Reading and spelling performance of 8-year-old children

The ability of 112 first year junior children to read 20 words drawn from reading tests in common use was compared with their ability to write these words. The strategies for spelling used by good readers were examined and the extent to which setting the words in context affected their performance of the tasks was also investigated. It was found that while the children could read 92% of the words in context and 87% of them in isolation they could spell only 51% of them in context and 50% in isolation. Good readers who were also good spellers appeared to be more likely to use visual orthographic strategies for spelling than good readers who were comparatively poor spellers.