SPELLING

• why do children have difficulty learning to spell?

  not a one to one correspondence between symbols of the alphabet and the sounds they represent
• what are homophones?

  words that are spelled differently but sound the same
• children may make spelling mistakes when the

  • sounds of letters are altered when they are in a word
  • adding inflections can affect the phonology
  • individual letters are part of digraphs
  • homophones
• what is stage one of spelling development?

  pre phonetic
• what does the pre phonetic stage include?

  pretend writing

  random writing on page (symbols, letters numbers etc)

  repetition of familiar letters

  left to right directionality

  random sight words
• what is stage two of spelling development?

  semiphonetic
• what does the semiphonetic stage include?

  random spaces in writing

  few known words in correct place

  some letter-sound correspondence (initial consonants, partial mapping of words)
• what is stage 3 of spelling development?

  phonetic
• what does the phonetic stage include?

  understands all sounds can be represented by a grapheme

  vowels are omitted when not heard

  spaces words correctly

  letters assigned strictly on basis of sound
• what is stage 4 of spelling development?

  transitional
• what does the transitional stage include?

  combines phonic knowledge with visual memory

  vowels appear in every syllable

  silent e pattern becomes fixed

  inflectional endings used (s, ing)

  common letter sequences used (ay, ee, ow)

  moves towards visual spelling

  may reverse some letters
• what is stage 5 of spelling development?

  conventional
• what does the conventional stage include?

  spells most words correctly
• what is insertion?

  adding extra letters
• what is omission?

  leaving out letters
• what is substitution?

  substituting one letter for another
• what is transposition?

  reversing the correct order of letters in words
• what is phonetic spelling?

  using sound awareness to guess letters and combinations
• what is overgeneralization?

  applying a rule when it is not appropriate (magic e)
• what is undergeneralisation?

  applying a rule only in one specific context
• what are salient sounds?

  writing only the key sounds
• what is the creative model in teaching to write?

  allows children to experiment creatively with language, not strictly corrected, learn by trial and error, less afraid of making mistakes
• what is the rule based model in learning to write?

  need to understand rules of spelling, punctuation and grammar to progress more rapidly and produce texts that are comprehensible and appropriate for audience and purpose easily
• how do children develop lexically?

  start with largely monosyllabic lexis, easier to deduce phoneme grapheme correspondence. three letter consonant-vowel-consonant words are most common. employ subject specific lexis
• how do children develop grammatically?

  progress from simple to complex sentences

  initially use declaratives but move to imperatives, interrogatives and exclamations

  older children use passive voice
• How do children develop syntax?

  adverbs consistently at end of clause in early writing, as it matures placement becomes more flexible. Subordinate clauses may be fronted in later writing