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Developmental

Spelling Analysis

Nicole Loraas
Edu 397.01
Methods: Teaching Language Arts
December 3, 2013

Many people today believe that learning to spell isnt as important as it


once was because of the growing technology industry. Almost every person
today uses cell phones, laptops, tablets, and computers to communicate;
which all have spell check. Many people arent even routinely hand writing
anymore. However, spelling is more important than most people believe it to
be. Students arent taught spelling words simply for memorization; its the
underlying concepts of teaching spelling that are vitally important. By
learning to spell students are improving their reading and writing fluency by
recognizing spelling rules and patterns within the words. Also, spelling helps
expand students comprehension when reading or learning about new
subject matter. Spelling alone has little value, but it is a vital tool of reading
and writing which are the most valuable instruments of learning. By
analyzing a students writing a teacher can determine where that student is
in the developmental stages of spelling, and therefore, can regulate which
words that student needs to learn in order to better progress their education
in reading and writing.
By collecting a spelling sample from a student I am able to analyze
what stage of spelling development the student is in by calculating the
number of errors and the nature of the errors made. The stages of spelling
development are precommunitive, semiphonetic, phonetic, transitional, and
correct. My student was a seven year old male student in the first grade.
From the sample collected, I received forty words, twenty nine of which were
spelt correctly. By sorting the errors into the stages of spelling development I

can determine which stage of spelling the student is currently at. I can also
analyze the students errors and create an appropriate spelling list of which
words, spelling patterns, and spelling rules the student needs to learn in
order to better advance their spelling education.
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Total

Phonetic
Hop (x3)
pland
clos
peraksit
allot
luke
Stolly
were

Transitional
jersys

10

Correct
I (x3)
You (x4)
win
The (x4)
cup
This
is
a
ok
go
to
post
and
just
shoot
it
in
net
that
blue
good
29

Phonetic

Transitional

Correct

10/40 = 25%

1/40 = 3%

29/40 = 72%

The student misspelled the word hope as hop three times. He also
misspelled close as clos. These four misspellings demonstrate that the student
hasnt yet comprehended the rule of adding a silent e on to the end of a word to
create the long vowel sound that is heard. This rule is often taught in classrooms as
the bossy e rule. These four mistakes are all phonetic spellings because the

student is representing all the sounds he heard in the words, but chose the letters
on the basis of sound without regard to the rules of spelling (Dobler, 2013).
The student misspelled plan as pland, which means he was either trying to
create a sentence that made sense using the word planned, or he just wasnt paying
attention when he was spelling the word plan. This mistake is a phonetic spelling
because the word is spelt correctly; just an additional letter is added on the end of
the word which I believe the student placed there due to lack of attention. The
student misspelled the word Stanley as Stolly when attempting to write Stanley
Cup. This mistake isnt very serious because the student had most likely seen the
word very few times and couldnt remember how to pronounce it properly. Based of
this misspelling the word should probably be considered semiphonetic, however, in
this case it is phonetic because the student had most likely been attempting to spell
the word from memory and couldnt remember the correct pronunciation. If the
student had been told the word in clear pronunciation he wouldve succeeded in
spelling the word more correctly.
The student misspelled the word practice as peraksit. This misspelling is
phonetic because the student is mapping out all the sounds in the word and has the
ability to segment all the sounds within the word (Dobler, 2013). This student
misspelled the word a lot as allot. This is phonetic spelling because he combined a
and lot into one word and wasnt regarding spelling rules. However, he also was
doing a good job of sounding out what the word sounds like because he used the
double l, ll, sound to represent the sound in a lot.
The student misspelled the word wear as were. This is phonetic spelling
because he was representing each sound with a vowel but wasnt regarding the

spelling rule of the long e sound on the end of the word. It is also possible that the
student was attempting to spell the word where, and left out the letter h. The
student misspelled the word luck as luke. The is phonetic spelling because once
again the student was attempting to use the long vowel sound rule and added an e
on the end of the word. The student was doing a good job attempting to represent
every sound in the word, but represented the ck sound with ke instead.
The student misspelled the word jerseys as jersys. This is transitional
spelling because the student was able to represent all the sounds of the words with
the proper letter combinations. This is clearly transitional because each sound has
the inclusion of a vowel and is using spelling patterns by correctly adding the s in
order to make the word plural (Dobler, 2013). The only mistake is the student failed
to include the e, but instead represented the e sound with only the y.
The students handwriting was legible and easy to read. He included spaces
between most of his words; however some were fairly close together. His words are
on the line and tall letters, such as t, extended upwards and letters with tails, such
as y, extended below the line. All of his letters are legible, but some are squeezed in
between other letters, some have been erased poorly, and some letters have been
re-written over the tops of others. The student did include four periods and had
capital letters at the beginning of the sentence. Some of his sentences are sentence
fragments or are run-on sentences. Also, the student included capital letters where
they dont belong such as in with common nouns and adjectives in the middle of the
sentence. His handwriting is very large and some letters, such as h, u, and r need
practice in order to improve his penmanship quality. Overall, the student has legible
handwriting and is beginning to recognize and use punctuation and capital letters.

This first grade student is at the phonetic level in spelling development.


Based of of the mistakes, the nature of the mistakes, and number of errors in this
students writing sample the student is at the phonetic stage in spelling
development. This student is a phonetic speller because he perceives and
represents all the phonemes in the word but doesnt always have conventional
spelling (Gentry, 1985). Many of the students spelling errors happen because he
isnt following the English language rules, doesnt have visual memory of letter
patterns, and isnt following English orthography (Gentry, 1985).
The next step in this students spelling education would be to create a list of
spelling words based of the errors found in his writing sample. The next few sets of
spelling tests should follow the spelling rules and patters that the student shows
difficulties in comprehending. These next few lists of words for the student to focus
on should include words with the long vowel sound that end in e, words that end in
ck, and words with letter blend prefixes such as pl, th, tr, and wh (Gentry, 2004).
Once this new list of spelling words is developed the student should take a pretest
to assess how much they know about the new list of words. Once the pretest is
completed the student should self-correct their test in order to view their mistakes
and learn how to fix them. If the student is struggling on specific words than the
teacher should help them understand the word by pronouncing it carefully and by
explaining letter patterns or rules. Throughout the week before the spelling test the
student should study and practice their words by playing spelling games, such as
flip books, word sorting, and word shuffling games. The student can also study their
words by using them in daily writing activities and writing journals. Once the week
has come to an end the student should then take their final spelling test (Gentry,
2004).

Spelling List
1. Hope
2. Close
3. Luck
4. Where
5. Rope
6. Buck
7. What
8. Cake
9. Came
10.When
I chose these words for the students spelling list because four of them were
misspelled on his writing sample. Two of the words display the long vowel with the
bossy e rule which is important because its in many commonly used words and
the student should know how to correctly spell words that display the long vowel
sound. I also chose words with the wh word blend because the student misspelled
where when he was trying to say wear and I believe that word blends are
important because they are commonly used and commonly misspelled because
children often only pronounce the first letter of the word blend. I also picked words
that have the suffix ck because the student misspelled luck and needs to work
on understanding the ck suffix and being able to recognize that spelling pattern.
By analyzing each students writing a teacher can more effectively teach
spelling and improve the overall quality of the students reading and writing
abilities. By providing each student with a personalized list of words that fits their
learning abilities each student is able to succeed and gain the greatest benefit from
their education. Students who are great spellers will be able to learn more difficult
words and advance in their reading and writing comprehension and students who

are low spellers wont get left behind and will gain the opportunity to learn spelling
rules and patterns. The developmental stages of spelling are an extremely useful
tools for elementary teachers to understand and use in their classrooms in order to
better benefit their students education.

References

Dobler, E., Johnson, D., DeVere Wolsey, T. (2013). Developmental stages of spelling.
Teaching the Language Arts: Forward Thinking in Todays Classrooms. (10.3).
Retrieved from: https://www.inkling.com/read/teaching-language-arts-dobler1st/chapter-10/10-3-developmental-stages-of
Gentry, J. (1985). You can analyze developmental spelling and heres how you do it.
Monster Test. P. 3 55. Retrieved from:
http://www.gse.uci.edu/docs/DEVELOPMENTAL_SPELLING.pdf
Gentry, J. (2004). Discovery #5: There is one best way to teach spelling assess
and teach each individual hooray for spelling books!. The Science of
Spelling: The Explicit Specifies that Make Great Readers and Writers (and
Spellers!). (5) P. 55 76. Retrieved from:
http://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/e00717/discovery5.pdf

I chose these references because they were official and scholarly choices that
I could trust when researching spelling development for my essay. Two of the
references came from separate online books by J. Richard Gentry who has a Ph.D. in
reading education and is an avid supporter and researcher of the developmental
spelling stages. His books explain in depth the stages of spelling development and
how to analyze spelling and give spelling tests to better benefit students. The other
reference I chose was an online book that just came out this year on the
developmental spelling stages. This book was informative and explained in depth
the stages of spelling and how to recognize and use them when teaching spelling in
your classroom.

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