Learning Spellings

One of the reasons that many children struggle to learn spellings or use the words in their own writing is that their learning is PASSIVE rather than ACTIVE.

Copying a word 3 times as many children are expected to do when they make spelling error in their own work is a passive activity.  Often the child is barely thinking about the word but merely copying a string of letters. The same can be true when learning a list of words with the same letter pattern. Children will remember all the words have 'ai' for example and then passively write each word in the list just remembering to put an 'ai' in the middle and not really thinking about the words. The result is when asked to write the word 'brain' in a sentence in class they will not recall it is an 'ai' word and spell it 'bran'

While words with the same letter pattern should be learnt together more needs to be done if a child it really going to know a pattern and use it for themselves. Excellent phonic programmes like Read, Write, Inc do a lot to encourage children to actively learn and use new letter patterns, children both blend and segment words with a particular letter pattern. Units of Sound computer program and Alpha to Omega also make these letter patterns explicit and ensure plenty of ACTIVE practice.

For a child to remember spellings they need to INTERACT with the words. Magnetic letters are great for encouraging this interaction particularly at home. When learning spellings at home say the word aloud and ask your child to count the sounds in word with their fingers (not the number of letters). For example 'dish' - d-i-sh, 3 sounds, 3 fingers. Then encourage the child to pick out the letters to match each sound. When 2 letters make one sound prompting may be needed - which 2 letters make the 'sh' sound.  If the child is unsure give them a choice rather than telling them.  For further practice, the letters can then be muddled up and the children can put the letters in order again. Alternatively, a letter can be taken away and the child can think of which one is missing.  Once they have practiced several times with magnetic letters, the child can practice writing the word, saying the sounds as they do so.  Writing practice can be done in a variety of ways by using a sand or salt tray, air writing - big and small, using white boards and gel boards.  Finally the words should be used in a sentence, a dictation sentence containing only words the child can already confidently spell with one new word works best. Alpha to Omega student book can be a very useful source of word lists and sentences. Children should expected to mark their spellings themselves, this requires further interaction with the word and encourages the child to look carefully at the letter sequence.