Finnish Kindergartners' Literacy Development in Contextualized Literacy Episodes: A Focus on Spelling.

Examines how and when spelling begins when a group of Finnish kindergartners were provided guided and meaningful literacy opportunities. Demonstrates a substantial growth in children's spelling: some spelled almost all dictated words correctly, most used invented spelling, and only one child used random letter strings for a few words. Notes that by the second phase of the study, all children used alphabetic strategies. (RS)