ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the spelling development among native speaking children before dealing with the issues faced by L2 learners who are learning to spell English. After a review of a large number of studies, Figueredo summarized them by saying that there is evidence for both positive and negative transfer from L1 to L2 spelling, but that negative transfer or interference decreased as the learners gained proficiency in English spelling norms. Good spellers have knowledge of the spellings of problematic words, but they may not acquire this knowledge through normal reading for pleasure. Visual images are linked to phonological information about the morpheme/word in the mental lexicon. Good spellers have good spelling strategies too. Once the word is written, writers can use orthographic strategies too. Etymological strategies allow the speller to use word origin information such as whether the word comes from the Germanic base, or a Spanish, French or Latin/Greek borrowing.
