Inventive Spelling

I have written a little bit before about inventive spelling. But I wanted to spend a little more time with it to show the importance of letting children engage in this stage of writing. Inventive spelling is when the children write according to the sounds they hear. Writing has stages, just as other areas of development. And as with other areas, each stage is important. In the article “Inventive Spelling and Spelling Development, the author sets out these stages: precommunicative, semiphonetic, phonetic, transitional, and correct. ((https://www.readingrockets.org/article/invented-spelling-and-spelling-development) In preschool we usually experience the first two or three stages. The precommunicative stage is a step up from just scribbling, the child makes shapes and even letters, but they have no meaning. In the next stage, the letters start to have meaning and the child begins to understand that there is a correspondence between sound and letter. The third stage is what I consider inventive spelling. The child will group the letters together to form “words”. In our journaling I allow the students to experience whatever stage they are in, which is mostly the first two stages. But there is one activity that I do each year where I encourage those that are ready to try inventive spelling. When we talk about what we want to grow up to be, I take the time and let the students try write what they drew. And I am never disappointed. Here are some examples from this year. All these children are well on their way to be writers!

And here are some fun art we did in February. A lot of days were just free painting days and some great pictures came from it. And of course we did some heart art since it was Valentines.

And the rest of February. Lots of fun creations. Lots of fort building (previous years I only allowed forts once a year on blanket day, but this year a couple of girls asked if they could build a fort weeks after. Since I’m trying to follow the students, why not? As a result there has been lots of fun fort building this year). Can you believe the incredible block creation in our play kitchen (last picture)? This is what happens when I let go of my ideas and embrace the student’s idea.