This volume is a collection of articles reconstructing the connections between the German writing system and its acquisition, beginning with the individual letters of the alphabet and proceeding from there to syllable- and morpheme-based spelling rules and the syntactic regularities underlying capitalization (or otherwise), separation, and non-separation. The consequences for modern spelling instruction deriving from these analyses are outlined in some of the articles. There are a number of historically motivated complications that have bedeviled the systematic coverage of the orthographic system and its acquisition. These have had a detrimental effect on systematic spelling instruction, and various articles take a closer look at them.