Case Study of a Beginning Speller: Practice Makes Better

Ohio Reading Teacher, Fall 2003-Spring 2004 by Strimple, Rebecca

You are in a room where everyone is busy. Some are writing or reading independently. Others are meeting with colleagues to ask for guidance or opinions. Still others are working with equipment such as staplers, pencil sharpeners, stamps and computers. You may think you are witnessing a newspaper office one hour prior to deadline, but you are actually in an elementary classroom during Writer's Workshop.

When I was teaching first grade, Writer's Workshop was my favorite time of day, because it was so productive. My students were immersed in realistic writing for a purpose, and their progress in phonemic awareness, phonics knowledge, spelling, composition and reading was evident. I believe that spelling should be taught in the context of writing, and much spelling instruction occurred during the Writer's Workshop hour. just as learning to talk and read are developmental processes, so is learning to spell (Gentry, 1987, p. 19).

In his 1982 article, "An Analysis of Developmental Spelling in Gnys at Wrk," J. Richard Gentry discusses the following spelling stages:

1. Precommunicative (random strings of letters)

2. Semiphonetic (letters used to provide a partial phonetic representation of the word being spelled)

3. Phonetic (total mapping of letter-sound correspondence)

4. Transitional (adherence to basic conventions of English orthography)

5. Correct (most spellings are standard)

I have always encouraged our son, Nelson, to practice writing at home, because I feel writing often enhances the development of his writing, spelling and reading. I did a case study to examine Nelson's growth in spelling and writing as he participated in Writer's Workshop and wrote spontaneously at home. I hoped to gain knowledge about how to promote spelling development in beginning writers.

How beginning writers learn to spell

Most experts agree with Gentry (1982), who encourages teachers to make frequent, purposeful writing a priority in their classrooms. DiStefano and Hagerty (1985) remind teachers that, "skills should be taught and practiced in the context of writing so students can use language in a natural way "(p. 375). Writing often allows children to practice spelling, and this practice leads to development. Research has shown that the key factor effecting reading development is the amount of time students have spent reading. It makes sense that this "practice makes perfect" theory would carry over into writing and spelling.

Teachers of beginning writers know what nurtures the development of their charges. They create an atmosphere where students control their writing, and where the teacher acts as a resource and helper instead of guiding the process. The children turn to him or her when they have a problem they cannot solve alone. The problem often concerns spelling. When young writers are stuck on the spelling of a certain word, the teacher wants to help as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is not always easy, because the orthography of our language is complex.

Guiding students to "sound the word out" or "stretch out the sounds in the word" seems to be the most popular teacher response when dealing with beginning writers. Wilde (1992) writes that "teachers, instead of spelling words for children, should ask them to come up with spellings on their own, or at most help them through the invention process or help them use a textual resource" (p. 101). Students who have not yet mastered sound/letter correspondences have usually not developed to the phonetic spelling stage. To help children move into this stage, Ehri and Wilce (1987) suggest teaching them phoneme/grapheme relations and providing "training in how to segment words into phonemes and to represent the sounds with letters" (p. 62). Sipe (2001) describes the use of "sound boxes" to help students hear the individual phonemes in words they are attempting to spell. This technique was developed by the Russian psychologist Elkonin (Clay, 1979) and adapted for use in the writing portion of the Reading Recovery lesson (Clay, 1993). In this method, the teacher draws a rectangle with enough partitions to create one box for each sound in the word. One marker or penny is placed under each box. As the child says the word slowly, he pushes the markers up into the boxes.

Rhea Paul (1976) also describes guiding her kindergarten students to sound words out when they began to write. In 1976, Paul studied the invented spelling of her kindergarten students, and found the process of invented spelling is much more important than the product. Paul writes, "The product - the way they actually decide to spell the word - appears to be greatly subordinate to the thinking process that leads to the decision" (1976, p. 200).

Gentry states, "the encouragement of invented spelling is considered good teaching practice" (2000, p. 318). Wilde (1992) condones the use of invented spelling because it allows students to write more freely and makes it possible for them to explore the English spelling system for themselves. DiStefano and Hagerty (1985) also recognize that students must predict spellings, so they can test their predictions. They also discuss the fact that using invented spelling teaches children to become risk takers when they use language. Basically, educators view invented spelling as a normal part of spelling development, and therefore encourage beginning writers to use it.