 10-year-olds were given two tasks. First, they imagined word spellings and decided whether target letters were present. Then they recalled the words associated with the target letters. Five experiments yielded similar findings. Pronounced letters were recognized somewhat more accurately than silent letters. However, silent letters were detected more rapidly in words than pronounced letters were, and silent letters prompted superior recall of words. The influence of several factors, such as the particular words chosen, the position of letters, and the expectancies of subjects, was ruled out in one or another experiment. Two explanations for findings are proposed. The favorite is that effects reflect the way silent letters are stored in long-term memory when spellings are learned. The other is that events occurring in the experiment enhanced episodic memory for silent letters.
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This research was supported by Grant NIE-G-77-0009, awarded by the National Institute of Education, and Grant HD-12903-01, awarded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
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Ehri, L.C., Wilce, L.S. The salience of silent letters in children’s memory for word spellings. Memory & Cognition 10, 155–166 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209217
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209217