When do kids learn to spell
Toddlers begin learning rules of reading, writing at very early age, study finds - The Source
Even the proudest of parents may struggle to find some semblance of meaning behind the seemingly random mish-mash of letters that often emerge from a toddler’s first scribbled and scrawled attempts at putting words on paper.
But new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that children as young as 3 already are beginning to recognize and follow important rules and patterns governing how letters in the English language fit together to make words.
The study, published this month in the journal Child Development, provides new evidence that children start to learn about some aspects of reading and writing at a very early age.
Treiman
“Our results show that children begin to learn about the statistics of written language, for example about which letters often appear together and which letters appear together less often, before they learn how letters represent the sounds of a language,” said study co-author Rebecca Treiman, the Burke & Elizabeth High Baker Professor in Child Developmental Psychology in Arts & Sciences.
An important part of learning to read and spell is learning about how the letters in written words reflect the sounds in spoken words. Children often begin to show this knowledge around 5 or 6 years of age when they produce spellings such as BO or BLO for “blow.”
We tend to think that learning to spell doesn’t really begin until children start inventing spellings that reflect the sounds in spoken words — spellings like C or KI for “climb”. These early invented spellings may not represent all of the sounds in a word, but children are clearly listening to the word and trying to use letters to symbolize some of the words within it, Treiman said.
As children get older, these sound-based spellings improve. For example, children may move from something like KI for “climb” to something like KLIM.
“Many studies have examined how children’s invented spellings improve as they get older, but no previous studies have asked whether children’s spellings improve even before they are able to produce spellings that represent the sounds in words,” Treiman said.
“Our study found improvements over this period, with spellings becoming more wordlike in appearance over the preschool years in a group of children who did not yet use letters to stand for sounds.”
Treiman’s study analyzed the spellings of 179 children from the United States (age 3 years, 2 months to 5 years, 6 months) who were prephonological spellers. That is, when asked to try to write words, the children used letters that did not reflect the sounds in the words they were asked to spell, which is common and normal at this age.
On a variety of measures, the older prephonological spellers showed more knowledge about English letter patterns than did the younger prephonological spellers. When the researchers asked adults to rate the children’s productions for how much they looked like English words, they found that the adults gave higher ratings, on average, to the productions of older prephonological spellers than to the productions of younger prephonological spellers.
The productions of older prephonological spellers also were more word-like on several objective measures, including length, use of different letters within words, and combinations of letters.
For example:
“While neither spelling makes sense as an attempt to represent sounds, the older child’s effort shows that he or she knows more about the appearance of English words,” Treiman said.
The findings are important, Treiman said, because they show that exposure to written words during the 3-to-5-year age range may be important in getting children off to a strong start with their reading, writing and spelling skills.
“Our results show that there is change and improvement with age during this period before children produce spellings that make sense on the basis of sound.” Treiman said. “In many ways, the spellings produced during this period of time are more wordlike when children are older than when they are younger. That is, even though the spellings don’t represent the sounds of words, they start looking more like actual words.”
“This is pretty interesting, because it suggests that children are starting to learn about one aspect of spelling — what words look like — from an earlier point than we’d given them credit for,” she said.
“It opens up the possibility that educators could get useful information from children’s early attempts to write — information that could help to show whether a child is on track for future success or whether there might be a problem.”
Other Washington University co-authors include Brett Kessler, a research scientist in psychological and brain sciences; former Arts & Sciences undergraduates Hayley Clocksin and Zhengdao Chen; and Kelly Boland, a former research assistant in Treiman’s reading lab who is now a psychology graduate student at the University of Missouri.
This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS-1421279) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) (HD051610).
The 5 stages of spelling development
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Do you teach spelling? It’s important to understand the stages of spelling development.
Let’s take a look!
The 5 Stages of Spelling Development
The Emergent Stage (ages 2-5)
Children might recognize their alphabet, but they are just starting to write it.
Here’s a sample from the beginning of the emergent stage. Writing looks the same as drawing. My just-turned-Three draws and scribbles, but he doesn’t write letters yet.
The Letter-Name Alphabetic Stage (ages 5-7)
Children know their alphabet and sounds – this comes out in their writing.
My four 1/2 year old is at the middle of this stage. His letter and letter sound knowledge is solid, and he is putting that to work in his writing. Sometimes he writes just a single letter for a word (H for have), but other times he sounds out the whole thing (BLO for blue and HAT for hat).
The Within-Word Pattern Stage (ages 7-9)
Children start to see patterns within words.
My six-year-old (who just finished kindergarten) is at the beginning of this stage.
She does well with blends (streebarres and plants) and is starting to experiment with long vowel sounds (baens for beans).
The Syllables and Affixes Stage (ages 9-14)
Now kids start to understand how to put endings and extra syllables onto words.
(Sorry, my oldest is six years old – I don’t have a writing sample for the last two stages!)
The Derivational Relations Stage (middle school through adulthood)
Understanding the meaning of words helps us spell them.
That was a lot of information. Now what?
If that was information overload, pin it or print it for future reference. As you start becoming aware of your students’ spelling abilities, your understanding of the five stages will come together.
Free Spelling Games
Get this fun variety of sample spelling games from the membership site! The download includes resources for spelling CVCE words, long vowel teams, and multi-syllable words.
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Filed Under: Spelling Tagged With: word study, first grade, second grade, third grade, kindergarten
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Preschool development: how to teach a child to write letters | Child health | Health
Our expert — Maryana Bezrukikh, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Institute of Developmental Physiology of the Russian Academy of Education" (FGBNU "IVF RAO") .
Milich Maya, AiF.ru: At what age is it better to start teaching writing?
Maryana Bezrukikh : Teaching children cursive before school is not worth it.
This is a very complex process in which everything is important - the correct fit, and the correct position of the handle, and the way of explaining, and the sequence of studying letters, and much more. But preparation for writing, learning to write in block letters can be one of the areas of work with preschoolers 5.5–6.5 years old.
Comprehensive preparation for learning to write should include the development of motor skills, attention, visual perception, visual memory and other functions. This may be, for example, the development of a child from the age of 4–5.
Usually by the age of 5 or 6, children are ready to learn to print. Therefore, at this age, you can already explain to them how letters are written correctly, show and explain the principle of writing printed letters.
Organization of classes
— How best to present the learning process for a child? As a game or, on the contrary, as a serious process?
— All tasks and pre-school writing preparation classes are conducted only in a playful way.
But learning to write at school requires a lot of concentration, so when studying at school, these are not gaming activities.
In general, learning to write is a very complex and difficult process. Children often have difficulties associated not only with insufficiently developed motor skills, attention, visual memory, etc., but also with haste, with a very high rate of learning letters, with requirements for high writing speed, with an incomprehensible explanation.
— How long and how often can I study with a preschooler?
— Preschool writing classes can be daily, but only last 10-15 minutes.
Particular attention must be paid to the correct fit, the correct position of the handle. The sequence of "steps" to prepare for the letter is described in detail and in detail in special manuals and books that can help parents.
Not working!
- Does it make sense to force a child to write if he does not succeed?
- A preschooler should not be forced to write, especially if "it doesn't work out".
It is better to pay attention to the preparation for the letter.
But with the difficulties of teaching writing to older children, for example, first-graders, it is necessary, together with the teacher, to understand the causes of the difficulties and find the most effective measures to help.
— What mistakes do parents most often make when they teach their child to write on their own?
- The main mistakes are the replacement of preparation for writing by learning and haste, the desire of parents to teach the child to write as quickly as possible.
At the same time, parents should not forget that writing is the most difficult skill that is formed slowly and for a long time, over the course of three to four years.
Copy-books
— Copy-books are still an up-to-date and effective way to teach a child to write beautifully?
— Yes, copybooks allow you to form the "technical" side of the letter, the correct spelling of letters and their connection.
However, now there are many different recipes, and not all of them correspond to the age capabilities of children. And I note that it is not recommended to use prescriptions at preschool age.
— By what age does a child develop a manner of writing?
- The "manner" of writing is the stability of the correct execution of all alphabetic elements, their height and width, the slope of the lines, the way the letters are connected, connectivity and other indicators.
For the majority of modern schoolchildren, these indicators are unstable even by the fourth grade. This means that the writing skill is not formed.
Ugly handwriting?
— Why do they learn to write everything in approximately the same way, the letters are written in the same copybook, but everyone has different kidneys?
— Differences in handwriting between children are due to two factors. The first is the maturity of the physiological functions of each individual child, the second is the method of teaching writing.
There are different approaches to teaching, different methods. In addition, the individual characteristics of the child's nervous system, his working capacity, and his state of health play a role.
Tips for parents
Show your child how to properly hold a writing object - the pen should lie on the upper phalanx of the middle finger and be fixed with the thumb and forefinger. In this case, the thumb should be above the index finger, and the tip of the pen should be oriented towards the shoulder.
For learning to write, get a special notebook or album - do not use lined paper.
At first, draw simple elements with your child : vertical sticks, sticks with rounded top and bottom, circles, and so on.
Try to visualize any information - when studying a letter, show it in pictures, show how the studied letter is written, while your hand movements should be slow and should be visible to the child.
Write or read? | Papmambuk
Grandmothers who torture children with prescriptions usually motivate their behavior in the following way: if he goes to school, it will be easier for him. In the meantime, he writes letters, you look, and learn to read.
The first argument seems dubious: why should it be hard now in order to make it easier later?
But the second argument is justified.
In the traditional school methodology, the so-called “literacy period” includes teaching both reading and writing at the same time.
Such an authoritative teacher as Maria Montessori also believed that writing should precede reading. In her system, teaching a child to write begins at the age of four. Moreover, this letter is “real”, calligraphic. And Maria Montessori, judging by her notes, achieved success along this path. In particular, according to her system, children with mental retardation were taught to write before entering school, which helped them integrate into the general education system of that time.
How was this explained? Writing, unlike reading, is a substantive activity: you put in the effort and the result is visible. This is important for the child. In addition, writing gives the "muscular experience" of the letter. Motor memory is included in the process of sign recognition. And when you write a syllable or a word, you merge the letters and involuntarily pronounce them. Therefore, writing really advances on the path to reading.
But there is one very important thing that Maria Montessori did not take into account. Writing is an activity related to drawing. And drawing during the development of the child performs many different functions. A child draws in a completely different way than an adult does. For a child, a drawing is a detailed message about the world around him and about his well-being. This is such a prototype. The classic of Russian psychology, Lev Vygotsky, said so: drawing in childhood precedes writing. But not writing in the sense of the sequential reproduction of letter icons, but in the sense of a written message, an essay.
A child's drawing is a prototype of written speech, a detailed written statement. In the drawing, the child masters the properties of the sign: it turns out that everything around can be depicted using special icons. And this message - in the form of icons - will be clear to others. That is why it is so important to ask children about what they have drawn. Of course, the child does not always tell what he has drawn. Often, in the course of the story, he begins to invent something or “sees” in his drawing something that was not there initially. This is fine. Even good. And this is another component of the development of children's imagination. For us now, the main thing is that an independent children's drawing is a prototype of written speech, in which the imagination is very strongly involved and which is emotionally loaded.
Writing at preschool age does not have one or the other.
Yes, you can teach your child to write early. Write beautifully and correctly.
And if you are Maria Montessori, then your young students will not even irrigate the recipes with tears. They will even love it. But with all due respect to Montessori, it is impossible to hide the fact that her pupils did not draw. Generally. This was not included in her program. And they didn't listen to fairy tales. Maria Montessori, an advanced woman of her time, was a consistent sensualist who believed that the basis of knowledge is the physiology of sensations. And the main thing in education is to develop these feelings. There is a lot of truth in this.
But everything that had to do with fantasy and imagination, she considered harmful. Fantasizing, in her opinion, leads the child away from reality, from a real understanding of himself and the environment.
In the 1920s, such thoughts without any connection with Montessori arose among Soviet teachers who professed materialistic philosophy. The so-called "fairy tale debate" that arose at that time called into question the value of many literary works.
These ideas proved to be quite tenacious.
But at the beginning of the 21st century, we can say with full confidence that the most important discoveries are made by people with a developed imagination. And that in general imagination is a necessary component of thinking. Not only humanitarian, but also mathematical. They say that modern physicists beat all records in terms of the level of development of the imagination.
So the child's imagination, from the point of view of a child's life prospects, should concern us no less than children's skills related to a possible problem-free existence in the first grade.
And so we must be aware of what drawing is for a child.
Drawing, I repeat, in the course of child development precedes written speech. Developed independent children's drawing is an indicator that the child will be able to express his thoughts in writing.
But, paradoxically, as soon as we begin to teach a child to write, this affects his drawing in the most sad way - simply because these are related activities and drawing is almost inevitably replaced by writing along the way.
Many of the children who draw interestingly and abundantly at a young age later lose this ability - if it is not supported by special efforts. That is, if drawing is not translated into another plane - into the plane of fine art.
It is for this reason that I would not advise parents to teach small children according to recipes.
But!
In addition to capital letters, there is the so-called "picture writing" - when a child depicts letters as he "can". when he draws them.
Picture writing differs from copywriting primarily in that it arises spontaneously: the child suddenly begins to draw letters on his own initiative. And most often these letters appear in children's drawings. They are elements of children's drawings - evidence that writing is born from drawing.
Such attempts by a child to draw letters should be appreciated and supported. They signal that the child has already grown up to perceive the letter as a sign. This is the first sign that it will soon be possible to teach him to read.
Moreover, he has already begun self-education. Only learning does not take place at the speed with which we want (and we want it at a speed close to the cosmic one), and not at all according to the system that we set ourselves up for. The letter as such, as the message fixed on paper, he has yet to open. And first he discovers the letter as a drawing.
Many parents have probably come across such a phenomenon as imitation of writing: wavy lines, hooks - this is how the child pretends to have written something. And he really wants you to read it. So read on, what do you need? Four year old - read. And be patient to wait until he himself understands that writing is something else.
It is impossible to say how the child will move from drawing letters to reading. More precisely, we can assume some scenarios with more or less active participation of parents. But the main thing is not to rush. The first letter in the picture is just the first sign of spring in learning to read.
When I say "take your time" I only mean the parents. If the request to learn something comes from the child, it must be immediately satisfied - in order to maintain cognitive interest in good shape.
But you remember what happened to five-year-old Frieder from Gudrun Mebs' story “Grandmother! Frieder shouts? Frieder wanted to learn how to write. And the grandmother showed him a sample. And Frieder could not repeat the written word. And terribly upset. Then the wise grandmother suggested that her grandson blind this word.
That is, here you also have to be inventive. And it will be right at this stage - an understandable children's request - to use the experience of mankind. In particular, the experience of the same Maria Montessori. And Montessori, who knew a lot about muscle memory, introduced tracing paper as one of the methods of teaching writing.
I have not seen a single child who would deny himself the pleasure of copying pictures, letters and words.
