ABSTRACT
In comparison to the large body of research on reading, the study of spelling has been somewhat neglected. This chapter is designed to redress this neglect by reviewing recent work on how children learn to spell in English. The chapter focuses on beginning spellers—children in first grade and even younger. Part of the motivation for studying such young children is that if children can get off to a good start with writing and reading, many later difficulties can be avoided. Most of the research to be discussed deals with American English, although implications for other dialects and other languages are mentioned. To set the stage, the first section of the chapter discusses early ideas about how children learn to spell in English. The following sections review more recent research, including research done by me and my colleagues. This research has examined young children’s misspellings, seeking to uncover the reasons for their errors. The results suggest that children bring their knowledge of the sound structure of the language and their knowledge of the names of letters to the spelling task. Certain common spelling errors that might otherwise be difficult to explain make sense when this knowledge is taken into account.
