Invented Spelling, Phonemic Awareness, and Reading and Writing Instruction

I'm a literacy specialist and the mother of a kindergartner. Therefore, I pay close attention to my daughter'due south writing development. In less than a year's time, I've noticed my daughter has evolved from telling a story in pictures to telling a story with pictures and words. As a result, she uses invented spelling with many words when she writes.

The mom in me wants my child to spell words correctly. However, the educator in me realizes she'south taking what she hears in speech and representing it in print. My daughter demonstrates what she knows about letter sounds and phonemic awareness when she invents the spelling of words. While she uses a give-and-take wall to aid spell the "everywhere words" her class has learned, she makes her best endeavor to represent the sounds she hears when she'south spelling everything else on newspaper.

Invented spelling is an analytical process.

In the early 1970s, a researcher named Charles Read asserted that young children's attempts at spelling words were not displays of ignorance. Rather, they were windows into each child's discussion knowledge. Read coined the term "invented spelling," which refers to the way a kid spells words that aren't stored in his/her memory phonetically. Earlier this twelvemonth, Gene Oulette and Monique Sénéchal published a written report on invented spelling. In it they state that "Allowing children to appoint in the analytical process of invented spelling, followed by appropriate feedback, has been institute to facilitate learning to read and spell, not hamper the procedure." That'southward correct, we help students' hereafter success as readers by giving them the liberty to invent their own spellings when they write.

We need to encourage run a risk-taking in our immature writers.

Encouraging invented spelling allows children to take risks. We must praise emerging writers for their spelling attempts rather than punish them for not getting it right. Call up, invented spelling isn't an "anything goes" approach. Conversely, it's a necessary stage to develop the proficiency as a competent and confident writer.

Equally kids movement on through the master grades, it's important to teach them the deviation between sloppy spelling (i.e., misspelling words they already know) and taking risks to endeavour to spell new or less frequently used words. One mode nosotros tin can practise this is by emphasizing using the most accurate spelling possible at all stages of the writing process rather than saving the fixing of spelling errors until they are polishing a piece for publication.

For a curt while, invented spelling can exist an advisable strategy.

In that location is a betoken at which an invented spelling becomes a permanent misspelling. Every bit children advance in school, we need to be observant nigh frequently misspelled words in children's writing. Diane Snowball and Faye Bolton state: "If a kid is beyond the phonetic stage of spelling and consistently spells went as whent or they every bit thay, you probably need to step in, particularly if it is high-frequency words that are being misspelled." It will take practice and time to master the correct spelling of the give-and-take. But eventually, the correct spelling volition become automatic.

In The Art of Education Writing, second edition, Lucy Calkins posits that "Our students need to realize that it'due south okay to brand editorial errors as they write; all of the states do, and then nosotros correct them as we edit. Although it's of import to teach our students to edit, probably the unmarried most important thing we can do for their syntax, spelling, penmanship, and use of mechanics is to help them write oft and with confidence."

Let'south give our youngest writers the space they need to write with confidence.

Instead of worrying most conventional spelling, let's praise children for their spelling attempts. At that place will exist plenty of time for them to master conventional spelling in the years to come up. For now, permit'south put students on a path to success. Allow them to prove us what they know well-nigh alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness. Give them the freedom to invent their own spellings.

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Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/invented-spelling/