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The effects of spacing and massing on children's orthographic learning
Wegener, Signy Wang, Hua-Chen Beyersmann, Elisabeth Nation, Kate Colenbrander, Danielle Castles, Anne
Wegener, Signy
Wang, Hua-Chen
Beyersmann, Elisabeth
Nation, Kate
Colenbrander, Danielle
Castles, Anne
Abstract
Despite substantial evidence that spacing study opportunities over time improves the retention of learned verbal material compared with study trials that occur consecutively, the influence of temporal spacing on children’s learning of written words has not been investigated. This experiment examined whether temporal spacing influenced Grade 3 and 4 children’s (N = 37; mean age = 8 years 7 months) learning of novel written words during independent reading compared with massing. Children read 16 sentences containing a novel word under either a spaced (sentences appeared once in each of four blocks) or massed conditions (four consecutive trials). After a delay, orthographic learning was assessed using recognition (orthographic choice) and recall (spelling to dictation) measures. Words experienced in the spaced condition were better recognized than those in the massed condition, but there was no effect on recall. These findings suggest that temporal spacing influences the acquisition of new written word forms, extending the potential utility of the spacing principle to reading acquisition.
Keywords
reading, orthographic learning, spacing effect, reading development, distributed practice, learning
Date
2022
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Book
Volume
214
Issue
Page Range
1-11
Article Number
Article 105309
ACU Department
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as green open access
License
File Access
Open
Controlled
Controlled