Invented spellings refer to incorrect attempts to spell words while writing, which are important indicators of children's development of phonemic awareness. Making Words is a popular activity to teach phonics and spelling, in which students manipulate letters in sequence to construct target words and then sort them into rhyming patterns. This…

This study examined pinyin (the official phonetic system that transcribes the lexical tones and pronunciation of Chinese characters) invented spelling and English invented spelling in 72 Mandarin-speaking 6th graders who learned English as their second language. The pinyin invented spelling task measured segmental-level awareness including…

The goal was to assess the role of invented spelling to subsequent reading and spelling as proposed by the Nested Skills Model of Early Literacy Acquisition. 107 English-speaking children were tested at the beginning of kindergarten and grade 1, and at the end of grade 1. The findings provided support for the proposed model. First, the role played…

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children's Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language)…

Recent research in literacy acquisition has led to an elaboration of instructional programmes that focus on supporting children's progress through successive developmental levels. An example of such an approach is "analogy instruction," the basis of which is that children develop a system of recognition of shared patterns within words…

This study examined the role of home literacy, parental education, and demographic factors in addition to conventional literacy skills at the beginning and end of kindergarten in predicting end-of-kindergarten spelling achievement. The study involved 9 schools and 29 classrooms serving an economically and ethnically diverse population (N = 288).…

This study compared the English spelling of native Spanish-speaking children receiving English-only instruction with monolingual native English speaking children at the end of kindergarten. In invented spelling, young bilingual children can show us how they perceive the unique sounds of English by the way they map English letters onto non-Spanish…

Two groups of undergraduate students, matched for reading skill but differing in spelling ability, participated in three experiments with the aim of exploring the causes of differences in spelling skill in this population. In the first experiment participants were presented with a range of tasks to investigate the possibility that the poor…

Investigates whether 8- to 9-year-old children are sensitive to rime unit correspondence frequency when spelling words and nonwords. Finds children's spelling cannot be described according to one-to-one phoneme-grapheme mapping. Claims children are sensitive to lexical factors such as rime unit sound-spelling correspondence. (NH)

This succinct guide notes that spelling rules are sometimes strange and wondrous and often more than a little complex. The guide presents rules for: (1) forming plurals and "s" forms of verbs; (2) forming possessives; (3) adding suffixes; (4) forming prefixes; and (5) the "ei" or "ie" rule. The guide notes the…

This longitudinal interpretive case study documents the role and significance of one preschooler's name in deepening her understanding of written language. Findings highlight the importance of an authentic, purposeful, literacy-rich, supportive environment for children, that provides them time to invent, predict, and guess how written language…

Over the last 30 years, much has been learned about how children develop as spellers. During that time, the literary confidence of many kindergarten, 1st-, and 2nd-grade children has been damaged by insisting they use conventional spelling when, in their thinking, it is impossible to understand how words can be spelled conventionally. This article…

Misspellings evidenced by 69 3rd graders in a battery containing 25 words and 20 nonsense syllable items were analyzed phonologically. Children with histories of disordered phonologies (n=29) showed more phonologically based deviations in their misspellings, relied more on less productive spelling strategies, and showed poorer phonological…

Examines young children's ability to use simple morphological relations among words as a source of information about the words' spelling. Found that children used morphological relations among words only to a small extent. Suggests that although phonology plays an important role in early spelling, young children can also use other sources of…

Four grade-two boys received invented spelling guidance with creative writing periods and direct instruction with guided practice on spelling. Although direct instruction resulted in more targeted words spelled correctly, invented spelling resulted in more nontargeted words spelled correctly, higher preference ratings by children, and higher…