Getting the Spelling Inventory Right
I've been giving this inventory to first through fourth graders for over a decade, and honestly the biggest issue isn't finding the PDF — it's understanding what you're supposed to do with the results once you have them. Most teachers download it, administer it in a hurry, file it away, and never look at it again. That's a waste of a decent diagnostic tool. The Words Their Way Spelling Inventory Pdf is freely available from sources like Washington State University's department of educational leadership or various .edu domains. You don't need to buy anything. But before you print and go, here's how it actually works in practice.
Where to Find the Words Their Way Spelling Inventory Pdf
The official copy lives on the Washington State University Extension website. Search for it along with your district's preferred file type. Some universities mirror it too. Avoid third-party sites selling it for money — there's no reason to pay when it's free and legal. When you download it, check the date. The inventory has gone through revisions. Make sure you're looking at the most current version, which includes the full 50-word list organized into the five developmental stages. The original was published in the early 2000s by Bear, Inboden, and Templeton, and it's been updated since.
How to Actually Administer It
Read each word clearly. Say the word, use it in a sentence, then have the student write it. Don't rush. The whole thing takes about 10 to 15 minutes per student. I usually pull them during reading block so nobody misses instruction time. Here's what most people get wrong: they don't stop at just collecting the spellings. The real value is in the error analysis. After a student finishes, you sort their misspellings into developmental categories. That tells you where their phonological awareness actually sits, not where you assume it sits based on grade level. The five stages are: emergent (no letter-sound knowledge), letter name-alphabetic (partial knowledge of phonetic relationships), within word pattern (understands long vowels, silent e, digraphs), syllables and affixes (handles multi-syllabic words and common suffixes), and derivation relations (understands word families and morphological patterns).
Get the Full Details
My Real Experience With It
One edge case that trips people up: a third grader who sounds fully on grade level when reading aloud but writes "frend" for friend. Classic within-word pattern stage spelling. Parents often push back because they can't reconcile the reading fluency with the spelling deficit. The explanation is straightforward — reading and spelling rely on different cognitive processes. This kid recognizes the word visually when reading but hasn't internalized the "-end" pattern for production. The inventory catches that gap. Most screeners don't. Another thing I've noticed: kids who are English language learners often score lower than their actual phonological development would suggest, simply because they're still building vocabulary in English. If you have an ELL student, administer it alongside a separate vocabulary check and note the difference in your records. Don't let a low inventory score automatically place them in a remedial program without that context.
Common Mistakes I See
The first mistake is treating it as a one-time assessment. It should be given at the start of the year, again mid-year, and ideally at the end of the year. That gives you trajectory data. A kid who moves from letter-name to within-word pattern between October and March has made real progress. Without the follow-up, you're flying blind. The second mistake is using the inventory results to assign word lists without actually teaching anything. Knowing a student is in the syllables and affixes stage doesn't help anyone unless you pair that information with appropriate word sorts and explicit instruction. The inventory diagnoses. It doesn't prescribe the lesson. A third thing worth noting: this inventory doesn't work well for students with dyslexia who have significant phonological processing deficits. These kids may score in the emergent stage regardless of instruction quality because their difficulty is deeper than typical developmental delay. If a student consistently scores at the bottom two levels despite evidence of targeted intervention, recommend a comprehensive evaluation rather than relying solely on this tool.
What the Inventory Actually Contains
The 50 words are carefully selected to span all five stages. They include words like bed, dog, cup for the emergent and early alphabetic levels. Then cat, hen, sit for the letter name stage. After that, words like cake, hope, light that test long vowel patterns. Later items like jumping, happy, and kindness assess syllable and affix knowledge. The final words target derivational relationships. Each word maps to a specific phonological pattern. The scoring sheet that comes with the PDF shows exactly which stage each word belongs to. Pay attention to that mapping. It's not optional. If you skip it, you're just grading spelling instead of assessing developmental stage.
Practical Tips
Administer the inventory in a quiet setting. Background noise throws off young readers, especially emergent spellers who are already struggling with decoding. A hallway administration produces unreliable results. Don't correct the student during the test. If they ask whether a word is spelled correctly, just say "Write it however you think it goes." You want their best effort, not their memorized version. Keep a record of every administration. Over three testing windows per year, you should have 150 data points per student if you're thorough. That's a lot of papers to manage, so I keep a simple spreadsheet with the student's name, date, and top two developmental stages identified. When I need to pull evidence for an IEP meeting or parent conference, I can find the relevant data in under a minute.
The inventory is one tool among many. It won't tell you everything about a child's literacy development. But it's fast, free, and it reveals patterns that standardized tests usually miss. Use it that way and it's genuinely useful.
