Finally, children learn to write and spell as adults do. When children use invented spellings, they listen to the sounds they hear in a word and then write the letters that they believe represent those sounds. At first, children might hear only the first sound, or the first and last sounds, in a word. As they learn more about the sounds of letters and get better at recognizing those sounds, they add more letters to their invented spellings. Eventually, invented spellings move closer to the regular spellings that adults use.
Young children have important messages and stories they want to share with others.
Using invented spellings allows them to share their ideas as they develop their writing skills. If they had to wait until they learned all the rules of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, many of their exciting and important thoughts would be lost. What You Can Do to Help with Writing Be a writing model for your child. Use writing in your home and let your child know what you are doing. For example, when you are making shopping lists and to-do lists, or writing telephone numbers and messages, letters, and cards, tell your child what you are doing.