I read with great interest about the stages of spelling
development in the text (Literacy’s
Beginnings: Supporting Young Readers and Writers), and looked back at my
daughter’s portfolio of kindergarten work to see if I could identify her progression
through these stages. I could clearly see evidence of these stages; she appears
to have started the year somewhere between emergent spelling and early
letter-name spelling. Here, in the first week or two of school, she is using
the beginning consonant “K” for couch.
By the end of the year, she seems to be well into middle or
perhaps later letter-name spelling…
But I was even more interested in the authors’ statement
that the role of the teacher is not to categorize the student but to support
the student’s “continued development so that over time, his spellings resemble
later stages more often than earlier stages” (p.106). This is a spot-on
description of what I saw in the progression of my daughter’s work over the
course of the year. She began the year by needing a great deal of teacher
support, but as she gained competence, the teacher gradually scaled back on her
scaffolding.
Early on in the year, the teacher was sometimes writing her
dictated words…
Or writing the words in a yellow marker for my daughter to
write over…
As my daughter learned to write her letters, she did so
painstakingly, but was still supported by having the text available for her to
refer to…
As the year progressed, she was able to write more words
independently, and the scaffolding was gradually removed. Now, we see fairly simple words, with many
high frequency words, others that she is trying to work out sound-by-sound, and
others that she is writing from a model. These sentences are from February and
March…
By April, she is fairly secure with high frequency words and
independently trying to figure out some other mysteries, (i.e. “bacre” for
bakery, “becus” for because and “cockys” for cookies).
By the end of the year, she is independently writing, with
lots of invented spellings…
Looking back at her work over the course of the year gave me
an even greater appreciation for her teacher, who gave her generous support at
the beginning of the year and gradually backed away from that support as she
became more competent. She moved from not being able to identify or write all
of her letters to becoming secure in writing all her upper and lower case
letters, developing a solid grasp of most consonant sounds, and having a good understanding
of short vowel sounds as well as a beginning awareness of long vowel sounds (i.e.
using a vowel marker to make the long E sound in “beich”).
Comparing her work from the beginning to the end of the year reinforces to me the great leap that occurs during this crucial year.
McGee, L.M. & Richgels,
D.J. (2012). Literacy’s beginnings:
Supporting young readers and writers (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Cathy, thank you so much for digging up your daughter's writing from kindergarten and sharing with us her great progress throughout her school year! As a kindergarten teacher myself, I was very happy to see the improvements she made during the course of the year as she gained more confidence and phonological awareness. Writing is a scary attempt in the beginning of the year since students at this stage and age are still learning to identify their letters and their corresponding sounds, what a word is, and what a sentence is and looks like. It can be very overwhelming and stressful that can take the joy away from writing.
ReplyDeleteTo make sure we don't lose our students to these negative feelings, it is important to start off small by just drawing pictures where they can orally share their stories through them. As they gain knowledge on their letters, sounds, and how to form these letters, they can start adding labels to their picture. Thjey are write the letter d, uppercase or lowercase next to the dog in their pictures. As they progress further on, they can then add on the middle and even ending sounds as they practice stretching out and segmenting their words. Once they have built a strong foundation of skills, they begin writing a string of words that later turn into sentences that successfully describes their story.
Inventive spelling is huge in kindergarten. English is such a complicated language with so many rules and exceptions. Kindergarteners are just learning the basic skills of identifying letters and their short vowel sounds. We want them to write smoothly without stopping and correcting them that the "c" needs to be a "k" and that there is a silent "e" at the end. We want them to solely write with passion and enthusiasm and teach them that they can share their stories with the world through their words.
If a student spells "kite" as "cit", that is perfectly acceptable. As long as we are able to decode the words successfully is what matters the most. Seeing my nineteen students start from the beginning of the year to now at the end of this year makes me so proud as their progress has been tremendous. Just like your daughter's kindergarten teacher, I have seen myself "letting go" providing them with less support as they become independent and great authors.