Invented Spelling

Does 'invented spelling' help or hinder young readers?

From my own experience as a parent, I feel that 'invented spelling' is a critical step in learning for young readers. I feel this is important in three ways - ownership, flow of ideas and learning by doing.

First, I will talk about ownership of the finished product. The children are so proud of the work they have created - it is their own! My daughter created endless 'cat and dog' books when she was in first grade. They were creative stories of the cat and dog character at school, at a playground, etc. She was very proud of these books she wrote! Had she had someone help write the words - she would not have feel the same ownership - or pride - in the finished product. She made so many of these books (by folding several pages in half and stapling them together) and the caught on with the whole class - that the teacher had to put a limit on the number of books each student could create in one week!

Second, I feel the flow of ideas is sometimes the most important part of writing. For a young writer, they may get distracted from their writing purpose as they look for the word in a resource or ask an adult for help with the spelling. A child at this age could be frustrated with multiple attempts to spell words correctly. As writers improve, yet still need spelling assistance - this is even more important. At that stage, it would be appropriate to not worry about spelling for a first draft (just get the words down as Anne Lamott says!), correct it during the editing and have words properly spelled in the final draft.

Lastly, the best way to learn how to spell is by doing it! It will start very inaccurately - with a letter representing the consonant sound at the beginning of the word, then adding the sound at the end of the word, then working on toward vowel sounds. These steps are typical of young spellers. To constantly correct these attempts can lead to a defeatist attitude. To encourage these attempts, while continually modelling proper spelling and providing many samples of proper spelling in the form of books, etc, will lead to the knowledge to improve the spelling.

As the child moves through the older grades, it becomes more important to use other techniques to help the child know the proper spelling. This is necessary to avoid the case of having a very literate child who is completely incapable of spelling correctly. I will end this with a personal story of a friend's daughter. She went through the high capable program through elementary school where spelling was never a focus - no spelling tests or even spelling corrections made on papers turned in. This was puzzling to my friend who questioned it at her daughter's school and was told to trust the system, her daughter would eventually learn to spell - or not need to since she would always have spell check! This was frustrating for my friend, but she let it go. When her daughter entered middle school, she was required to write an essay to explain why should be in the highly capable program there. She was required to hand write this essay - so spell-check was not an option. The irony is that very basic words (school and capable to name a few) were misspelled in this essay - not only once, but several different ways in the same essay! My friend was rightfully frustrated with a philosophy that might have been appropriate for a certain age, that got carried on too far to the detriment of her daughter's learning. Needless to say - they spent a lot of time on spelling this past summer!