Good spellers make good readers but not vice versa: Reading speed and spelling ability

Abstract

Reading and spelling are two fundamental skills that are clearly linked, but that are also distinct; many individuals can read words that they cannot spell. Recent research has found that reading speed tends to be higher when one knows how to spell the word, but the precise explanation for this observation is not clear. To address this, 51 undergraduate students were tested on their reading speed and spelling accuracy to confirm the association between these abilities and to examine the effect of the location of spelling errors within a word on reading speed as an explanation for this relationship. At present, it is uncertain how error location may affect reading, as different theories lead to different predictions in this respect: some theories suggest that errors in the middle of a word may be more detrimental to reading speed than errors at the beginning, and others propose the reverse. Participants were tested on 25 words, each presented three times. Reading speed was measured using SuperLab 5.0 and spelling accuracy was measured using handwritten spelling tests. A within participant analysis confirmed that words that were spelled correctly all three times were read faster than words that were never spelled correctly. Analysis of spelling error location failed to find any significant effect of error location on reading speed. The connection between spelling accuracy and reading speed is in line with previous research on the lexical quality hypothesis, yet further research is required to explain the impact of specific spelling errors on reading.