Explicit Spelling Instruction or Invented Spelling?

  • invented spelling spelling
  • 11 June, 2022
  • 13 Comments

Teacher question:

I teach kindergarten. We’ve been arguing over whether we should teach spelling or developmental spelling. Which is best?

Shanahan response:

You’re asking if learning to spell comes more surely from “transmission” (teaching by telling or demonstrating) or from “construction” (learning through discovery or operating on the world). Arguments in educational psychology have raged over this for decades.

I think the dispute – at least with regards to spelling – is misleading. The two approaches are posed as contradictory, that teachers must choose one way or the other.

I don’t see it that way.

Explicit spelling versus invented spelling is a false dichotomy. I encourage both – and did so in my classroom teaching, in my research, and these days even in what I urge on my grandkids.

What does the research say? There is an extensive body of studies showing that explicit spelling instruction results in better spelling and reading and enables better writing. There is also a body of research into invented spelling showing that it results in better phonemic awareness, word reading, and spelling.

Although these approaches may appear to emerge from different philosophical positions, they both confer learning advantages to children. We should not forget that.

It’s easy, of course, to caricaturize proponents of each these approaches. Those who advocate explicit instruction are unreformed behaviorists who champion spelling accuracy at the expense of creativity. Those on the invented spelling side are a bunch of Rousseau-inspired hippies rebelling against society and its rules – including spelling rules.

None of that claptrap has anything to do with the real issues. Everyone wants kids to spell well, and as I pointed out, there is plenty of research supporting both approaches.

What does it mean to “teach” developmental spelling?

Let’s clear one thing up right away. Developmental spelling isn’t something that you teach.

You encourage it, you nurture it, but you don’t teach it, per se.

That’s the whole idea of “invention.” The kids are using what they know about letters, sounds, and words to try to determine reasonable spellings.

I know some on the explicit spelling side dismiss this approach as being akin to the cueing-system guessing that they deplore. But that isn’t the case. One of the major reasons for engaging kids in spelling invention is to induce them to closely think about the phonemic structure of words and the relationship of those phonemes with letters.

That isn’t guessing, it’s analysis – analysis beneficial to kids’ learning.

Not surprisingly, many phonics advocates prefer “speech-to-print phonics.” Part of the reason for this may be that speech-to-print – getting kids to go from sounds to letters – provides a greater opportunity for kids to develop phonemic sensitivity.

If you have any doubts, compare the number of phonemes a nascent writer analyzes when composing a single sentence, and the number included in a good phonemic awareness lesson. That’s also likely the reason that invented spelling is a better predictor than is accurate spelling of growth in reading during the first year of reading instruction (Senechal, 2017).

We encourage developmental spelling because kids may balk at writing in fear of mistakes. A lot more learning happens when students set aside those anxieties. Encouraging students, in this case, means urging them to spell the words in they think they are spelled and not to worry about getting them exactly right. “Just try,” we tell them.

We also need to nurture developmental spelling. There is no learning benefit from laborious corrections. That feels like punishment and kids will avoid attempting to spell if they think their errors will lead to that. Celebrate their efforts rather than reproving them. Bring parents into this equation too – they need to know why you aren’t correcting those misspellings (and that you recognize those spellings as incorrect).

One big benefit of invented spelling is that it provides teachers with a window into their students’ understanding of the spelling system. It is valuable to analyze students’ spelling attempts to try to understand what is going on. That way instruction can be better targeted on students’ needs.

If you are uncertain how to do that, I strongly endorse Richard Gentry’s books on spelling or Charles Temple et al.’s Beginnings of Writing, or Words Their Way. They all have a ton of insight and good teacherly advice.

I know some teachers and parents worry about invented spelling. Their concern is that once kids misspell a word, they will learn the error. That isn’t really how it works. Young children’s spellings are more fluid than that. Their hypotheses about the spelling system are based on what they know, and as they know more – from phonemic awareness and phonics lessons, and from reading words – they adjust their hypotheses.

That’s where formal spelling instruction comes in (Graham, 2000). That teaching adds to what children know about words and becomes part of the grist that they mill. At first, knowing the spelling of a word likely only affects how a child spells that word but over time (memorizing isn’t enough) – as children incorporate that new information into their thinking, their spelling improves more generally. Over time, they incorporate the new information, and their spelling attempts get closer and closer to accuracy.

Of course, kids make plenty of spelling progress just by learning to read (Share, 1999), but with explicit instruction students can make even more rapid progress (Treiman, 2017, p. 273). Good spelling instruction is not the enemy of invented spelling – it’s just another source of information that feeds that invention.

Some facts about early spelling:

  • Invented spelling increases student awareness of the speech segments in words (Martins & Silva, 2006)
  • Invented spelling, together with alphabetic knowledge and phonemic awareness, influence reading and spelling development (Oulette & Sénéchal, 2017)
  • First-graders who are encouraged to spell as well as they can end up with significantly better reading scores than those that relied on traditional spelling instruction alone (Clarke, 1988)
  • Invented spelling and phonemic awareness training lead to the same level of phonemic awareness processing (Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2008; Ouellette et al, 2013), even for students at risk of reading difficulties (Senechal, et al., 2012)
  • Explicit phonemic awareness instruction increases the quality of students’ spelling inventions (Ball & Blachman, 1991)
  • Giving students appropriate feedback on their invented spelling leads to greater progress (Ouellette, Sénéchal, & Haley, 2013)
  • Explicit spelling instruction should do more than get kids to memorize words – it should focus on the analysis of spelling, including considering spelling alternatives (Berninger, et al, 1992)
  • Explicit teaching in spelling improves spelling and increases the vocabulary diversity in student writing (Graham, Harris, & Adkins, 2018)
  • Adding explicit spelling instruction to developmental approaches improves spelling (Graham, 2000)
  • Explicit spelling instruction improves spelling, reading, and writing (Graham & Santangelo, 2014)

 References

Ball, E. W., & Blachman, B. A. (1991). Does phoneme awareness training in kindergarten make a difference in early word recognition and developmental spelling? Reading Research Quarterly, 26(1), 49-66. doi:https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.26.1.3

Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Begay, K., Coleman, K. B., Curtin, G., . . . Graham, S. (2002). Teaching spelling and composition alone and together: Implications for the simple view of writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 291-304. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.94.2.291

Graham, S. (2000). Should the natural learning approach replace spelling instruction? Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(2), 235-247. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.2.235

Graham, S., & Santangelo, T. (2014). Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 27(9), 1703-1743. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-014-9517-0

Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Adkins, M. (2018). The impact of supplemental handwriting and spelling instruction with first grade students who do not acquire transcription skills as rapidly as peers: A randomized control trial. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 31(6), 1273-1294. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9822-0

Martins, M. A., & Silva, C. (2006). The impact of invented spelling on phonemic awareness. Learning and Instruction, 16(1), 41-56. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2005.12.005

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2008). Pathways to literacy: A study of invented spelling and its role in learning to read. Child Development, 79(4), 899–913. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01166.x

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017). Invented spelling in kindergarten as a predictor of reading and spelling in grade 1: A new pathway to literacy, or just the same road, less known? Developmental Psychology, 53(1), 77-88. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000179

Ouellette, G., Sénéchal, M., & Haley, A. (2013). Guiding children's invented spellings: A gateway into literacy learning. Journal of Experimental Education, 81(2), 261-279. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2012.699903

Sénéchal, M. (2017). Testing a nested skills model of the relations among invented spelling, accurate spelling, and word reading, from kindergarten to grade 1. Early Child Development and Care, 187(3-4), 358-370. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1205044

Sénéchal, M., Ouellette, G., Pagan, S., & Lever, R. (2012). The role of invented spelling on learning to read in low-phoneme awareness kindergartners: A randomized-control-trial study. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25(4), 917-934. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9310-2

Treiman, R. (2017). Learning to spell words: Findings, theories, and issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(4), 265-276. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1296449

P.S. Evidence that students will not need later to “unlearn” their early misspellings comes from a rather extensive body of longitudinal developmental evidence on children’s spelling growth over time (references below). This week my granddaughter shared with me her year-long kindergarten journal – which reveals yet again the fluid nature of young children’s spelling attempts as they try to master an understanding of the phonological/orthographic structure of words. For those, for whom such descriptive studies are insufficient, there are also experimental tests of the idea refuting the notion that invented misspellings are learned (Ehri, Gibbs, & Underwood, 1988). The preponderance of evidence suggests it is better to encourage developmental spelling attempts than to try to prevent children from putting to use what they are learning about words. Learning to read and spell words is more than a rote memorization task – nascent readers benefit from analyzing the speech stream and attempting to map letters to those sounds.

References

Bissex, G.L. (1980). GNYS AT WRK: A child learns to read and write. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Clemens, N. H., Oslund, E. L., Simmons, L. E., & Simmons, D. (2014). Assessing spelling in kindergarten: Further comparison of scoring metrics and their relation to reading skills. Journal of School Psychology, 52(1), 49-61.

Ehri, L. C., Gibbs, A. L., & Underwood, T. L. (1988). Influence of errors on learning the spellings of English words. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 13(3), 236-253. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(88)90024-0

Ferreiro, E. (1978). What is written in a written sentence? A developmental answer. Journal of Education, 160, 25-39.

Frost, J. (2001). Phonemic awareness, spontaneous writing, and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14(5-6), 487-513.

Gentry, J. R. & Ouellette, G. P. (2019) Brain words: How the science of reading informs teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers.

Godin, M., Gagné, A., & Chapleau, N. (2018). Spelling acquisition in French children with developmental language disorder: An analysis of spelling error patterns. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 34(3), 221-233.

Henderson, E. H. and Beers J. W. (1980). (Eds.) Developmental and cognitive aspects of learning to spell: A reflection of word knowledge. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association.

Huxford, L., Terrell, C., & Bradley, L. (1992). 'Invented' spelling and learning to read. In C. M. Sterling, & C. Robson (Eds.), Psychology, spelling and education; psychology, spelling and education (pp. 159-167). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Kamii, C., & Manning, M. (1999). Before “invented” spelling”: Kindergartners’ awareness that writing is related to sounds of speech. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 14, 16-25.

Lazo, M. G., Pumfrey, P. D., & Peers, I. (1997). Metalinguistic awareness, reading and spelling: Roots and branches of literacy. Journal of Research in Reading, 20(2), 85-104.

McBride-Chang, C. (1998). The development of invented spelling. Early Education and Development, 9(2), 147-160.

Lie, A. (1999). Effects of a training program for stimulating skills in word analysis in first-grade children. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 234-250.

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017). See above.

Read, C. (1971). Preschool children's knowledge of English phonology. Harvard Educational Review, 41, 1-34.

Read, C. (1975). Children’s categorizations of speech sounds in English. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English

Read, C. (1986). Children's creative spelling. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Zhang, C., Bingham, G. E., & Quinn, M. F. (2017). The associations among preschool children’s growth in early reading, executive function, and invented spelling skills. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 30(8), 1705-1728. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-017-9746-0

Zhang, Y., Nie, H., & Ding, B. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic reading. Cognition, 24, 31-44.

Comments

See what others have to say about this topic.

Jo Anne Gross Jun 11, 2022 10:24 AM

Thank You very much for this detailed post about Spelling and all those papers.
I sometimes get asked,we teach Speech to Print ,why do the spelling scores go up faster than the reading scores?
My work is mainly Tier 2 and 3.
My gut feeling is it`s easier to encode ,not dependent on fluency, than read which even when learning your graphemes and blending needs to involve several repetitions.???

Timothy Shanahan Jun 11, 2022 02:16 PM

Jo Anne--

My explanation (and this is a guess, not a tested hypothesis) is that physically forming something in response to sound is more prominent in children's cognition -- easier to perceive-- than trying to remember how a series of sounds matches to a series of letters to say a word. Even the memory demands are pretty different... with writing you can go back and try again without having to start over from the beginning, but with reading words if you don't make it through the first time, you can't just go back to the letter you started having trouble on since there is no record of what you accomplished.

There are other explanations, but no doubt that engaging in those writing/spelling activities benefit early reading skills.

tim

Jo Anne Gross Jun 11, 2022 02:43 PM

Thank You for your reply. It makes sense.

Janice Kerr Jun 11, 2022 05:53 PM

I love this! This backs up exactly how I teach kindergarten and now I have your expert article to back up my teaching.
Last year I did dictation with my class the first trimester - spelling sounds, words and sentences with what we had learned each day. I did not start formal independent writing until January. They were writing cards and letters and notes the first semester but nothing assigned. When we started more formal writing they already knew how to write a sentence and what is included in a sentence - subject and predicate and capital letter and punctuation. Writing was fun and they loved it and wrote plenty. No tears or anxiety about it as they had so much practice the first half of the year with immediate feedback on corrections that they made as we wrote.
Even though I think it was a more student friendly way to teach I feel like I am breaking the rules by not making them do independent writing the first semester. Any suggestions on this or can you point me to a book or article on that?

Dr. Gwen Lavert Jun 11, 2022 08:18 PM

As a kindergarten teacher and instructional Leader, it was through the Phonological Proficiency level that we introduced the sounds of language through word awareness, rhymes, segmenting/blending. Next, we introduced consonants, alliteration and writing letters. At this point, with the Language Experience, students started with inventive spelling. Then, we introduced the 37 times with the 100 high-frequency words. We continued the LEA. Suddenly, they had the skills to shift the spelling. They were amazed. We gave them decodable text. After a month of practicing, which included decoding “at the speed of sight,” and the dialogues in the LEA, they were writing their own stories. This process continued on into 1st grade.

Timothy Shanahan Jun 14, 2022 03:52 PM

Janice--
Take a look at the Early Writing book (Temple et al.) that I noted in the article. Great book that I think can help you.

tim

Timothy Shanahan Jun 14, 2022 03:55 PM

Donald-
That is a terrific book... as are Richard's other books (as noted in the blog). The one you noted is the most recent and one of the best.

thanks.

tim

Dr. Gwen Lavert Jun 11, 2022 08:39 PM

Once our students were introduced to the sound system consonants; word awareness, rhymes, segmenting/blending compound words. Next they introduced the sounds of consonants along with symbol of each letter
along with LEA. Inventive spelling began. Then, they were introduced to the 37 rimes with the 100 high frequency words. They continued LEA. Now, they were reading and taking home decodable text. This was when the shift moved from inventive spelling! We continued the LEA. For many, the teachers gradually moved to the writers workshop.

Troy Jun 20, 2022 09:17 PM

Agree with Bowers that It's critical to deconstruct entrenched false dichotomies: explicit/discovery is a false one that's caused a lot of harm. The notion that explicit can only be prescriptive is shutting down learning, curiosity and engagement all over the country. If kids aren't curious and engaged, game over. I think that's a big part of the problem we need to address. Thanks for this thought-provoking post, Tim. Rarely just dichotomous, this or that.

Donald Potter Jun 12, 2022 12:22 PM

May I suggest Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching by G. Ouellette and Richard Gentry. They make a very strong argument for invented spelling and included a lot of very practical information for classroom teachers.

Peter Bowers Jun 14, 2022 02:56 PM

Thanks so much for this Tim. I am so pleased you emphasize the false dichotomy that teachers are so often presented with. I would also like to shine a bright light on this statement of yours, "One big benefit of invented spelling is that it provides teachers with a window into their students’ understanding of the spelling system."

This is so crucial. It also links to your point about the issue about forcing kids to work through tons of corrections every time they write something. If kids experience "spelling instruction" as being punished for each spelling mistake, they are going to write less, and choose words they can spell over words they think but are unsure how to spell. As a result, kids are hindered from the joy of expressing what they are thinking in writing. I would be very explicit with kids that we are not going to correct every spelling mistake. I'm explicit that I want to see what they are thinking and that I need to see their spelling mistakes so that I have an idea of what I need to help them understand. When the culture in the classroom celebrates this kind of risk taking and learning from mistakes, we foster the kind of development you are describing. Another key point you make is that we don't "teach" developmental spelling, we nurture it. And once we see the errors an individual child is making and the mistakes a class is making, we have the best data we can have to guide the focus of our explicit instruction.

And if I may, I'd like to highlight an issue that I think is a parallel false dichotomy. I see many people present "inquiry" and "explicit instruction" as though they are mutually exclusive. I entirely disagree. For me effective leveraging of inquiry for learning REQUIRES explicit instruction. If a child misspells "action" as *acshun I know that they are aware of possible grapheme-phoneme correspondences, but that they have not recognized the spelling-meaning link between the base "act" and the word "action". It is also likely that they do not know that one of the common jobs of the "t" grapheme is that it can spell the /?/ phoneme if it is followed by the letter "u" or "i". So if I create a culture in my classroom where kids are made to feel as comfortable as possible in making spelling mistakes, I am more likely to get them writing and allowing myself to see more what what they do and do not know. I can then create a lesson that uses an inquiry approach to understand why "action" is spelled as it is. At this link is an example of exactly this type of lesson that grows out of seeing such errors.

https://files.realspellers.org/PetesFolder/resources/ACT_matrix_word_sums_phonology_of_T.pdf

I would argue that this lesson uses an inquiry process that builds motivation and and close attention to grapheme-phoneme correspondences and the role of morphology in grapheme choice through very explicit instruction. See what you think, but regardless, I very much appreciate your message in this post!

Emma-Jo Jul 12, 2022 12:48 AM

Thank you so much for sharing your response to this question. I teach Year 2 in a K-2 setting and this is discussion is extremely valuable to my colleagues and I.

Our phonics program at school focuses on explicit teaching for spelling instruction to improve students spelling, reading and writing. However a common point of discussion my colleagues and I have is when we are focusing on a new phoneme that has many different graphemes to represent the one sound. For example – looking at the ‘s’ sound, the graphemes are s/ss/sc/c/ce. Would you recommend exposing all of these graphemes at the first lesson or specifically focus on one at a time to build up their phonemic awareness with this sound?

Looking forward to your response. Any insight would be greatly appreciated :)

T. Francois Aug 09, 2022 02:14 PM

Thank you for this! I am currently clarifying and rewriting my province's language arts curricula to better reflect the precepts of Structured Literacy. I've made a point of encouraging invented spelling prior to insisting on spelling accuracy. I tell teachers "If you want to know how well students read, just look at how they write!" A student who accurately links phonemes to graphemes clearly understands the Alphabetic Principle and is ready to start reading.

Students will almost certainly notice the discrepancies between their invented spellings and what they're seeing in print. They will hunger for instruction in conventional spelling. Like Mr. Shanahan, I also recommend Words Their Way for introducing spelling patterns and conventions in a constructive, hands-on way. I will also look up Richard Gentry and Charles Temple's works. Thanks for the recommendations!

What Are your thoughts?

Leave me a comment and I would like to have a discussion with you!

Comment *
Name*
Email*
Website
Comments

Explicit Spelling Instruction or Invented Spelling?

13 comments

One of the world’s premier literacy educators.

He studies reading and writing across all ages and abilities. Feel free to contact him.