Acquiring skills in ortography and the problems of writing according to pronunciation

Abstract

The orthography of languages can be categorised as shallow or deep (Frost-Katz- Bentin 1987). One of the basic principles of Hungarian orthography is to write according to pronunciation, so it would seem that correct spelling does not cause any particular problem for the students. For example, related elements that are interpreted together, such as verbs and auxiliary verbs, are pronounced as one unit in speech, but they are written separately. The goal of teaching orthography is for the learner to absorb the units of the “deep category“ without error and to bring them from the level of the external algorithm – the level of awareness – to the level of the internal algorithm – the level of skill. The present paper uses a national spelling competition for upper primary school students (N = 3340), held annually in the 5th grade, to investigate the extent to which students are successful in mastering certain deep spelling structures.