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This article describes a model of literacy development, as reflected in students’ spelling. The model, based on research that has identified five stages of word knowledge, explains the development of this knowledge in readers and writers, and provides a framework for elementary-grade instruction that is intended to: 1) address grade-level expectations established by the English/Language Arts standards of the Common Core State Standards, and 2) describe a developmentally appropriate approach to instruction. The model also informs the assessment of word or orthographic knowledge in order to gain insight into the range of developmental levels in a classroom, and to guide instruction in whole-class and small-group contexts. Examples focus on a third-grade classroom in which the range of developmental levels includes beginning, transitional, and intermediate readers and writers, and suggest the implications of developmentally grounded instruction for supporting students’ growth toward achieving grade-specific Common Core State Standards in reading and language arts.

Assessments of developmental spelling, also called spelling inventories, are commonly used to understand students' orthographic knowledge (i.e., knowledge of how written words work) and to determine their stages of spelling and reading development. The information generated by these assessments is used to inform teachers' grouping practices and instructional priorities. While relatively easy to administer, developmental spelling assessments can be time-consuming to score and are susceptible to human error in both the scoring and the interpretation of results. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an online version of a commonly used spelling inventory, making the assessment more efficient and accessible and the results more reliable for teachers and scholars alike. Implications for practice and directions for further research are discussed.

This article addresses the characteristics of learners in the emergent stage of literacy development and describes two instructional practices that facilitate the development of the alphabetic principle and concept of word in text.