This study of literacy development in young children specifically aims to examine the impact of a programme of invented/approximate spelling at the kindergarten level on literacy skills of 90 at-risk students. Overall, the results indicate that those at-risk students who participated in the programme show significantly higher level performance in a task of writing words at the end of kindergarten and at the end of first grade compared with those productions of subjects in a control group. This study supports the importance of preventing learning difficulties from the kindergarten level on by providing writing activities for young writers.