This longitudinal study explored early invented-spelling development by examining the association between children's name-writing ability at kindergarten age (n = 92; age 4;0- 4;11) and their invented-spelling skills a year later during the first year of literacy instruction (n = 54). The influence of assessment context (i.e., spelling test versus journal entries in school writing books) on children's invented-spelling skills was also examined. Early name writing was more strongly related to letter knowledge than phoneme awareness and language ability at kindergarten age, and was significantly associated with invented spelling performance in dictation and journal-writing assessment contexts in the first year of schooling. Stronger invented-spelling skills were exhibited in the dictation test format. Findings suggest that curriculum-based writing tasks can provide relevant evidence for teachers to inform their class spelling instruction when the tasks are analysed using a sensitive measure of spelling development.