You may notice that your child is bringing home writing that has misspellings and have not been corrected. This is what we call “inventive spelling.” Inventive spelling is the name used to describe children’s misspellings before they know the rules, and exceptions to the rules, that adults use for spelling. This is a normal and predictable stage of emerging writers. It is similar to when your child tried to talk, you encouraged them, rather than constantly correcting them. Correct spellings will come with more experience and practice.

Inventive spelling also helps with writing fluency because children are not constantly stopping to ask or look for the correct spelling of every word they do not know how to spell. Constant interruptions to ask an adult to spell make it hard to concentrate on the ideas of writing. If your child asks you to spell a word they are trying to write you may say something like the following:

• Say the word slowly, like a turtle

• Write down the sounds that you hear

• Stretch the word out like a rubber band

      Your child will be held accountable for words to be spelled correctly as the year goes on such as the words connected to our phonics instruction on our Fundations assessments. Encouraging invented spelling allows the children to take risks. It is a necessary and normal stage to develop the proficiency as a confident writer! Another benefit of spelling words the way they think they should be spelled requires students to analyze the phonemic structure of those words. These spelling inventions change as students learn more about words- and that will come from phonics, spelling and morphology instruction.