Set for variability (SfV) is an oral language task which requires an individual to disambiguate the mismatch between the decoded form of an irregular word and its actual lexical pronunciation. For example, in the task, the word wasp is pronounced to rhyme with clasp (i.e., /wæsp/) and the individual must recognize the actual pronunciation of the word to be /wɒsp/. SfV has been shown to be a significant predictor of both item-specific and general word reading variance above and beyond that associated with phonemic awareness skill, letter-sound knowledge, and vocabulary skill. However, very little is known about the child characteristics and word features that affect SfV item performance. In this study we explored whether word features and child characteristics that involve phonology only are adequate to explain item-level variance in SfV performance or whether including predictors that involve the connection between phonology and orthography explain additional variance. To accomplish this we administered the SfV task (N=75 items) to a sample of grade 2-5 children (N=489) along with a battery of reading, reading related, and language measures. Results suggest that variance in SfV performance is uniquely accounted for by measures tapping phonological skill along with those capturing knowledge of phonology to orthography associations, but more so in children with better decoding skill. Additionally, word reading skill was found to moderate the influence of other predictors suggesting that how the task is approached may be impacted by word reading and decoding ability.

PurposeThe lexical quality (LQ) hypothesis predicts that a skilled reader's lexicon will be inhabited by a range of low- to high-quality items, and the probability of representing a word with high quality varies as a function of person-level, word-level, and item-specific variables. These predictions were tested with spelling accuracy as a gauge of LQ.MethodItem-response based crossed random effects models explored simultaneous contributions of person-level (e.g. participant's decoding skill), word-level (e.g. word's transparency rating), item-specific (e.g. participant's familiarity with specific word), and person-by-word interaction predictors (e.g. decoding by transparency rating interaction) to the spelling of 25 commonly misspelled irregular English words in 61 undergraduate university students (M = 19.4 years, 70.49% female, 39.34% Hispanic, 81.97% White).ResultsSubstantial variance among individuals in item-level spelling accuracy was accounted for by person-level decoding skill; item-specific familiarity, proportion of schwas correctly represented, and correctly identifying the word from its mispronunciation; and an interaction of transparency rating by general decoding skill.ConclusionsConsistent with the LQ hypothesis, results suggest that one's ability to form a high-quality lexical representation of a given word depends on a complex combination of person-level abilities, word-level characteristics, item-specific experiences, and an interaction between person- and word-level influences.

Correctly spelling an English word requires a high-quality orthographic representation. When faced with spelling a complex word without a high-quality representation, spellers often rely on other knowledge sources (e.g., incomplete stored orthographic forms, phonological to orthographic relationships) to spell it. For bilinguals, another potentially facilitative source is knowledge of a word's lexical and sublexical representations in another language. In the current study we considered simultaneous effects of word-level (e.g., frequency, cognate status) and person-level (e.g., English spelling skill, prompting, bilingual status) predictors on college students’ complex English word spelling. Monolinguals (English;n= 42) significantly outperformed bilinguals (Spanish and English;n= 76) on non-cognate spelling; no group differences emerged for cognate spelling accuracy. Within bilinguals, significantly higher spelling performance on cognates compared to non-cognates suggests cognate facilitation, with no prompting effects. Findings expand an interdisciplinary framework of understanding bilinguals’ activation and use of cross-linguistic representations in spelling.

Purpose: Set for variability (SfV; the ability to disambiguate the mismatch between the decodedform of a word and its correct pronunciation) has been shown to predict regular and irregular word reading in children across both transparent and opaque orthographies. It has been offered that SfV is a crucial part of the decoding process associated with orthographic learning. Consistent with this hypothesis, it has been suggested that SfV is more important when partial decoding occurs such as in irregular words or when children lack the decoding skills to fully decode the word. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the influence of SfV skill on the prediction of word reading is impacted by a word’s regularity and a child’s decoding skill. Methods: The present study examined whether the relation between SfV and word reading is moderated by a word’s spelling-to-pronunciation transparency rating and a child’s decoding skill using a cross-classified random effects model of 491 children and 160 words.Results: SfV was shown to be more important under conditions that may lead to a partial decoding such as when decoding skill is low or word transparency is low and was most important when both decoding skill is low and word transparency are low.Conclusions: This suggests that when children with poor decoding skills read irregular words whose pronunciation is not readily available from its spelling, SfV is a large contributor to whether that word will be read correctly.

Purpose: The relationship between the set for variability (SfV) task and various isolated word reading measures in developing readers is high (ranging from .60 to .80 across studies). Elbro et al. (2012) offered that SfV skill serves as a second step in the decoding process allowing the decoded form of the letter string to be matched with the stored phonological form. An alternative explanation is that during item-based orthographic learning children produce and perhaps store a decoded form of the word that can be accessed during the SfV task, facilitating performance. In the current study we explore the possibility that this second hypothesis can help explain SfV performance for certain items. Method: In a sample of 499 children (grades 2–5), item-level analyses were used to explore the possibility that performance on certain SfV items might be dependent on prior successful decoding attempts (SDA) while controlling for important child attributes (e.g., decoding skill) and word characteristics (e.g., spelling-to-pronunciation transparency). Results: Results suggest that some (but not all) words on the SfV task may be dependent on prior SDA. Words that are dependent on prior SDA tend to have fewer phonemes and syllables, but no other word features explored significantly differ between SDA dependent and independent words. Conclusion: We propose that to correctly complete the SfV task, certain items may require the word to have been previously decoded successfully. These findings have implications for how the relationship between SfV and word reading is interpreted and tested moving forward.