Spelling pronunciations: transforming irregularity into regularity

In a 10-day training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations on German speaking 5th-graders' spelling skills for irregular words was examined. Poor spellers were less efficient in learning the spelling pronunciations than age-adequate spellers. On post-tests, 1 week after the last training day and between 5 and 12 weeks after post-test 1, poor and age-adequate spellers spelled significantly more words correctly than matched control groups that received a comparable training without spelling pronunciations. Thus, spelling pronunciations provide an efficient means for the build-up of stable, phonologically underpinned orthographic representations for irregular word spellings. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.