An Investigation of Task Requirements Associated with the Invented Spellings of 4-Year-Olds with above Average Intelligence

Abstract

This study examined whether conscious use of phonological knowledge is associated with invented spelling and whether a relation exists between invented spelling and reading. Thirty-two 4-year-olds with scores of 116 or higher on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test were classified as Non-spellers and Inventive Spellers based on their spellings of 10 words on the Invented Spelling Test. All subjects were administered 11 different tasks which examined alphabet knowledge, word segmentation, sound/letter association, and reading knowledge. Results indicated that all subjects displayed a similar ability when required to recite the alphabet, recognize uppercase letter names, segment words into syllables, and identify basic concepts about print. Inventive Spellers demonstrated superiority at letter/sound identification and segmentation of words by phonemes. Although significant differences were observed between Non-spellers and Inventive Spellers on wordknowledge tasks, dramatic differences among Inventive Spellers were evident. Forty-four percent of the Inventive Spellers were found to be Proficient Word Readers whereas the remaining 56% displayed reading proficiency at a similar level as the Non-spellers. A relation was found between spelling ability and conscious use of phonological knowledge; however, word reading appeared to be a related (but separate) ability from word writing.