Helping Children Make Progress in Spelling (continued)

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Taking dictated experience stories, a part of the language-experience approach to reading and language arts instruction, also helps develop the concept of words in print. Dictated accounts are done either with individuals or in groups. After the children have undergone an interesting episode—perhaps an encounter with baby rabbits or a field trip to the post office—each, child is invited to dictate one sentence to the teacher as part of a group composition. A number of reading activities usually follow the dictation: The group reads all the sentences chorally several times; individuals volunteer to read words or sentences; the teacher points to a word in the line and asks a child to read it. In cases where the child knows by heart what the line says but cannot recognize the word, he is likely to work his way through the line, matching memorized words with units of print until he makes a match with the word in question.

The shared book method, as developed by Don Holdaway in New Zealand⁷ is nicely suited to helping young readers and writers learn about the relationships between print and speech. Holdaway's method uses big books, yard-high versions of children's books that are read in the children's presence by the teacher, who uses a pointer to touch each word as she reads. After several passes through the big book in the group setting, the children are handed standard-size versions of the book to read on their own. Holdaway and his colleagues began by creating their own big books out of whatever books were likely to be favorites with their particular children. Following their lead, commercial publishers now offer printed versions of big books for sale.

Many early phonemic spellers write their own names correctly, as well as the names of their friends, brothers, and sisters. Names can be used in learning activities to establish the concept of word. Write the child's name several times on a strip of paper without leaving any spaces between the words. Then ask the child to help you separate the names. The child spells her name first, pointing to each letter. When she comes to the end of one spelling, she cuts the name apart from the one that follows. When she has cut the names apart, she may paste them on another piece of paper, leaving spaces between them.

A similar procedure, involving whole sentences, is suggested by Marie Clay.⁸ Have the child dictate a sentence to you, write it down, and read it back to him. Then read the sentence with him until he can read the sentence by himself. As you read the sentence each time, point to the words. When the child is able to read the sentence by himself (he is able to do this by memorizing, of course, not by actual reading), write the sentence a second time on a strip of paper. Now cut the words off the strip, one at a time, reading the sentence aloud minus the severed word each time. As a next step, the child can match the cut apart words with those in the sentence that was left intact. A fairly easy task is for the child to arrange the cut apart words on top of the words to which they are matched. A more difficult exercise is to arrange the words into a sentence several inches below the sentence left intact.

Emily devised a similar activity when she was not quite four. She put pieces of thin paper on the covers of her favorite books and traced the titles.

Another specific instructional goal we have for children who are early phonemic spellers is that they grow in their ability to segment spoken words into individual phonemes. The most natural practice is to continue to spell the parts of the words of which they are more certain. Thus, their spellings may look like this at first: I W _T D_N _E P __ ("l walked down the path"). But in time, there will be fewer blanks left and more letters filled in as children gain practice in segmenting phonemes.

The final instructional goal we have for early phonemic spellers is that they be more willing to take risks. We have seen abundant evidence that making errors is a necessary part of learning to spell. We want children to pay attention to the print around them and see how it is put together and. how it works. But we want just as much for them to produce their own writing, in which they try out spelling the way they think it is. We want them to formulate ideas about written language and act on them; then they will know what to do with the information they gain from examining other people's written language.

Unless children take risks and unless they are willing to make errors, their progress as spellers will be slow and inhibited, and their delight in making their own messages in print will be small. Children who are willing to invent spelling for words usually become correct spellers in a reasonably short time—and they also become fluent writers in the process.

Whether or not a child is a risk taker depends on a number of factors—his personality, the expectations of his parents, and the atmosphere of his classroom all contribute. There are several steps the teacher can take to help a child gain self-confidence and take risks.

Talk to the children and praise them for what they know about writing. If some children have discovered that writing goes left to right across a page, they may be congratulated for this discovery. If some have discovered that words have letters in them, and that the letters are mixed, this is something that the teacher can discuss with them. And if some have discovered that words are spelled by matching letters with individual sounds, this is a realization worthy of an adult's attention. Having an adult express interest in these issues as the children investigate them adds to the children's sense of accomplishment and reassures them that their efforts are worthwhile.

Parents and teachers should both understand the value of encouragement, practice, and freedom to make errors in learning to spell. If the teacher encourages invented spelling at school but does not share her position with the parents, confusion may result. Parents may be alarmed that children bring home papers with uncorrected spelling errors, or that children enthusiastically produce writing with spelling errors at home. Unless the teacher enlists the parents' understanding and support, they are likely to say discouraging things to their children, with the best of intentions. They may even question whether the teacher is doing her job, mistakenly equating the teacher's encouragement of early writing and invented spelling with a lax attitude that leaves errors uncorrected.

For the Letter-Name Speller

Children who produce letter-name spelling have developed a system of spelling that can be read by others who understand the system. Letter-name spelling represents the high-water mark of children's intuitive spelling development, and their spellings during this period are their most original. From this point on, children will become increasingly aware of the details of standard spelling, and their spelling will grow closer to that of adults.

Most children become letter-name spellers by Thanksgiving in first grade. Some begin sooner, and several may wait until late first grade to start using the letter-name strategy. Letter-name spellings will persist into second grade, though most second graders will use transitional strategies, especially in the second half of the year.

The insights letter-name spellers have about written language are the same ones needed to begin to read. And of course with more reading practice, these children will learn more and more features of standard spelling, until their spelling becomes transitional.

By now their concept of a word in print is beginning to stabilize, but exercises to develop this concept still further will continue to be helpful—both for their spelling and for their reading. Their ability to separate individual phonemes out of words has become highly productive. What they do not yet know is all the business on the other side of the letter-to-sound representation issue. They are just beginning to explore the rules by which letters represent phonemes.