I was thinking about this the other day actually. You know that article that circulates around that talks about how people only look at the first letter and last letter to read words? I was wondering if kids who pick up reading quickly and start reading with the more mature pattern of only seeing the first and last letter become worse spellers due to less time spent noticing letter combinations. DS6 was a really good speller for a while, he could spell words that really surprised me at 4yo. But, at 6 his spelling is becoming poor, words he used to spell without thinking he now is asking about. I think it's because he no longer thinks about what letters make what words, it's completely automatic when he reads (he was able to read that article, which I thought was pretty cool, though he didn't notice right away that the letters were mixed up).
Anyways, just my completely unresearched theory.
