Spelling Development

Did you know that students go through stages of spelling development? I loved reading about these stages in the class I am taking because it really helps to clarify what skills students have and where they are in their spelling development.

The Stages:

Pre-phonetic spellers use letters or letter-like symbols to represent language. Random stirngs of letters, numbers, and other "markings" may also be used to represent words. These students typically are not yet readers and do not make the connection between print and oral language.

Phonemic spellers have discovered phonetic principles of spelling and attempt to capture the sounds of words in their own writing. They typically represent only some of the sounds in the words they want to write, most often initial and final sounds.

Letter Name spellers typically represent all of the sounds in the words they want to write, but do so on the basis of letter names. An example would be "babe" for "baby."

Transitional spellers begin to notice the differences between their way of spelling and the way words are spelled in books and begin to incorporate some traditional spellings in their writing. Students at this phase often overgeneralize some of the rules that they observe, for example writing "eet" for "eat."

Correct spellers are students who regularly employ words that are spelled correctly according to standard English spelling. This does not mean that they do not still misspell words, rather that they correctly spell most words most of the time.

I learned that it is actually a good idea to give students spelling words according to their developmental levels rather than using 1 list for the entire class. I have never done this, but it does make sense. I know that the spelling program used at my new school is leveled for different groups of students, so I am interested to see how it works!