I recently watched a webinar promising to share tools to improve reading proficiency “according to the Science of Reading.” The presenter recommended a spelling inventory as a powerful way to assess what students know about the language and how they use that knowledge to encode, as well as decode, words. No inventory was offered (participants were certainly asking in the Chat!). The presenter suggested teachers “make one up to use with their students.” I’ve been an educator for nearly 50 years. My research on how children learn to spell started 33 years ago. I was noticing how spelling attempts reflected what students had available to them as readers. If they weren’t chunking the word as a speller, they didn’t use that strategy when reading. If they were having trouble writing words with short vowels, I saw them working hard to sound out short vowel words as they read. So, as a veteran educator who spent hours researching spelling instruction, I know creating an inventory is not quite as simple as the webinar presenter made it sound. In this article I provide some background to why a spelling inventory is useful and offer one that effectively works in today’s classrooms and is rooted in the Science of Reading.
What we know from research
To begin, we must go back to Read’s (1971) findings in his landmark study of preschool children’s invented spellings. He argued that their attempts were not random. Children’s errors made sense, based on their operating knowledge of the language. Others continued that research with older children and found commonalities in how they learn to spell (Henderson & Beers, 1980). After close examination we can see children’s spelling attempts shift systematically and longitudinally (Beers & Henderson, 1977) based on their ever-changing experiences with print. As they learn the structure of language, the phoneme-grapheme relationships, and meaning bearing words parts (prefix, suffix, roots) they begin to understand orthographic patterns. This long-standing research provides insights into how children learn to become conventional spellers as well as informs instructional planning.
We know memorization is not an efficient mode for learning to spell. We memorize the sequence of letters, but do not retain the word. Rather, “orthographic mapping is the cognitive process we use to store words for later, instant, and effortless retrieval. It involves connecting something we already know (the word’s pronunciation) to something we are trying to learn (the printed form of the word)” (Kilpatrick, 2020, p. 13). We’ve all seen the student who can ace the Friday test but doesn’t independently apply that knowledge the next week when engaged in writing. They’ve memorized, but not conceptualized the words. We know there is sense to the English language if the patterns are examined. Words related in meaning are related in spelling (Fresch, 2023) and there are “rules” that work!
So now we must evaluate what our students can do and cannot yet do. Once we have this information at hand, small groups, just as we do for reading, can accelerate learning because we have hit the “sweet spot” of needed instruction.
Spelling inventories
Back to my 30+ years ago, sitting in classrooms, watching students learn to be readers and writers. I developed a friendship with a third-grade teacher (Aileen Wheaton). She was frustrated by the spelling she was seeing in the students’ writing. We dove into the research and learned how reading and spelling are parallel processes that inform each other. We learned how students build knowledge as they spend time with print. Eventually, we wrote an article for The Reading Teacher (Fresch & Wheaton, 1997) describing her redesigned spelling approach (called Sort, Search, and Discover) and were then invited by Scholastic Books to turn it into a book. While writing Teaching and Assessing Spelling (2002), we took our classroom-based research experiences and developed the S.K.I. (Spelling Knowledge Inventory). How do we know what individual students need? Our goal was to give teachers a tool that worked, was doable during an already busy Language Arts block, and could provide a wealth of information for lesson planning. The S.K.I. ties directly to the origin of the word assess. The word, assess, comes from Latin meaning to “sit beside.” What better way to understand what our students can and cannot yet do?
S.K.I. acknowledges how students build knowledge. Just as we have a scope and sequence when teaching phonics, we must consider the building blocks of learning the language. Students must learn short vowels so they can apply that knowledge later in multi-syllabic words. They must learn ways to predict how something is spelled by the possible letter(s) that make those sounds. There is sense to how that knowledge builds and we used that to evaluate what students know.
The first inventory covers literacy knowledge primary teachers would be fully aware of – when did the student:
●learn print goes left to right,
●start to string letters to imitate words,
●use alphabet to represent sounds nearly or ccurately,
●show understanding of letter/sound relationships, and
●develop concept of word?
All these skills need to be in place to begin assessing what comes next. The next inventory assessed features such as short vowels, /e/ marker, initial consonants, /r/ controlled, and preconsonant nasals (Figure 1). While words are provided with S.K.I. II, changes can be made based on your students’ experiences. If I just completed a unit on family pets, I might want to choose something other than “dog” for the short vowel word. Substituting a similar word, but one that will have students thinking, such as pot, will help assess that vowel with a novel word. The inventories allow you to view multiple features, not just the one noted. For instance, S.K.I. III (Figure 2) has shopping (while chosen to assess doubling before adding
endings it also assesses digraphs and short vowels) and dropped, which also assesses doubling as well as dr (often spelled jr as that is how our ear hears it) and ed (the /t/ sound). The S.K.I. IV (Figure 3) assesses several categories of words such as homonyms, derivations, and vowel/consonant alternations. While choosing these words additional features are assessed such as vowels sounds and suffixes. All the features across the inventories give you a wealth of knowledge about the student.
How to administer
Using the inventories provided (II, III, IV) choose the most appropriate one with which to begin. As noted in our book:
●Inventory II is for students who have begun using some letter/sound strategies to represent their spellings (end of kindergarten/first grade/second grade).
●Inventory III is for students who have begun to master the ability to spell their words more conventionally (first grade/second grade/third grade/fourth grade).
●Inventory IV is for students who have a good grasp of spelling and are working with more difficult vocabulary (third grade and up). (Fresch & Wheaton, 2002, p. 162).
I start with one that will give students some success. For instance, I start third and fourth graders with S.K.I. II to give them confidence and to be sure they understand those specific word features. Once a student scores 50% or less I stop testing. The power in the three inventories is not only the quantitative but qualitative results. Student A may write dg, mc, rp, rm…but Student B may spell them as daug, mak, rip, arm. While they each have not acquired a score showing mastery, the attempts are vastly different. Student B is including vowels and using letter/sound relationships that Student A cannot yet do. The qualitative analysis tells what these students can do and how instruction needs to differ.
Next I look at the features and see if there is a pattern. As noted earlier, there is some overlap in the inventories to give me multiple windows into their thinking. Create a table of the word features of the inventories across the top and each student’s name down the side. Check off who shows mastery. I jot down the unconventional spelling a student might write if it is close to being correct. This tells me they almost have that feature and is a good one to focus on during instruction. This chart will help later in creating small groups for instruction.
Consider repeating administration of the assessment at a later date. Using the same words, you will clearly gauge growth and development. In a district I worked with for year-long professional development, teachers in grades 1-8 gave the S.K.I. at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. We worked on developing needed word sorts and creating small groups. At each administration we could see developing phonics knowledge and a compass to the next instructional plans. We could also see how the reading program they were using did not help students solidify some their knowledge before moving on and what gaps became glaringly obvious in the scope and sequence. What we noticed, what we hoped for, was how “word aware” the students became. “Mrs. Kramer! This word would fit in those sorts we did last week!” What better testament could there be to meeting the students where they needed the most instruction?
Now what?
While there is much that can be said about teaching spelling, here are some ideas to incorporate into what you already do. Create small groups based on the inventory results. Choose a word feature that group is still not fully successful in using independently. Choose words the students can independently read. Giving words that students cannot read sends us right back to the memorization of letter sequence, not learning to spell. Don’t be afraid to choose words you might think are “too easy.” In a word sort study Aileen and I did in her fifth grade (1997), we asked students to sort Long /i/ words: night, bright, flight, right, twice, wise, nine, smile, prize, fly, try, and style. Not very complex words for fifth grade. But we found ruminating with words you know is like spending time with an old friend. They could read the words, they knew what they meant, and they could spend time listening to, seeing, and sorting the words. We learned to not assume they would see what we see and loved those “aha” moments when a student made the connection across contexts. During that research, we asked students to think out loud as they sorted. We videotaped and listened. The sorting was a hands-on activity in an area of the curriculum we often see as “in our head” only. The very act of sorting teaches students to look at and think about the letters they see and the sounds they make. Sorting requires hypothesis testing as students compare and contrast words. It helps make words memorable, rather than memorized.
Once you put small groups together, choose a feature they can explore that will impact both reading and writing. For example, if I have first graders still working on hearing short o:
1. Introduce concept: Gather the small group of students. Explain that you are going to listen and look for words where the vowel makes the “short and long o” sounds. (Note: start building the language of language. I once had a fifth grader tell me he didn’t know what a vowel was – which was missing in his spelling attempt – but then he rallied to tell me “those are the letters you buy on Wheel of Fortune!”)
2. Give examples: Show a picture card of an octopus and one of an oval to represent the two vowel sounds. Ask the students what vowel sounds they hear at the beginning of “octopus.” Next, ask them to tell the sound they hear at the beginning of “oval.” Show some picture cards that contain either sound (such as, dog, coat, mop, clock, boat, nose). Ask them to help you sort these picture cards for the sound the “o” makes.
3. Students generate more examples: Ask students to use a book they are currently reading to find words with long or short “o” vowel sound. This tells me these are words they can read and now manipulate. Write these on the board and talk about them. Which picture do they go with – octopus or oval? Students might find words such as about which gives you the opportunity to ask them to read the word aloud…does that word have the long or short vowel? We can’t just pick a word for the single letter…so they can learn to start being discerning in the ones they find in print.
4. Independent work: provide a list of 6 words with long and short “o” from the ones students found or allow students to pick 6 from the list they would like to learn. Ask each student to write the words on another sheet of paper. (You can plan to test later in the week if you choose.)
5. Bring closure to the lesson: Discuss the importance of using their spelling B.E.E. and write on the board: B for brain (think first), E for ears (listen), E for eyes (look at the words). Describe for your learners how we first think of the word, listen to the sounds, then look for the letters to make that sound. Prompt children to think out loud about what they see and hear in a word. As a final check, ask them to look at the word they wrote. Does that look like a word they would see in a book?
With sixth graders I might do the following:
1. Introduce concept: Gather a small group of students needing instruction on long vowels in complex patterns (-igh; i+consonant+e-marker). Write 12 words on individual word cards. These might include slight, fertilize, scribe, higher, divide, fright, define, sighed, twilight, arrive, divide, and thigh. Again, be sure they can read the words. Go over each and take out any challenging ones. Explain they are to use their B.E.E. to sort these words by how they sound and are spelled. (You can choose to tell them they are all long “i” words or you can let them discover the patterns.)
2. Work collaboratively: The students will work together to sort the words and discover the ways long -i can be spelled. Encourage students to verbalize their rationale behind putting the words in the categories they did. Students should label each category they have created (for example, long -i, spelled “igh”).
3. Students generate other examples: Using a variety of texts (fiction, science texts,
mathematics texts, and so on – glossaries are especially helpful), students hunt for these patterns for the categories they have created.
4. Independent work: Have students select 6-8 words from the ones they sorted or from the ones they found in books. Ask them to write these in a list for study purposes. (You can plan to test later in the week if you choose.)
5. Bring closure to the lesson: Discuss with students how they have just looked at words
with multiple spellings for the same sound. Bring clarity by explicitly pointing out the
language features that were your objectives for this activity.
Final thoughts
As a reminder, the “Science of Reading” is not a philosophy, program, or curriculum. Instruction should be research based. Using a spelling inventory supports the Science of Reading in several ways. We can see the thinking our students use as they rely on their phonemic awareness, the phonics they have learned, and the orthographic mapping and vocabulary they have developed. Using the results of the inventories requires both a quantitative and qualitative analysis. By looking closely at what our students can do and what they can almost do (but not yet independently) throws a beacon of light on our next instructional moves.
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