Orthographic Memory

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What Is Orthographic Memory?

Orthographic memory is a specific memory for words and letter patterns. In other words, it is the ability to remember the way words look. It is built over time, with repeated exposure to the word or spelling pattern, and plays an important role in reading and spelling.

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Orthographic Memory & Reading

Orthographic memory is essential to automatic word recognition. It allows children to instantly recognize a word or letter pattern without sounding it out. For instance, children are exposed to morphemes such as re-, un-, -ing, and -ed repeatedly throughout a text. After so many exposures, they are able to identify the patterns and automatically associate the corresponding sounds.

This process is the same for remembering words. Repeated exposure to words allows children to store whole words in their orthographic memory. Soon, they no longer need to decode every sound. This is especially necessary when reading instant words or sight words. Many instant words do not follow the phonics rules. It requires children to have repeated exposure to a word so they may memorize what the word looks like and automatically read it. 

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Orthographic Memory & Spelling

Have you ever spelled a word and thought it didn’t look right? This is your orthographic memory stepping in. You are pulling on what you think the word should look like. This is a characteristic of good spellers.

Think of the many ways there are to spell the long a sound: a-e, a, ay, eigh, ai, etc. For instance, the words weight, bait, and date all contain a medial long (a) and a final (t) yet the sound (a) is spelled differently in each word. Students must pull from their orthographic memory to choose which spelling of (a) is correct for each word.

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Orthographic Difficulties

Orthography is the conventions of writing and how words are written. Orthographic processing is the ability to recognize letters and letter patterns. Difficulties with orthographic processing can interfere with spelling and reading.

Difficulties with orthographic processing include:

  • Confusing letters that look similar: Confusing letters such as d and b, or h and n 
  • Transposing letters in words: Reading or writing the pam instead of map
  • Overgeneralization of spelling rules: spelling gerl instead of girl or nale instead of nail
  • Over reliance of auditory features: spelling bot instead of bought, bcuz instead of because
Do you have a better understanding of orthographic memory and the role it plays in literacy? Let us know the comments or visit our connect page!