The effects of a syntactic training on multilingual fifth graders’ spelling patterns of noun capitalisation in German

ABSTRACT Silent orthographic syntactic markers, such as capitalisation of nouns in German are prone to error throughout schooling. The present study explores the spelling patterns related to capitalisation in multilingual pupils with German as a second language and investigates the efficiency of a syntax-based teaching approach of capitalisation for pupils’ spelling performance (n = 246). The results show, firstly, that pupils with German as a second language show similar capitalisation patterns influenced by lexico-semantic and positional factors as pupils with German as a first language. Secondly, the results suggest that a syntax-based teaching approach to capitalisation of nouns is highly effective especially for nominalizations. The study supports the assumption that stimulating pupils’ attention to syntactic structures is beneficial for spelling when these features are represented clearly and regularly in the writing system, but not in phonology.