Enventv Speling: a good idea?

I am quite possibly the biggest fan of inventive spelling. Growing up, I was always a terrible speller (and to be honest, I haven't improved much). I always felt so defeated each and every time I was marked down for incorrect spelling. I knew what I was trying to say, and obviously if the teacher knew enough to show me the right way to spell the word with her evil red pen, then she knew what I was trying to say as well.

As I enter the classroom from the other viewpoint, I love to see children exploring with their language. Watching a child "streeeeeetch out" a word they don't know how to spell or sound out "kaa ahh teh" is seriously so amazing. You can see their brains working, like the wheels are literally turning inside their heads. You can see the letter sound recognition going through their minds. Sometimes they don't have the original pronunciation of the word correct from the get-go and it muddles up their phonemic spelling just a bit. But, at the end of their story, you can understand what they are trying to communicate to you. And if you can't decode it? Just ask! "Hey Jimmy, you're story looks amazing. Do you want to read it to me?" I have yet to meet a kid that was not stoked to tell a story. Listening to their re-telling let's you as a teacher deciefer just how close all those "scribbles" were to the "real" words that they represent.

As much as I champion inventive spelling for students (and adults, as far as I am concerned), I do find it entirely too difficult to tell a student that they spelt something "right" when it is phonetically correct but illiterate to the English language. When my second graders spell out went as "wnt", they GOT all the right letter sounds. How are they supposed to know that went has an 'e' in it when all you hear is the "weh weh + nnnnn + teh teh"? It sounds like a W+N+T to me and if I was socially and professionally allowed to spell it that way I would. Yet the teacher in me feels like I am doing students an injustice by nodding in agreement to a word sounded out so perfectly, yet spelt so incorrectly. I still think that inventice spelling belongs in the elementary schools, but I would just like a little more detail on how and when to start introducing the "correct" spelling of words in the eyes of society. I mean, you just cannot get very far with a resume that says "2 yeers xperiants".