In this study, researchers investigated the influences of three different linguistic awareness skills on
spelling across the first three elementary years. One hundred and twenty students from grades 1 to
3 participated in the study, and their phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic
awareness were measured. Using dominance analysis, it was found that the relative contribution of
each linguistic awareness skills on spelling ability changed as the children got older. In the first
grade, phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic awareness contributed about
the same to spelling ability. However, as children become better spellers, the unique contribution of
orthographic awareness increased while the influence of phonemic awareness decreased sharply. The
results of this study suggest that spelling curriculum should be designed differently to improve
children’s spelling ability with increasing grade. Issues regarding assessments for morphological
awareness and orthographic awareness were discussed.