Nursery World - Phonics and writing

It is when children begin to write that they start to analyse the relationship between sounds and letters to great effect. Being encouraged to experiment with writing, rather than copying under an adult's supervision, will get children looking carefully at words and how they are spelled. As children encode words into print (rather than decoding them when they read), they have to process words slowly and analyse them down to their smallest parts - the sounds and the letters. When they do this, they are attending to the details of the print.

As children encode words into print (rather than decoding them when they read), they have to process words slowly and analyse them down to their smallest parts - the sounds and the letters. When they do this, they are attending to the details of the print.

Many practitioners will have observed children's early attempts at phonetic spelling with great excitement, as it offers important evidence of children's ability to link sounds to letters.

Phonic spelling strategies will only support children so far. There are many words that can be spelled phonetically. Equally, there are many that can't, and it will be necessary for children to learn a whole raft of rules, as well as being able to pay attention to the visual appearance of words.

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