Orthography and Reading Disabilities

Abstract

Recently, a number of influential writers have emphasized the role of orthography in the development of reading disabilities. The English writing system has been described by Gleitman and Rozin (1977), for example, as possessing “rampant irregularity, redundancy, and downright misrepresentation” (p. 35), while to these writers the Japanese writing system “seems ideal” (p. 36) from the point of utilizing scripts that represent both meanings and sounds. English, it is argued, poses problems for the beginning reader that are not encountered in learning to read the logographs (Chinese characters) and syllabary used in Japanese. Could it be that the widespread incidence of reading disabilities in our culture can be traced in large part to the idiosyncracies of the spelling and writing system used in English? If this is true, what can be done to remedy the situation, other than following those who have proposed that the written form of English must be revised? The purpose of this article is to discuss these issues in the context of research dealing with writing systems and their relation to reading and reading disabilities.