Inventive Spelling Teaches Approximation
I can be kind by…telling my teacher I miss her.
A kindergarten student’s text-to-self connection about how he shows kindness.
Last night the Literacy Clinic at SUNY Old Westbury met. The Literacy Graduate Students worked with their child partners who are students in Kindergarten through 11th grade. After the students had finished the literacy centers (hands-on literacy activities that happen at the very beginning of the clinic), they began working with their child partner. I went over to sit with and observe a graduate student who is working with a kindergarten student. He is am emerging reader and writer and is very enthusiastic about learning to read and write.
In order to expose him to a variety of books, authors, and ideas, she began her lesson with a read-aloud. She read the book, Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller, which addresses the topic of kindness. After reading the book, the graduate student and the kindergartener chatted about the story and how kindness was shown in the book. In an effort to extend the kindergartener’s comprehension and connect reading and writing, the graduate student had the child make a text-to-self connection and write about how he can be kind.
She started the writing through conversation. The graduate student asked her child partner how is is kind. He immediately responded that he tells his teacher that he misses her in an effort to be kind. So, his response demonstrated his understanding of the book that was just read. As a side note, kids in the NYC area just had a week off during the week of President’s Day - this is a mid-winter break - and I had to wonder if this kindergarten student told his teacher yesterday on the first day back after the break that he missed her. I have a feeling that he did! Anyways, back to the lesson - In order to get him into the writing, the graduate student had him draw a picture of him telling his teacher he misses her. As he was drawing, she asked him about his illustration and what he was working on. He was able to label himself and his teacher. When he wrote teacher, he sounded out the word and wrote “techr”. He was approximating and trying to figure out which letters made the sounds in the word teacher.
Inventive spelling is the practice of children using incorrect and unusual spellings for words that they want to use in their writing, but may not yet know how to spell. Typically, inventive spelling is used by children who are learning to put sounds together to make words, but older children use it as well when they are spelling words that they are not completely sure of. It can be controversial because we don’t want kids learning the wrong way to spell. But, I have another take on it. It is actually teaching children the expectation for learning. By allowing and encouraging students like this kindergartener to take risks and try figuring out how to spell new words. It then enables us as teachers to now teach the student phonics rules and spelling patterns that will support what they need to learn.
The graduate student did just that during this writing lesson. She explained the -ch digraph to the student and was able to explicitly teach him the -ch sound during this lesson. He was able to produce that sound twice in this writing piece.
There were so many great teaching moments during this lesson. The graduate student did a lot of scaffolding to get the kindergartener writing. She had him talk through his response, then she asked him to draw his response. After he made his drawing, he added color and labeled his work. Finally, he was able to write his sentence. He knew what words he wanted to include in his writing, and the graduate student allowed him to use them even when he was unsure of how each word was spelled. Overall, it was a fabulous start to her lesson!