An Investigation of Task Requirements Associated with the Invented Spellings of 4-Year-Olds with above Average Intelligence

Abstract

This study examined whether conscious use of phonological knowledge is associated with invented spelling and whether a relation exists between invented spelling and reading. Thirty-two 4-year-olds with scores of 116 or higher on the StanfordBinet Intelligence Test were classified as Non-spellers and Inventive Spellers based on their spellings of 10 words on the Invented Spelling Test. All subjects were administered 11 different tasks which examined alphabet knowledge, word segmentation, sound/letter association, and reading knowledge. Results indicated that all subjects displayed a similar ability when required to recite the alphabet, recognize uppercase letter names, segment words into syllables, and identify basic concepts about print. Inventive Spellers demonstrated superiority at letter/sound identification and segmentation of words by phonemes. Although significant differences were observed between Non-spellers and Inventive Spellers on wordknowledge tasks, dramatic differences among Inventive Spellers were evident. Forty-four percent of the Inventive Spellers were found to be Proficient Word Readers whereas the remaining 56% displayed reading proficiency at a similar level as the Non-spellers. A relation was found between spelling ability and conscious use of phonological knowledge; however, word reading appeared to be a related (but separate) ability from word writing.Awareness has grown regarding the ability of young children to invent their own spelling systems before they are capable of either engaging in conventional spelling activities or reading written sentences. Read (1971) discovered "invented spelling," that is children's ability to attend to sound units in words and associate letters with those units in a systematic though nonconventional way before being 1 Journal of Reading Behavior taught to spell or read. He identified common characteristics in the spellings of preschool children and found that his subjects used phonetic contrasts and similarities in sounds. They analyzed words and selected letters based upon properties of the words' sounds and of sounds in the names of letters (e.g., nasality, syllabicity, backness, height, and affrication).Although Read's study provided insight into the nature of invented spelling, two related questions about invented spelling require further study: What connections, if any, are there between invented spelling and early reading abilities? And how conscious is an inventive speller's use of sound segmentation and sound/letter association abilities?A connection between spelling and reading is likely, and several studies have tended to confirm such a connection. For example, Morris (1983) found a relation between invented spelling ability and children's concept of word in text; that is, their ability to map spoken words to written words in reading a memorized text. Ehri and Wilce (1985) showed that kindergarteners' growth as readers is supported by their knowledge of how to use phonetic cues (word readers were more easily taught to read words spelled ...

The Foundations of Spelling Ability: Evidence from a 3-Year Longitudinal Study

“…Consistent with the results of a large number of studies, phoneme isolation ability and letter-sound knowledge played a crucial role in predicting spelling development in the early stages of learning, even when the effects of vocabulary knowledge and nonverbal IQ were controlled (Burns & Richgels, 1989;Byrne & FieldingBarnsley, 1989;McBride Chang, 1999;Muter et al, 1998). The findings of the path analyses confirmed that phoneme isolation skills and letter-sound knowledge measured in January of the first school year combined to form the basis of phonological spelling some 5 months later.…”

“…Finally, word recognition and conventional spelling were found to have a reciprocal predictive relationship. Burns and Richgels (1989) also found phonological awareness to be a more important factor in explaining early spelling development than was reading. In this study, children's invented spellings were assessed in terms of their phonological plausibility rather than their conventional accuracy.…”

Pathways to Literacy: A Study of Invented Spelling and Its Role in Learning to Read

“…It must be stressed that although the invented‐spelling intervention has been described as training in the present study, the process is more accurately described as one of facilitation. That is, it must be stressed that by definition, invented spelling is a natural process (Burns & Richgels, 1989; Richgels, 1995). The intervention employed in the present study took advantage of each child’s own spelling productions but then offered individualized feedback intended to guide the child to capture more completely the phonology of words, albeit in an unconventional manner.…”

“…In accordance with Read’s original descriptions, subsequent stage theories of invented spelling have also proposed that invented spelling progresses from an initial reliance on phonology in translating what is heard into print to a later incorporation of word‐specific orthography (e.g., Gentry & Gillet, 1993). Key to the concept of invented spelling is that it results from a child’s own experimentation with representing words in print and it occurs naturally (Burns & Richgels, 1989; Richgels, 1995). It is not a process of memorization and recall of conventional spellings; rather, it is a developmental progression in which spelling attempts increase in phonological and orthographic accuracy over time.…”

Writing Instruction in Kindergarten

“…In other words, children's early developmental spellings appeared to reflect their emerging understanding of the English writing system. Subsequent descriptive and experimental research has supported the early findings of Read (1971Read ( , 1975, Chomsky (1971), and Clay (1975) and documented that children go through a series of developmental or transitional spelling stages as they learn to write words (Beers & Henderson, 1977;Bissex, 1980;Burns & Richgels, 1989;Ehri, 1987;Henderson, 1990;Liberman, Rubin, Duques, & Carlisle, 1985;Mann, Tobin, & Wilson, 1987;Moats, 1995;Morris & Pemey, 1984;Stage & Wagner, 1992;Tangel & Blachman, 1992, 1995Zutell, 1980). A developmental or transitional spelling sequence can be seen in the example of the word train.…”