An Innovative App for Analysis of Invented Spellings in an Interactive Learning Environment

摘要

Invented spellings refer to incorrect attempts to spell words while writing, which are important indicators of children's development of phonemic awareness. Making Words is a popular activity to teach phonics and spelling, in which students manipulate letters in sequence to construct target words and then sort them into rhyming patterns. This research develops an innovative Making Words app and investigates teachers' perceptions of using it to teach phonics and spelling. Not only may the app assist classroom teachers in preparing and teaching Making Words lessons including student management, customization of lesson with appropriate difficulty levels, it may improve their teaching efficiency through automated analysis of children's invented spelling patterns. The results indicate the app's usefulness and ease of use from teachers' perspective, and their willingness to integrate it into phonic and spelling instruction curriculum to provide more engagement for students in an interactive learning environment.