Orthographic depth

Orthographic depth refers to how easy or difficult it is to read and spell words based on the way they are spelled. It is kind of like a ladder - some words are easy to read and spell because they follow very simple rules or patterns, like "cat" and "dog". These are at the bottom of the ladder. Other words are harder to read and spell because they don't follow any consistent rules, like "through" or "enough". These are at the top of the ladder.

Some languages, like Spanish or Italian, have a very shallow orthographic depth. That means most words are pretty easy to read and spell because they match up with the sounds in the language. In these languages, once you learn how to pronounce the letters, you can easily sound out most words.

Other languages, like English or French, have a deep orthographic depth. This means there are a lot of words that don't follow typical rules, and it can be harder to sound out words based on their spelling. For example, the word "knight" is spelled with a "k" and a "gh" even though those letters don't actually make those sounds. So in English or French, you might have to memorize a lot more words and spelling patterns to be a good reader or writer.

Overall, orthographic depth is like a measure of how easy or difficult it is to learn and use a language's writing system.