In which spelling stage does a child begin to understand letter-sound correspondence?

The semi-phonetic spelling stage is characterized by a child's emerging understanding of letter-sound correspondence. At this stage, children start to grasp that letters represent sounds and begin using this knowledge to spell words phonetically, though their spelling may not yet be fully accurate. They may represent sounds with single letters and begin to connect consonant and vowel sounds with the letters that correspond to them.

This stage typically follows the prephonetic stage, where children may scribble or use random letters without regard for sound correspondence. In contrast, other stages like the derivational constancy stage focus on the understanding of word forms and meanings, while orthography relates to the conventions of spelling in a language but does not specifically denote the developmental stage of understanding letter-sound relationships in young children. Therefore, the semi-phonetic spelling stage is crucial for early literacy development, allowing children to start forming more recognizable and phonetically informed spellings.