Developmental Spelling: Stages and Teaching Strategies Tonja L. Root, Ed.D. & Margie Tullos, Ed.S. Department of Early Childhood & Reading Education Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698

Precommunicative Spelling: “Role Play Writing” Characteristics of Writing Use scribbles, letters, letter-like forms, numbers. Show no understanding of phoneme-grapheme (letter-sound) relationships. Show a preference for uppercase letters. Write from left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, or randomly on the page. Know that the print carries the message.

Precommunicative Spelling: Teaching Strategies Develop interest in print: Read aloud daily, create a print-rich environment, spend time with books. Encourage children to write. Use LEA and teacher/student modeling. Teach letter names with letter forms.

Precommunicative Spelling: Teaching Strategies, cont. Introduce concepts and terms: letter, beginning/ending sounds, word, sentence. Begin developing understanding of letter sounds, concept of rhyming. Discuss and model directionality. Discuss spelling with children & family members. Find an appreciative audience.

Semiphonetic Spelling: Experimental Characteristics of Writing Sometimes have not developed directionality: write from left to right, top to bottom. Use letters to represent sounds. Use abbreviated 1, 2, 3 letter spellings; omit some important letters in words. Use letter-name strategy for spelling.

Semiphonetic Spelling: Teaching Strategies Encourage attempts at writing. Continue to develop phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Do LEA, asking for help with spelling. Model writing. Read daily. Brainstorm words (& spelling) to make word banks prior to writing (sometimes).

Semiphonetic Spelling: Teaching Strategies, cont. Encourage children to write by representing sounds in the order they hear them. Display words used frequently in writing. Let children see what other children write. Discuss developmental spelling with children and family members.

Phonetic Spelling: Characteristics of Writing Select letters on basis of sound alone. Spelling represents all essential sound features. Spelling is readable (more or less).

Phonetic Spelling: Teaching Strategies Read daily. Model writing and encourage children to write. Develop awareness of correct spelling, emphasizing visual features of words. Expose children to word families, spelling patterns, word structure. Teach students how to study a word.

Transitional Spelling: Characteristics of Writing Include a vowel in each syllable. Apply many spelling rules; may overgeneralize. Spelling resembles English spelling. Spelling is easily read.

Transitional Spelling: Teaching Strategies Provide correct model of spelling. Have students identify misspelled words by circling them. Provide writing resources and teach students to use them independently. Provide a spelling program. Study affixes, root words, and homophones.

Transitional Spelling: Teaching Strategies Provide word-sorting activities. Extend use of personal word banks. Encourage use of mnemonics. Emphasize importance of dictionary spelling for public sharing. Model writing and encourage children to write. Let students see what others write. Read daily.

Correct Spelling: Characteristics of Writing Have internalized the alphabetic principle. Have learned basic spelling words. Spell words according to adult standards.

Correct Spelling: Teaching Strategies Teach students to spell multi-syllable words that contain common word parts (-tion, -able, inter-). Provide spelling instruction: increase spelling awareness & correct misspelled words. Keep spelling notebooks or personal dictionaries. Develop proofreading skills.

Correct Spelling: Teaching Strategies Develop responsibility for identifying & correcting own spelling. Encourage use of various strategies when spelling. Provide quality writing experiences. Continue to model and share writing. Read daily.

References Some of the examples of student writing are from Temple, C., Nathan, R., Temple, F., & Burris, N. (1993). The beginnings of writing (3rd edition). New York: Allyn and Bacon.