Patterns of Writing Errors in the Framework of an Information-Processing Model of Writing

This paper brings together two different psychological traditions in an attempt to understand children’s writing and spelling. The first tradition is information processing: the child is conceived of as a modular system through which information flows, and a theoretical menagerie of short-term stores, articulatory loops, logogens, visual analyzers, etc. provides an account of the production and perception of written material. Morton (1981) and Baddeley and Hitch (1974) exemplify this approach. The second tradition is structural analysis: the pattern of errors in the child’s output is used to infer the types of coding and levels of linguistic knowledge to which children have access in constructing written material. Cromer (1980), Nelson (1980) and Sterling (in press) typify this approach.