Abstracts - Earli

development estimated by the cross-sectional study. Correlations between the developments ofthese skills are moderate. Continuance of the training seems relevant, since students showedsignificant individual differences concerning the developmental level of their skills. However,results of the training experiment has pointed out that learning subject contents facilitatessuccessful improvement of study skills.Frequency effects in split-digraph development: Implicit learning of a conditional spelling ruleMegan Patrick, Oxford University, United KingdomPeter Bryant, Oxford University, United KingdomLearning to read and spell English requires a child to master the alphabetic properties of thelanguage and the orthographic rules of its writing system (e.g. silent ‘e’, soft ‘c’). In the UK,schools explicitly teach orthographic principles as rules, without formally addressing children’simplicit learning. For example, schools teach that for ‘silent e’ (split digraphs) the final ‘e’ makesthe middle vowel long (e.g. rat-rate, hop-hope) and expect children to master the concept from therule. This study aimed to determine whether children use implicit, frequency-based learning inaddition to explicit instruction when they learn split digraphs. If a child does learn split digraphsvia a general rule, then she should perform consistently on all –VCe patterns. On the other hand, ifshe uses implicit learning, she should perform best at the most frequent –VCe patterns. We tested52 children in Year 2 (mean age: 85.9 months) and Year 3 (mean age: 94.3 months) on readingand spelling in four different categories: high-frequency –VCe words and their –VC counterpartsand low-frequency –VCe words and their –VC counterparts (e.g., ‘bame’-‘nam’; ‘pode’-‘lod’ ).We used pseudo-words to eliminate the effects of word recognition. The children performed betteron high- than low-frequency -VCe words, confirming a frequency-effect in reading and spellingsplit digraphs. They applied the split-digraph rule to low-frequency -VCe words at above-chancelevels and did not apply it to short-vowel -VC words, demonstrating that they employ the rulebeyond the frequency effect. Finally, the frequency effect correlated to the children’s exposure totext, measured by the Title Recognition Test (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990). Altogether theseresults indicate a role for implicit learning in children’s development of the split-digraph rule andprovide an explanation for the link between learning reading and learning spelling proposed byFrith (1985).Dimensions of topic-specific epistemological beliefs as predictors of multiple text understandingHelge Strømsø, University of Oslo, NorwayIvar Bråten, University of Oslo, NorwayMarit S. Samuelstuen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NorwayStudents’ beliefs and theories about knowledge and knowing seem to be of importance whendealing with a complex learning task such as the reading of multiple texts. In this study, we aimedto investigate whether different dimensions of topic-specific epistemological beliefs might predictstudents’ understanding of seven texts representing partly conflicting views on climate change.One-hundred and forty-four undergraduates responded to questionnaires on prior knowledge andtopic-specific epistemological beliefs before they read the seven texts. After reading, participantswere given tasks intended to assess surface and deeper understanding, as well as intertextualunderstanding. Factor analyses revealed four dimensions of topic-specific epistemologiesconcerning certainty, simplicity, source, and a critical stance to knowledge about climate. Weperformed three hierarchical multiple regression analyses with the text comprehension measures asdependent variables. The analyses showed that simplicity beliefs viewing knowledge about climateas consisting of highly interrelated concepts, positively predicted scores on all three reading tasks,– 673 –