Spelling Stages - Allen Independent School District



Spelling Stages

Young writers move through predictable, developmental spelling stages (Gentry 1982)

1. Prephonemic spelling – children scribble, form letters, and string letters together but without the awareness that that letters represent phonemes or speech sounds. Children do, however, create meaningful messages through their exploration. Prephonemic spelling is typical or preschoolers and beginning kindergartners.

2. Early phonemic spelling – There is a limited attempt to represent phonemes with letters, for example, using one or two letters for a word (“m” for “my” and “nt” for “night”). Early phonemic spelling is typical of many kindergarten and beginning first grade children.

3. Phonetic (or letter-name) spelling – In this stage, children are internalizing much information about spelling patterns, and the words they write look like English words. For example, the child may write “skool” for “school” and “happe” for “happy.” Rules are employed, but not always correctly. With reading and writing practice, children integrate more spelling rules and patterns. This stage usually includes first through third grade children.

4. Standard spelling – At this stage, children spell most words correctly. We have found this stage occurs by the middle to the end of third grade or in fourth grade. Children are now ready to learn to spell homonyms, contractions, and irregular spellings, as well as to begin to internalize the rules that govern more difficult vowel and consonant combinations, word endings, and prefixes and suffixes. (We have chosen to use the term “standard spelling” instead of “correct spelling.” Even when children have not reached the highest level, they are inventing spelling that is “correct” for their developmental level.)

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