Developmental stage theory of spelling: analysis of consistency across four spelling-related activities

New theories continue to emerge to help us understand how children learn and how to effectively teach them. We must be mindful, however, of the value of previously developed and well-established theories. This paper presents findings from a study that investigated the consistency with which children perform within a given developmental stage of spelling. This study expands upon previous understanding of the developmental stage theory of spelling by examining children s spelling consistency across a broad range of spelling related activities (word lists, natural writing samples, editing activities and word sorting activities). The findings of this study indicate that children s orthographic knowledge aligns very consistently with their current stage of spelling development across a range of activities