Winskel, Heather (2023) Spelling and Writing Development in Thai. In: Ye, Yanyan, Inoue, Tomohiro, Maurer, Urs, and McBride, Catherine, (eds.) Routledge International Handbook of Visualmotor Skills, Handwriting, and Spelling: Theory, Research, and Practice. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 307-318.

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Abstract

Thai, a tonal language, has a distinctive nonlinear configured script. It has been classified as an ‘alphasyllabary’ as it has both alphabetic and syllabic script characteristics. In this chapter, we examine the challenges Thai orthography poses to beginning writers and spellers. Notably, Thai has many words with similar spellings varying in just one letter, diacritic, or the tone of the syllable, which adds to the challenges of learning this script. As Thai is more consistent in terms of spelling-to-sound (feedback) than sound-to-spelling (feedforward) correspondences, spelling development lags behind reading. Visually similar graphemes, consonant clusters and variation in vowel length are problematic to learners as has been found in other writing systems. In addition, dialect differences play a role in spelling both segmental and suprasegmental correspondences. Thai vowels have a complex nonlinear configuration but are relatively consistent in comparison to consonants. In line with this, we have found that fewer errors occur in spelling vowels than in consonants. Thai has silent graphemes that are challenging for young learners. However, words with inherent vowels and nonaligned vowels (operating at the syllable level) are a core characteristic of the Thai writing system and are acquired with relative ease. Typically, older children made minus-one-errors from selecting an incorrect consonant, vowel, or tone diacritic when spelling words.

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