Predicting Reading Ability from the ‘Invented’ Spellings of Kindergarten Children

In this study the ‘Invented Spelling Test’ developed by Mann, Tobin and Wilson (1987) was administered to 100 kindergarten children along with two tests of visual motor ability and a test of phoneme segmentation. One year later the children received standardized reading tests and portions of the WISC-R. Responses to the invented spelling test were scored with te Phonological Scoring System (PSS) developed by Mann, Tobin and Wilson (1987) and previously shown to be an effective predictor of first-grade reading scores. They were also scored in terms of 15 other attributes including the total number of items which the child responded to, te number of letters that were given, the number of correctly spelled responses, and such visual and morphological properties as the length and shape of each response, te presence of both upper and lower case letters, novel letters, intrusions, horizontal reversals, vertical reversals, semantic substitutions and derivational substitutions. Analysis of te various spelling scores reveals that kindergarten children are more likely to rely upon their awareness of the phonological structure of spoken words and knowledge of letter-sound correspondences than upon a memory of the visual form and shape of printed words. It also indicates that the phonological accuracy of invented spellings is strongly related to future reading ability, whereas other attributes are not. These results confirm that kindergarten spelling can be an effective predictor of future reading ability because it is an index of children’s awareness of the phonological structure of spoken words and their realization that written language transcribes that structure.