ABSTRACT
There has been a growing body of research that has been primarily concerned with how young children develop an understanding of the English orthographic system. Studies of orthographic awareness by Read (1975) and Beers and Henderson (1977) examined writing done by kindergarten and first graders to determine how these children use their knowledge of oral language as they write. Results of their exploratory work led to the realization that 5- and 6-year-olds rely heavily on their understanding of English phonology as they begin to write. This reliance was particularly evident in the spelling of corresponding tense and lax front vowels (for example, the e in Pete, or i in pit) and preconsonant nasals (n in went, and m in jump). Beers and Henderson later identified a sequence of spelling stages in the writing of first graders. The stages ranged from the use of articulatory features of sounds to the use of phoneme–graphemic and morphophonemic features in words.
