English as a foreign language spelling: comparisons between good and poor spellers

This study examined English as a foreign language (EFL) spelling development amongst 233 fifth‐grade, eighth‐grade and 10th‐grade Hebrew first‐language speakers to examine effects of English orthographic exposure on spelling. Good and poor speller differences were examined regarding the acquisition of novel phonemes (/æ/, /Λ/ and / /) and orthographic conventions (/ð/, /θ/, / / and silent ‘e’). Hebrew measures included standardised spelling and orthographic and phonological tasks. Experimental English measures included real‐word and pseudoword spellings, orthographic tasks and standardised spellings. Results showed significant differences in spelling accuracy between good and poor spellers at all grades. Spelling accuracy for most conventions did not improve after the eighth grade. Spellings of consonantal clusters, initial h and /ð/ differed between good and poor spellers in the fifth grade only. Hebrew spelling was one of the strongest predictors of EFL real‐word and pseudoword spellings in both fifth and eighth grades. Implications for teaching practice are discussed.