dd (4) doing well at reading but spells how she talks?

[familyfun]

they do RWI at school so all phonics based and reading is going excellant but she spells how she speaks and as we are in the black country its not good.
eg. cum and joyn us.
gowing
sownd
tuthpayst
is this normal to spell like this to start with?

I have absolutely loved this stage - I don't know why I just think it's adorable. I have kept so many of dd's early spellings. TBH I test her on her spellings with antipathy.

One of dd's classmates produced "igstinked" for "extinct" today. I just welled up!

ive kept a few of dds letters to us and stories . will carry on letting her spell how she thinks then and hopefully see it improve slowly.

It's completely normal. My DD wrote "cantilavé" instead of "quand il avait" in her end-of-year literacy exam at the end of the first year of French primary - a perfect phonetic spelling and she lost no marks!

Half the four year olds (in leafy London suburb) at dd's school aren't even interested in spelling yet!

OP, your dd - as everyone says, is doing extremely well

My own just 5 year old dd is (opposite of her sister) a perfectionist and will not write a word without asking how it is spelled. I wish she would do her own lovely spellings!

When DD1 was four, she wrote a story about a cow in a "feeyold".

I didn't realise she was developing an Estuary accent, until that moment .

thanks for all the replies
shame this weekends reading book was looking after a hamster, she now wants one, no way

I love seeing the funny spellings, my daughter is reception as well. She had written "I red my booc at hoam" when asked to write what she had done the night before.

English is so complicated you can't expect them to learn all the different spellings right away.

I absolutely love this, as a teacher, my favourite thing is reading things like that!

She is doing really well I'd say, hearing all the sounds in the words, applying the phonics knowledge she already has. I've seen some hilarious spellings over the years, find it massively cute.

Agree re swees above, often I have to read a piece of writing the way a child talks to make sense of their spelling attempts- v important to speak clearly etc. our local accent (inc mine if I don't take care) drops lots of t's, so kids write eg buer for butter because they hear and say "bu'er"

I love the way kids spell - I'm thinking of adopting their approach.

We were told to let our son "go with the flow" to begin with - if you tell some kids that there's another way of spelling the word they've just written, they start to doubt what they are doing and then stop writing spontaneously as they worry about getting it wrong. We just take the letters and notes we get (thanc you for puting toofpast on my bruss) and sometimes suggest that there's a different way to spell one or two of the words. And a couple of weeks later he's adopted the alternative, more orthodox, spelling (which seems like a shame but I guess we all have to conform to society's rules a bit...)

Ye I ugree wee shood spel liec thai doo. Wood bee mor fun too reed. :)

Yes, spelling is overrated. Didn't come in until the last few hundred years anyway did it!