Entry #7: Invented Spellings are Good!

 As children begin to read and write, they use invented spellings - or unique spellings based on their prior knowledge of phonics. Invented spelling is typically used by students who are just learning to put sounds together to make words, and is something I never really thought of as a positive thing in terms of education. It wasn't necessarily something bad either, but I guess as a student, I was never really thinking about the way I was writing and spelling words and how that related to my own growth. 

Stahl et al. discuss invented spellings in the article "Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask)" stating that one way to develop phonemic awareness, that should be part of a beginning reading program, is to encourage children to use invented spellings. "Tangel and Blachman (1992) found that phonemic awareness training increased children's growth in invented spelling. It would make sense that practice in invented spelling would similarly increase phonological awareness" (Stahl et al., 1998, p. 341). 

Students in early education learning to spell will use invented spellings often as they start to connect sounds with words. I knew at some level that this is how children begin to write - spelling things like lady as LADE, or R for are. I can understand why early students would create spellings like this - it makes sense in their minds without knowing all the "rules" that apply to the English language, how vowels can sound different at times, and consonant blends. 

I have many items that my parents saved from when I was in elementary school, things like journal entries, short stories, and pictures I had drawn for various holidays. I look back on these items I created as a kid, and I can clearly see my own invented spellings. I included a few photos of such works:

This photo/piece of work shows invented spellings in the words ballet (BALA), tickles (TEKALS), walk (WAKL), when (WEN), shine (SIN), work (WRK), every (EVRY), sleep (SLEP), puts (POTS), taking (TAKIN), and care (CAR).

In this photo/piece of work, I see invented spellings in the words could (COD), would (WODE), better (BETER), and when (WENE).

Both of these pieces are from the First Grade. As soon as I started looking through items from the Second Grade, I found almost no mistakes in terms of spelling. Now this could be because my parents didn't really save that many items in the beginning of the year, or maybe things they kept were just proofread and corrected, but it's crazy how different the writing looked from just the next school year! Now, with the knowledge I have gained from reading the Stahl et al. article, I can better understand how these invented spellings made me better understand spelling development and phonemic awareness in general. 

Before when I looked back at these kinds of work, I often wondered why my teacher didn't correct me to make my pieces more accurate. However, Stahl et al. states "At the early stages of learning to read, a teacher encouraging students to use invented spellings need not correct these spellings, as invented spelling allows children to focus on their developing knowledge of letters and sounds" (Stahl et al. 1998, p. 343). As a result, it makes sense why teachers would let this kind of spelling continue for myself and others in my class, at least for a short amount of time while I was improving my own phonics knowledge and other word recognition skills. 

References:

Stahl, S. A., Duffy-Hester, A. M., & Dougherty Stahl, K. A. (1998). Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask). Reading Research Quarterly, 33(3), 338–355.