Finnish kindergartners' literacy development in contextualized literacy episodes: A focus on spelling

This study focused on children's spelling development in a Finnish kinderga rten. We examined how and when spelling begins when children are provided g uided and meaningful literacy opportunities. Field notes, children's writin g samples, and four dictations, as well as pre- and postinstruction assessm ent of literacy-related tasks were analyzed to describe children's progress and strategies. Ar the start of the study, some children did not know any letters, while others who knew some letters did not necessarily use them in the first dictation, drawing instead. Classroom activities offered childre n opportunities to increase letter knowledge and demonstrated how to apply that knowledge. The assessment at the end of the study in Phase 1 demonstra ted a substantial growth in children's spelling: some children spelled almo st all the dictated words correctly most of the children used invented spel ling, and only one child used random letter strings for a few words. In add ition, children's reading developed so that several children were alphabeti c-phase readers. In Phase 2, all the children used alphabetic strategies.