He has been emailing me quite a bit lately and is, in fact, not a great speller. Using inventive spelling is not a way to get poor spellers. She had been given lots of direct attention to her specific reading and writing needs and lots of opportunities to do both. I am so thankful that her teachers did not make her practice handwriting over and over and let her write and encouraged her to write better so others would be able to read it rather than assigned practice for handwriting's sake. By 3rd she had perfectly legible writing and in 4th very nice cursive.
Some children are naturally less risk taking and more perfectionistic.
My son is one. I do not have a lot of early writing from him. His K teacher did not encourage writing, except handwriting. He had to learn to write twice. He learned one style in FL, then started 1st in CA and had to learn d'nealian.