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| Research article summary (published 30 Dec 2002): |
Do beez buzz? Rule-based and frequency-based knowledge in learning to spell plural -s.
Full Abstract
There has been much discussion about whether certain aspects of human learning depend on the abstraction of rules or on the acquisition of frequency-based knowledge. It has usually been agreed, however, that the spelling of morphological patterns in English (e.g., past tense -ed) and other languages is based on the acquisition of morphological rules, and that these rules take a long time to learn. The regular plural -s ending seems to be an exception:
Even young children can spell this correctly, even when it is pronounced /z/ (as in bees). Reported here are 3 studies that show that 5- to 9-year-old children and adults do not usually base their spellings of plural real-word and pseudo-word endings on the morphological rule that all regular plurals are spelled with -s. Instead, participants appeared to use their knowledge of complex but untaught spelling patterns, which is based on the frequency with which certain letters co-occur in written English.
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Author information
Author/s: Kemp, Nenagh (N); Bryant, Peter (P);
Affiliation: Max Planck Child Study Centre, Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, UK. kempn@psy.man.ac.uk
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Journal: Child development (Child Dev), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: -2003 Jan-Feb; vol 74 (issue 1) : pp 63-74
Dates: Created 2003/03/10; Completed 2003/05/28; Revised 2006/11/15;
PMID: 12625436, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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