ABSTRACT
With the spread of “whole-language instruction” into classrooms, more and more primary teachers are incorporating student writing into their curriculum. Because beginners lack sufficient knowledge of English orthography and the spellings of specific words, they are encouraged to invent spellings in order to get their ideas on paper. It is important to understand how spelling knowledge develops, how beginners invent spellings of words, whether and how this relates to learning correct spellings, and how spelling knowledge grows as a consequence of spelling instruction, reading instruction, and also reading and writing practice.
