Profiles of poor and good spellers in German noun capitalization

Abstract

This study investigated how fourth graders with different proficiency levels (1^st and 4^th quartile, 192 and 195 pupils respectively) produce and detect German noun capitalization in relation to two factors, lexical-semantic characteristics of the noun and the structure of the noun phrase (NP). The first factor includes concrete and abstract nouns, and nominalized verbs and adjectives, the second factor the syntactic context of the NP (with or without determiner and/or adjective, including bare noun). The two proficiency groups showed different patterns in the production and detection of capitalization in relation to these two factors after three years of instruction in noun capitalization. The low-proficiency group performed on chance level only for concrete nouns in the context with precedent determiner, the context highlighted at school. The high-proficiency group seemed to make use systematically of the expanded NP in order to recognize and capitalize the noun but still had difficulties with most bare nouns. The paper discusses the type of information low- and high-achieving pupils seem to use in noun capitalization and detection.