In spite of the general agreement that spelling difficulties if monitored and identified early during the schooling will help in giving appropriate support, teachers and teacher-educators using Indian languages including Malayalam, while discussing language difficulties refer more to errors from English than from their mother tongue. In this context, this study identifies spelling errors with respect to vowels, signs, glides, consonants and consonant doubling, in terms of addition, omission and substitution committed in Malayalam writing by Grade 3 students in Kerala. Ten selected pages from Malayalam notebooks of the 100 students were analysed for errors in writing. Most difficult area in writing Malayalam, for beginners, is signs - both vowel signs and diacritic signs. Substitution in large extent, and omission in lesser extent, causes spelling errors. Seven types of substitution of letters that cause spelling errors in a Malayalam are illustrated. A few suggestions for improving spelling instruction are added.