How Children learn to spell English

 

Spelling Topics
Vivian Cook


Stages in the  development of English spelling
according to 5 main sources

Henderson
1985

1
preliterate writing

2
letter-name spelling 

3 
within-word pattern

4 
syllable juncture

5 
derivational principles

 

scribbles

MS, HLP

'sight words'

Consonant-doubling

roots etc

Gentry
1982

1  
precommunic
-ative

2 
semi-phonetic

3
phonetic

4 
transitional

5
 correct

 

random letter strings

LEFT (elephant)

strict letter-sound

visual and morphological

 

Ehri 1986

 

1
semi-phonetic

2
phonetic

3
morphemic

 

Nunes et al 1997

1
pre-phonetic

2
phonetic

3
intermediate

4
grammatical

5
consistency

Frith 1985

1
logographic

2
alphabetic

   3 
    orthographic
Note:  Treiman (1997), who summarises most of these, basically argues it's not as simple as this, e.g. morphology comes earlier in say voiced flaps.

 

Examples of children's pre-writing

 


"I like the part when Jack is climbing down the beanstalk"

 

"Chicken nuggets"

 

Greek Child (a message for a dog to bring help to a boy with a broken leg)
Children's Arabic left to right
children's Arabic written left to right

Arabic/English bilingual child writing Arabic from left to right (followed by correct Arabic)

More examples of pre-writing

 

Invented Spellings

Some examples of the spellings that children invent for themselves spontaneously at the early stages of learning to read and write.  

letter-name consonants

BLW HAV FAS DESES (dishes) SKIY (sky) PLEZ (please)

other consonants

CLAS (clouds) HED (head) WERRE (wearing) YALO (yellow) GOWE going

digraphs

HRP (chirp) FIH (fish) SOS (shoes) TA (they) MOTR (mother)

nasals  

LAP (lamp) RAD (rained) CADE (candy) AJLS (angels)

long vowels  

NAM (name) PLES (police) BIT (bite) DOT (don’t) NTU (into)

short vowels

FAL (fell) HEM (him) WIS (wants) SOPR (supper)

Source: Temple, C., Nathan, R., Temple, F. and Burris, N.A. (1993), The Beginnings of Writing, third edition, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.

 

Brooks, G., Gorman, T. & Kendall, L. (1993) Spelling It Out: the spelling abilities of 11- and 15-year-olds, NFER, Slough

data: 1492 marked essay scripts from national APU survey, first ten lines scored

Types and proportions of ‘major’ errors

Insertion  

untill/until 

17%

Omission  

occuring/occurring

36%

Substitution  

 definate/definite 

19%

Transposition

freind/friend

5%

‘Grapheme substitution’

thort/thought  

19%

Other  

 3%


Uta Frith (1985), ‘Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia’, in K.E. Patterson, J.C. Marshall, and M. Coltheart (eds.), Surface Dyslexia, Lawrence Erlbaum, 301-330

Principles of reading

logographic principle: instant recognition of look and say word patterns

alphabetic principle: knowledge of phoneme/ phonics;  grapheme correspondences

orthographic principle: instant analysis into structural reading; orthographic units

Causes of developmental reading failure

logographic principle: failure rare
alphabetic principle: classic development dyslexia; phonological dysfunction
orthographic principle: developmental dysgraphia

Spellings of saucer by 967 ten-year-old English children

Correct 

462  saucer 

Wrong

67  sauser     

23  sorser  suacer   

20  sacer      

18  sorcer    

11  soser  soucer

10 sucer   suser 

9   sawser     

8   sarser  sacar

7   sauce  scaucer

6   souser  sauer  sause 

5   caucer  sawer  socer  sorer

4   surcer  surser  scauer   saser   saurcer  saurser  scarcer

3  suscer  suarcer  sausar  cacer  sauccer  sarsar  saursar  scar  scare  scaser  scorer  sercer  eseer  soer  sora  sorsa  sos  sose  

2  sosr  suar  sus  susar  suse  carser  causer  chocer  cor  corroce  corser

1  curser  eswas  sacar  sacca  saccar  sacerer  sacir  sacuere  sacuers  saer  saeucng  sancer  saose  sarce  sarear  sare  saresir  sari  sarig  saroer  sarry  sarses  sarter  sary  sascaue  sasger  sasere  sasher  satard  saucere  saucor  saucing  saucher  saucter  saue  saues  saught  saura  saurse  saus  sauscer  sausery sausir  sausue  sausur  savcr  sawers  sawur  sayser  seacar scace  searces  scarsere  scarser  scaser  scasur  scauser  scocer scoors  scorceri   scoser  scoua  scoucel  scoue  scour  scouse  scuace  scuarcer  sciccer  scare  scuser  senrd  serner  sem  ses  sesaur  sharser  shasers  shose  shower  shure  sice  sinder  sined  slart  sloy  smory  soc  socp  splorns  soolle  sooser  sooucer  sor  sore  sorcr  sororr  sors  sorsar  sorscur  sorb  sorur  sorus  sosa  sosed  sosar  sosiar  sosiar  sosre  sou  sourcer  sourses  sout  sowew  space  spienace  sres  slous  suace  suarser  suaser  sucar  succer  sucase  suce  sucger  suecher  sueer  sucur  sud  suger  suier  sumser  suorser  surage  surce  surer  sureer  sursar  sursur  surts  susare susas  sues

Source: M.L. Peters (1985), Spelling Caught or Taught? Routledge, p.19