Do faster learners know more? Orthographic learning and knowledge, sensitivity to graphotactic regularities, spelling accuracy, and reading ability in German primary school children
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Reading fluency and spelling accuracy depend on the presence of well-specified orthographic representations in the mental lexicon (Perfetti & Hart, 2002). The richness of a child’s orthographic lexicon is likely to depend on the efficiency of orthographic learning. This, in turn, may be influenced by their ability to form an a priori expectation of the word’s spelling, which is likely to be based on their knowledge of frequent letter patterns in their orthography (graphotactic sensitivity). This proposed causal chain may explain the link between statistical learning ability and reading, as graphotactic sensitivity is likely to be acquired by statistical learning. In this pre-registered study, we tested the feasibility of this proposed causal chain, by testing 94 children learning to read in German on tasks testing each of these steps: spelling accuracy, reading fluency, orthographic choice (measuring lexical knowledge), orthographic learning, as well as sensitivity to graphotactic regularities. Although the performance on tasks reflecting orthographic knowledge or learning is correlated, we found no evidence for a link between graphotactic sensitivity and reading, spelling, or orthographic learning. This suggests that a proposed effect of statistical learning is unlikely to be a result of mediation via graphotactic sensitivity and orthographic learning.