Existe-t-il des stades successifs dans l'acquisition de l'orthographe d'usage?

This paper questions the main proposal of the stade models of spelling acquisitions which postulate that children go through a series of stages characterised by the acquisition of specific processing abilities during learning. Two kinds of evidence against this hypothesis are presented here through the analysis of neuropsychological and experimental data. It is argued that the mechanisms underlying normal reading established very early during development, their involvement in processing being essentially determined by word familiarity.