What does it mean when a teacher says:
“the children’s words need to be spelt phonetically and not necessarily accurately”?
By this they are telling us that it is ok if the child’s spelling isn’t strictly accurate (using the correct letters) as long as they have used good sound choices to form their words. For example, although it looks strange, “larf” would be a perfectly acceptable sound-based spelling of “laugh”.
Many parents (my husband included!), are often worried that by not correcting their child’s spelling mistakes they are doing them a disservice. This is not the case.
In this post I will attempt to explain how young children learn spelling through sounds and provide you with some insight on how you can best support your child’s learning.
How are children taught sounds?
From an early age at school children are taught that each letter (grapheme) makes a single sound (phoneme). They are then shown that a sound can also be represented by more than one letter (e.g sh as in sh-i-p) and finally they learn how to blend these sounds together in order to read a word (e.g d-o-g = dog).
This is called ‘sound-blending’.
There are different sets of sounds that a child will be taught as they progress through school. Once a child has learnt all the sounds in a set, they will progress to sound-blending that set of sounds into words. Only then, will the child move onto the next set of sounds and learn how to blend them as well.
Why do children spell using the “wrong” letters?
For spelling, most children are taught to segment words into sounds (e.g cat = c-a-t). Therefore, it is important to note that children can only read and spell words which contain the sounds from the set(s) they have mastered.
This means that whilst some words may not be spelt accurately they might be phonetically plausible (used letters that have the same sound – e.g the child chose ee not ea to spell the word creem ).
Therefore when they use incorrect letters, it isn’t “wrong” it is simply that they don’t yet have the full repertoire of sounds they need to spell words accurately.
They only use the sounds they know!
ice cream vs ighs creem
A child with no knowledge of set 3 sounds i-e and ea will not be able to spell the word ‘ice cream’ correctly. This is because they haven’t learnt the set of sounds that comprise “i-e” or “ea”.
However, the child will have learnt set 2 sounds that the sound igh and ee are in and therefore is likely spell the word as “ighs creem”.
At this stage in their development, this would be considered a good choice of letters (grapheme) to use to spell the word ‘ice cream’ because it contains the correct sound (phoneme).
Should I correct my child’s spellings?
Ultimately this is up to you and there is no hard and fast rule, but personally (and from my experience as a teacher), I would not correct my child at this stage.
I would advise you to try and recognise when they have made a good choice of sounds based on their current knowledge. Give them plenty of praise and generally avoid focusing on the “correct” spelling when this would only serve to confuse them.
As your child develops and acquires a greater range of letter sounds, you can begin to gently correct their spelling, taking opportunities to advise them on their sound choices based on the rules of spellings (something I will cover in a future post).
How to support your child’s spelling: Fred Fingers
If you would like support with your child’s handwriting and how to hold a pencil using ‘Froggy Fingers’ please see my previous post on ‘Getting ready to write!
One means of supporting your child in the early stages of spelling is “Fred Fingers”. You child may already be using ‘Fred Fingers’ at school to help them spell.
Here’s how you do it:
- Say the word out loud e.g bat
- Hold up the correct number of fingers for each sound (i.e three for b-a-t)
- Say the sounds again this time pinching the top of the three fingers for each sound: b-a-t, looking at your own fingers as you do this.
- Ask your child to repeat how many sounds are in ‘bat’ before putting pencil to paper.
Taking things further
Ultimately so long as your child’s spelling choices are phonetically plausible based on their current knowledge of sounds then they are doing well. Most of the time you will be able to instinctively recognise when this is the case. I hope this is reassuring?
However, if you want to support your child’s spelling further try and find some time to learn the phonetic sounds yourself. Just ask your child’s teacher for the letter sounds they use or buy some resources from Ruth Mikin’s Read Write Inc. Phonics programme.
Good luck and let me know of any questions you may have in the comments.