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School has started, routines are falling into place, and homework is beginning to make its appearance. Lyla (K) is eager to show off what she knows, while Nolan (5th) sometimes needs extra encouragement to complete his homework. As they grow another year older, one of the common challenges we face as parents is knowing how much help to provide, especially at the beginning of the school year.

Writing will increasingly become a regular part of your child’s homework from kindergarten through fifth grade. This often brings up questions like: How much help should I give? How many corrections should I make? Should I provide the correct spelling? Understanding the concept of invented spelling and how it evolves as children grow can help answer these questions.

The Role of Invented Spelling in Literacy Development

Writing is about communication; if our message isn’t clear, it can be lost. This is why teaching correct spelling is important, but it’s also important to recognize the role of invented spelling in the learning process. Invented spelling is what we see when children are trying to “sound out” words and write down the letters that correspond to the sounds they hear. For example, a child might write “ct” for cat, “jriv” for drive, or “bote” for boat. These are not mistakes but rather examples of children using their understanding of sounds and letter patterns to approximate the spelling of words.

Supporting Invented Spelling at Home

Children typically learn how letters combine to form words in a predictable sequence, starting with simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words like “hip” and progressing to more complex patterns like vowel teams (e.g., “ai” in paint) and multi-syllabic words. It’s important to remember that children often read approximately two stages above what they can spell. For example, they might be able to read the word “shape” but spell it as “shap” because the concept of the silent “e” often comes after learning blends and digraphs.

When reviewing your early elementary child’s writing, if you can sound out what they’ve written and it closely matches the intended word, it’s appropriate to celebrate their effort and leave it as is. If they miss some sounds, you can help by stretching out the word together, listening for all the sounds, and writing down the letters representing those sounds.

Transitioning to Conventional Spelling

So, how and when should we help our children move from invented spelling to conventional spelling? According to the IES Practice Guide: Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers, kindergarten and first-grade students should be encouraged to invent spellings for words they do not know or to spell words phonetically. For instance, spelling “wuz” for “was” is perfectly acceptable at this stage.

By second grade, you can encourage your child to begin reviewing the spelling they generate to see if it contains all the sounds they hear AND if it looks correct and matches known spelling patterns. If it doesn’t look right, they should try different spelling patterns that match a certain sound until it does. For example, paint might be spelled as pante, paynt, and paint. Again, this approach works because students typically read at a higher level than they can spell. If they come across a word they’ve written, they can ask themselves: “Does this look like the word I would see in a book?”

By third and fourth grades, you should encourage your children to think about the number of syllables in a word before attempting to spell it, then spell each syllable and check for plausibility. Finally, all students in grades 2-6 should be encouraged to spell by analogy—using known words to help spell new words. For example, if they know how to spell “lamp,” they can use that knowledge to spell “stamp.”

Conventional spelling is a gradual process, but it begins with invented spelling. So, the next time you review your child’s writing, think about the role of invented spelling and encourage them to listen for the sounds and write them down. Your support and understanding will help them grow as confident, capable writers.