I have been very enlightened this past 6 months as I've gone to school simultaneous to having a child start kindergarten. The two have enhanced one another for sure.
When Jordyn first started Kindergarten, her teacher would constantly recommend that we (as parents) let them spell how THEY want to spell and to not correct them. I figured there was a reason behind it, but didn't really question it.
The Language Development class I'm taking right now is probably my favorite so far. It really emphasizes that learning a language is SOOOO much more than simply letters and sounds. It's learning a code!
So this technique of letting them spell words how they think it sounds is called "invented spelling". This quote sums it up "learning to spell is not a matter of memorizing words, but a developmental process that culminates in a much greater understanding of English spelling than simple relationships between speech sounds and their graphic representations." (taken from this article: click here).
This picture above is one of Jordyn's recent writings. She is an incredible speller and reader. Her teacher refers to it as "hard-wired" for it. She is definitely hard-wired for reading. And she loves it. You can see some of her "invented" words: fr for fur, throsup for throws up, watr for water. I love it. It shows her brain working and shows her understanding of sounds and letter relationship. Next step will be to incorporate the billion rules of the English language :-)
3 comments:
She is doing so well in school! reminds me of Jade. She will be like Jade for sure with her reading. (Jade is scoring at a 10 and 11th grd level) She was just like Jordyn in K. It is fun and emotional to have a reader like that, seriously. Good times ahead. That is facinating about how we learn language, thanks for sharing the info.
that is one of the hardest things for me to get past with Ame, is NOT correcting her. All to often she is making a card or something and need help...it is much easier to "help" her spell it out or just tell her. I guess that is the perfectionist in me to have her give someone else something spelled correctly! thanks for the post to remind me what I should work on with her.
that is the best part of school i think is to see what they come up with. it is almost sad when they can spell.
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