Independent writing and reading right from the start: the language experience approach in German classrooms

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Erika Brinkmann
Independent writing and reading right from the start:
the language experience approach in German classrooms
1
Learning to read and write is a very personal activity. The language experience
approach takes the different experiences of children before school seriously and
motivates them through personally important encounters with print to expand these
experiences and their competence. Free writing and invented spelling are key
activities in this process.
Long before school, children encounter print in their environment. Based on their
individual experiences, they develop ideas of what role literacy plays in everyday life
and associate positive or negative feelings with the activities of reading and writing. For
some children, writing is so interesting at an early age that they already get to grips
with it very intensively and begin to understand in principle how reading and writing
work technically, other children are more interested in other things and only casually
perceive print in their environment.
The language experience approach is a concept of teaching reading and writing that
takes the different experiences of children seriously - based on the following key ideas
(cf. Brügelmann/ Brinkmann 2012):
 Writing is a medium with its own logic, but due to its underlying alphabetical principle
its structure has a close relationship to spoken language. The promotion of reading
and writing should therefore first of all be linked to the spoken language, both in
content and form, and make clear the mutual translatability of its spoken and written
forms, but also their respective peculiarities (for example, that in writing different
phonetic variants are represented by one and the same grapheme).
 Without insight into the functions of reading and writing, many children lack the
motivation to engage in the cognitive and motor efforts required for the complex
acquisition of the technical aspects of written language. In the classroom reading
and writing therefore should be staged as a cultural practice that makes individually
significant experiences possible.
 Learning to read and write is a process of active reconstruction of the writing
system by the children. These therefore need scope and time for individual
approaches and for experimenting with intermediate forms while gradually aquiring
the conventions.
1
Translation of: Brinkmann, E. (2018): Der Spracherfahrungsansatz im Anfangsunterricht. In:
Grundschule, 50. Jg., H. 6, 28-32.

 However, progress in this development is possible only through the encounter with
alternatives to one's own experiments. Therefore, adults with writing experience are
important as models for reading and writing, but also for giving specific feedback,
for example by confronting the singular of the respective children's writing
attempts with the norms of adult writing. Equally important is the cooperation and
exchange with other children whose divergent reading and writing activities can also
stimulate or challenge ("learning with and from one another“).
The implementation of these basic ideas is conceivable in various forms. We have
systematised them as a "4-pillar model" as an organisational framework for teaching,
which focusses on the following activities (cf. Brügelmann 1986):
(I) Reading rich and interesting stories to the group – and allowing for individual
reading and viewing of books of one's own choice;
(II) stimulating children’s free writing of texts on personally important topics in their
own language and their publication in books, on posters, through reading them to the
group;
(III) explaining and modelling basic ways of dealing with print in order to make its
technical structure comprehensible and to further develop the individually available
strategies of reading and writing;
(IV) preparing space for individual exercises with a limited vocabulary of particularly
frequent and personally important words to automatize basic reading and spelling
patterns.
We have presented concrete didactic formats for structuring such an "open teaching" in
the "Ideenkiste Schriftsprache", a flexible file for teachers (Brinkmann/Brügelmann
1993/2010). The tasks and activities are assigned to eight learning fields within the
framework of a didactic map (cf. Brügelmann 1986), in which all children should gain
experience during their initial lessons - albeit at different levels. Secondly, as an
alternative to the small-step primer course, we have developed the "ABC Learning
Landscape" with materials for independent work for pupils in years 1 to 6 (cf. Brinkmann
et al. 2008ff).
Learning to read by reading
The aim of primary school, to develop the reading ability of all children as far as
possible, can only be achieved through activities that respond to the great differences
in previous experience with writing. Children must have the chance to experience
reading (and writing) as meaningful activities in a stimulating literacy culture. That
means specifically:

- From the very beginning, the classroom offers a wide range of picture and children's
books to suit the different skills and interests of the children.
- Regular "free reading times" with individually selected reading encourage access to
books as a matter of course.
- The - often dialogical - reading aloud of challenging children's literature creates rich
occasions for discussion and writing through joint reading experiences.
- The presentation of individually read texts in the classroom and their evaluation (by
ticking smileys, first across the board, then increasingly differentiated according to
various criteria, even later in the form of freely formulated reviews) serve to reflect
what has been read and can arouse the interest of other children.
- Children have the opportunity to read their own texts and those of others in public
after they have been able to prepare themselves specifically for the presentation.
- „Reading passports“ and later „reading diaries“ can document the development of the
individual reading biography comprehensibly for outsiders.
- Digital media can meaningfully support and supplement the handling of print media if
their special audiovisual possibilities are utilized properly (e. g. by highlighing printed
word that are read aloud by the computer voice).
Parallel to establishing such a „reading culture“, the technical structure of written
language and reading strategies are repeatedly made the common theme of work in the
classroom. Even the independent writing of the childen‘s „own words“ (see below)
supports the development when the word to be spelled has to be read over and over
again from the beginning while searching for the next letter. In order to link this
reading with the content-oriented expectation of meaning, tasks such as the "word bag"
or the "reading crocodile" are recommended, in which written words are made visible
grapheme-wise step-by-step, the corresponding sound is named and the children then
think about the meaning: "which word can this (still) become". In order for children to
take on the effort of meaningful reading, a broad range of interesting and at the same
time easy-to-read texts have to be accessible.
Criteria for books for beginning readers
- many pictures, so that the children can already guess what the text is about - then
the even more arduous reading is easier;
- limited amount of text - at first single words or a short sentence per page, a clear,
sans-serif font (at least 18 points, initially CAPITAL letters) that facilitates the
recognition of the individual letters;
- short words that contain as few consonant clusters and complex orthographic
patterns as possible (so that the texts do not become too boring by exclusively simple

words, the meaning of essential content-bearing complex words can be made
accessible over a (picture – word) legend in the book).
Developing orthographic competence through invented spelling
From the beginning, the children are encouraged and supported to write about what is
important to them: first single words, then simple sentences and finally small texts.
This free writing has three important advantages:
- The children can experience and use written language as a powerful instrument to
record and share their personal ideas and experiences and thus gain a high motivation to
face up to the efforts of learning to read and write.
- Through the continuous analysis and synthesis of sounds and letters, they understand
the alphabetical structure as an essential principle of our written language and
consolidate the individual phonetic-letter relationships (implicit phonics training).
- Spelling the words at the respective level of ability enables independent and precise
individualisation „from below“ despite the developmental differences of up to three
years at the beginning of school.
As they write, the children speak the words to themselves and increasingly spell the
phonetic sequence so precisely that a third person can read them again. Central help is a
picture-sound-table on which the letters are assigned to images with the corresponding
initials. At first, the children only note particularly noticeable sounds (for example TMT
for „tomato“). With an increasingly complete representation of the sounds, correct
spellings often succeed: MOM, DAD, CAT. More complex words remain incomplete at
first, because they are only written in phonetic format, e.g. FITE for „fight“ or
DIFRINT for „different“. But this phonetic writing is the basis necessary for the
acquisition of orthographic patterns.
Empirical evidence on the effects of invented spelling
In the meantime, there are solid empirical findings from German and international
research which prove the particular advantages of phonetic transcription as an
approach to spelling development (cf. Brügelmann 1989; 1993; 1998; Hecker et al.
2018).
- Pre-school children who start writing without instruction write words first according
to their pronunciation, as has been found in different countries – regardless of their
mother tongue.
- In the development of spelling, children of all ability groups first perfect the
phonetic writing of words before increasingly using spelling patterns. This also applies

outside of the vocabulary practiced at school and even when they have undergone
intensive, orthographically focused spelling lessons right from the start.
- Studies on pupils with weak spelling show that they often - as is normal for
beginners at first - do not even manage the auditory rough structuring of words, at
least they still have difficulties with consistent transcription of sounds. The same
problem can be seen in adolescent and adult illiterates.
- Orthographically oriented spelling support is of real benefit to children with spelling
difficulties only if they are have mastered the alphabetic transcription stage.
- In the alphabetical phase false spellings are not „engraved“ in memory, because the
children construct even frequently used words afresh again and again;
and also the strategies of the children do not solidify, as:
- Already in first class there is a very close correlation between the phonetic
transcription of non- or pseudo-words and the correct spelling of real words (.80).
- Moreover, German and Anglo-Saxon longitudinal studies find a high correlation
(around .60) between the level of early phonetic transcription of words and later
correct spelling.
"Book writing" as the goal
Although we respect the invented spellings writing of the children as a way of writing
according to their stage of development, the standard of "adult writing" is made clear
to them from the beginning and it is exemplified to the children through concrete
models for spelling peculiarities. The following didactic formats have proved their worth
in practice (see the contributions in Brinkmann 2015, pp. 44ff. and pp. 227ff. for more
detailed explanations and specific methods):
- Already the first words written by children are „translated“ into orthographically
correct "book writing" by the teacher or another experienced writer and placed next to
or under the children's writing attempts "because this makes your text easier to read
for others".
- As soon as the children spell words in a (phonetically) readable form, their attention
can increasingly be drawn to the correct spelling. To do this, they are asked to put dots
in the "book-writing translation" under the letters which they have written already
correctly in their own spelling of these words.
- When children start writing small texts on topics of their choice, they need certain
words over and over again. From each text they then select two to four such (for them
personally) "important words" and transfer them in book-writing form onto index cards
or into their personal ABC booklet. In addition, the most common two hundred

(functional) words - provided they contain spelling peculiarities - are gradually added for
all children. This - partly individual, partly common - basic vocabulary then is the subject
of repeated self- or partner dictations, with the individual child practicing only those
words with which he or she really has difficulties. When practicing, the child follows the
following five steps:
- Take a good look at the word and pay attention to its special features.
- Cover the word or turn it around.
- Write it down from memory.
- Compare it to the original.
- If there are mistakes: Correct your spelling.
Increasingly, the children themselves are given responsibility for the revision of their
texts - with assignments that are oriented to their respective stage of development:
- Basic jobs such as: "pay attention to spaces between words", "set closing signs at the
end of sentences", "check capitalization at the beginning of sentences", and (in German)
"capitalize all nouns" are already suitable for children's first own texts.
- Critical orthographical features are marked by the teacher in two to three selected
words that the child should think about and correct him/herself, with the help of
others or a dictionary.
- Later on the teacher will mark three to five incorrect words (not the concrete
mistakes) that the child should correct.
- Finally, she marks only the lines, or gives just a general reference to the number of
errors in the text.
Only after the children have tried to correct the text on their own, the teacher checks
and corrects it, initially as a complete translation into „book spelling“.
At the same time, spelling conversations are held two to three times a week in class
about the "hard word of the day", where the procedure is always the same:
- The teacher names a word with increasingly demanding spelling peculiarities.
- First individually, then in a partner or table conversation and finally together with the
teacher the children consider reasons for the respective spelling and copy the the
correctly written word.
- Strategies and rules of thumb are worked out together and - with a view to a
summarizing poster - repeatedly addressed anew in the discussions, for example: Do you
know any other words „from the same family“? Do you know a rule of thumb that usually
helps (e.g. how to mark a short vowel in spelling).
- Exceptions to rules of thumb - for example concerning the marking of words with a
long vowel - the children gradually collect on the corresponding page of their booklet
for "memorable words" as clusters.

Spelling discussions in primary school
Spelling conversations are a format of work in which students regularly reflect
together on the spelling of complex words. In these conversations it should be
clarified step by step why the word in question has to be written like this and not
differently in orthography.
In the course of the current evaluation of these spelling conversations in our project
in Bremen (cf. Brinkmann/Brügelmann 2018), almost 600 children in 34 third grades
took part in one to three such conversations per week over half a school year. A
poster with (thumb) rules for spelling was used to clarify and explain common
spellings. Before and after the project phase, the children's spelling performance was
measured with the Hamburg Writing Test for Third Grades (HSP3), whose standard
sample served as a virtual comparison group. A summary of the most important
results:
- With a jump from an average of 160 to 171 of 191 correct graphemes between
autumn 2017 and spring 2018, the classes improved far above average compared to
the HSP3 standard sample:
- The average increase in correct graphemic of + 6 percentage points and an effect
size of 1.1 means a twice as high learning gain of the experimental group compared to
a group of the HSP3 standardization sample comparable in orthographic comptence at
the beginning.
- Especially children in the lower performance ranges profited from the spelling
conversations: Within six months, this group made progress that would normally only
have been expected after more than one school year, given this low starting level.
Other more complex support programmes, which (a) were used in addition to class
lessons, (b) with more time and (c) in smaller groups, generally do not achieve a higher
increase.
Final remark
Teaching according to the language experience approach does not mean letting children
write "as they like" - but how they can. Above all the children are not left "alone", but
experience reading and writing in a stimulating literacy environment with diverse
challenges and concrete support where needed.
The author:
Erika Brinkmann is deputy chairwoman of the German Primary School Aassociation. Until
2017 she was professor of German language, literature and didactics at the University
of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd.

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