Introduction: Unlocking Children’s Written Language
Welcome to your revision guide for Component 2: Child Language (8EN0/02)! In this chapter, we will explore the effect of learnt reading strategies on spelling (morphology).
When young children write, they do not just make random mistakes. Every non-standard spelling tells a story about how they are learning to read, hear, and construct language. In your exam, you will be given unseen written texts produced by children. Your job is not to act like a strict school teacher marking things "wrong"; instead, your job is to act like a linguist discovering the clever internal rules the child is using!
Don't worry if this feels tricky at first. We will break down key concepts into bite-sized chunks, look at how reading instruction shapes spelling, and learn the exact frameworks examiners want to see.
1. The Building Blocks: What is Morphology?
Before looking at reading strategies, let's look at the linguistic system children are trying to master: morphology.
Key Terms & Definitions
Morphology: The study of the structure of words and how they are formed using smaller units of meaning called morphemes.
Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in language. A word can be made of one or more morphemes.
Bound Morphemes: Units of meaning that cannot stand alone as independent words. They must attach to a root word. Common examples include grammatical suffixes like the past tense -ed (e.g., jump-ed) or the plural -s (e.g., cat-s).
Rule-Learning: Overgeneralisation & The "Wug" Test
As children acquire language, they actively deduce rules rather than simply copying what adults say.
Overgeneralisation: This happens when a child applies a regular morphological rule to an irregular word. For example:
• Saying or writing "runned" instead of "ran" (overapplying the regular past-tense bound morpheme -ed).
• Writing "mouses" instead of "mice" (overapplying the regular plural bound morpheme -s).
Did you know? In 1958, psycholinguist Jean Berko Gleason designed the famous "Wug" Test. She showed children a picture of an imaginary creature and said, "This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two..." Children as young as four replied with "wugs"! Because the word "wug" was completely made up, the children could not be imitating adults. This proved that children have internalised morphological rules and can apply bound morphemes to brand-new words.
Quick Review: Morphology
• Morphology = word structure.
• Bound morpheme = attached unit of meaning (e.g., -ed, -s).
• Overgeneralisation = applying a rule where it does not belong (e.g., "mouses").
• Gleason's "Wug" Test (1958) = proves children internalise morphological rules.
2. Learnt Reading Strategies: How Teaching Shapes Spelling
In the UK, children are taught to read using specific educational methods. The way a child is taught to read directly impacts how they attempt to spell words when writing.
1. Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP)
SSP is the primary reading strategy taught in the UK National Curriculum. It focuses on the direct relationship between letters and sounds:
• Segmenting: Breaking a spoken word down into its individual speech sounds (phonemes).
• Blending: Combining written letter patterns (graphemes) together to read a word aloud.
Effect on Spelling: When children write, they reverse this process by sounding words out letter-by-letter. This frequently leads to phonetic spelling. For example, a child may hear the final /t/ sound in "stopped" and write "stopt". This is a logical result of SSP instruction!
2. Analytic Phonics
Rather than breaking words into individual phonemes from left to right, Analytic Phonics encourages children to look at the whole word first and then break it into two parts:
• Onset: The initial consonant sound (e.g., the c- in cat).
• Rime: The vowel and following consonant sounds (e.g., the -at in cat).
Effect on Spelling: Children use rhyme analogies to spell new words (e.g., knowing how to spell "cat" helps them spell "bat", "hat", and "mat").
3. Look and Say (The Whole-Word Approach)
This visual method teaches children to recognise whole words by their visual shape and overall layout rather than sounding them out phonetically. It is often used for high-frequency or irregular "tricky" words that do not follow standard phonetic rules (e.g., said, the, one).
Effect on Spelling: Children taught primarily through this approach may produce fewer phonetic errors on common sight words, but they may struggle to construct or decode unfamiliar, complex morphological structures.
Key Takeaways: Reading Strategies
• Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP): Sound-to-letter mapping (phonemes to graphemes) \(\implies\) leads to phonetic spellings (e.g., "stopt").
• Analytic Phonics: Onset and rime breakdown (e.g., c-at).
• Look and Say: Memorising the visual shape of whole words.
3. Developmental Frameworks: Tracking Progress
When analysing a child’s writing in your exam, you should refer to established developmental stages to explain where the child is on their learning journey.
Gentry’s Stages of Spelling Development (1982)
Richard Gentry identified five clear stages children move through as they learn the orthographic (spelling) system:
1. Pre-communicative Stage: The child uses random letters, numbers, or symbols. There is no understanding of letter-sound correspondence (sound-symbol connection).
2. Semi-phonetic Stage: The child begins to understand letter-sound connections. They often use single letters to represent whole words or syllables (e.g., writing "U" for "you" or "M" for "me").
3. Phonetic Stage: The child systematically represents all the surface sounds they hear in a word using letters (e.g., writing "egul" for "eagle"). Their spelling is completely sound-based.
4. Transitional Stage: The child moves away from relying purely on sound and starts to incorporate visual and morphological patterns (e.g., writing "egle" instead of "egul"). They understand that English spelling has rules beyond raw phonetics.
5. Conventional Stage: The child has mastered standard English spelling, understanding complex letter patterns, irregular words, and morphological rules.
Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development (1981)
Barry Kroll identified four broader stages of children’s writing development:
• Preparation (up to age 6): The child acquires basic motor skills for handwriting and learns basic spelling principles.
• Consolidation (ages 7–8): The child writes in a way that closely mirrors their spoken language. Writing is colloquial, using simple declarative sentences and coordinating conjunctions (like "and").
• Differentiation (ages 9+): The child recognises that writing is different from speaking. They experiment with text types, genres, grammar, and more formal structures.
• Integration (mid-teens): The writer develops a personal "voice", adapting their style flexibly for different audiences and purposes.
4. Exam Technique: Avoiding Key Pitfalls in 8EN0/02
Examiners frequently highlight specific errors in Paper 2 responses. Here is how to avoid them and secure top marks:
1. Avoid the "Deficit Model"
• What weak answers do: Focus purely on what the child got wrong (e.g., "The child has poor spelling and made a mistake writing 'stopt'.").
• What top answers do: Highlight what the child can do and identify the strategy they used (e.g., "The child demonstrates strong phonetic awareness by applying Systematic Synthetic Phonics to spell the phoneme /t/ in 'stopt'.").
2. Analyse Morphology (Do Not Just "Feature Spot")
When you see an unusual spelling, look closely at its root and its affixes (bound morphemes):
If a child writes "stopt" instead of "stopped":
• Morphological Success: The child understands the word represents a past-tense action and correctly identifies the root verb "stop".
• Phonetic Strategy: Because of Systematic Synthetic Phonics instruction, the child transcribes the phonetic pronunciation /stɒpt/ where the regular -ed suffix sounds like /t/.
3. Do Not Confuse Spoken and Written Features
Never claim a child has a "speech impediment" or "cannot speak properly" just because of a non-standard spelling. Spelling is a complex visual, motor, and cognitive process; non-standard spelling reflects a developing understanding of the orthographic system, not necessarily a speech defect.
Quick Revision Checklist
Before your exam, make sure you can:
✔ Define morphology and bound morphemes.
✔ Explain overgeneralisation and reference Gleason's "Wug" Test (1958).
✔ Explain how Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP), Analytic Phonics, and Look and Say influence spelling choices.
✔ Accurately name and apply Gentry’s 5 Stages of Spelling (Pre-communicative, Semi-phonetic, Phonetic, Transitional, Conventional).
✔ Place written data into Kroll’s Stages of Writing (Preparation, Consolidation, Differentiation, Integration).
✔ Write analytically about children's writing using an asset-based approach rather than a deficit approach.