The Stages of Developmental Spelling and Levels of English Language Development

• Scribbling can be representational
• Understands speech can be written
• Lacks concept of a word
• Makes letterlike shapes
• May write name

Beginning

(Strategies: letter and word recognition)

• Spells few words correctly but knows letters make words
• Still invents symbols for letters and words
• Makes 1- to 3-letter representations of words, usually consonants
• Has more control over beginnings and endings of words
• Predicts words auditorially in frequently occurring patterns

Beginning, Early Intermediate

(Strategies: letter and word recognition, word sorting

• Spellings include all sound features of words as heard
• Invents system of phonetic spelling that is consistent
• Understands relationship of sounds in speech to symbols in writing
• Spelling can be read by others

mostar

monstr

Early Intermediate, Intermediate

(Strategies: word sorts, identify structural patterns, word families)

• Begins to spell conventionally and knows it is necessary for others to read their writing
• Uses knowledge of how words look as well as sound and applies this to other words
• Includes vowels in every syllable
• Uses familiar spelling patterns
• Intersperses conventional spelling with invented spelling

monstar

monstur

monstir

monstor

Early Advanced

(Strategies: continue word sorts, patterns, families; add word study systematic rule building)

• Begins to spell correctly
• Has mastered root words, past tense, and short vowels
• Still struggles with consonant doubling, letter position, and word affixes
• Has growing knowledge of word meanings and complicated vowel patterns

Early Advanced, Advanced

(Strategies: word study, systematic rule building, etymologies, roots, parts of speech)

• Increasingly understands how meaning and grammatical structure control spelling
• Adds morphemic and syntactic knowledge to phonological knowledge
• Is better at doubling consonants, spelling alternative forms of words, and word endings
• Conducts wordplay in creative ways

Advanced

(Strategies: same as above; encourage wordplay