How do prephonological writers link written words to their objects?

•We studied the writing of young children who do not yet spell phonologically.•Prephonological spellers tend to use more marks for plural than singular nouns.•Number of marks does not relate to number of phonemes, syllables, or morphemes.•Young children’s writing shows some degree of iconicity.

Two experiments studied prephonological writers, namely children who do not yet use letters to represent phonemes. The experiments tested the hypothesis that these children link elements of writing not to the phonological forms of spoken words but to physical characteristics of the words’ referents. In Experiment 1, prephonological spellers (n = 36, mean age 4 years, 3 months) used more elements on average to write plural nouns such as cows than singular nouns such as cow. Prephonological spellers in Experiment 2 (n = 42, mean age 4 years, 4 months) did not use more elements to write longer verbs such as buying than shorter ones such as buy. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 suggest that prephonological spellers are sensitive to the quantity of the referent rather than the number of phonemes, syllables, or morphemes in the word. That is, prephonological spellers have some tendency to treat writing as iconic.