ABSTRACT
Brazilian 3rd to 5th grade children´s use of morphological knowledge in spelling word endings which are pronounced the same (morphemes), but spelled differently, was analyzed. Four groups were formed: (a) spelling patterns used indiscriminately, suggesting children knew the morphemes had different representations, but were unable to decide between alternative spellings; (b) higher average score on one spelling form; c) higher average score on the alternative spelling form; (d) appropriately spelling of the word endings, indicating the use of written morphology. Although spelling improved with schooling, the use of morphological knowledge to disambiguate alternative spellings of similar sounding word endings is a late acquisition, which is not even completed by the end of primary school.
Keywords:
morphology (linguistics); spelling; written language