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Nov 9, 2022 · It is important that children can say a word before they spell it. This strategy can be used in the classroom or at home. It works best when spellings are on a grid template. In this strategy, students look at the word to be learnt, then say it (to themselves or an adult if they are being supported). They then cover the word with their hand or ...
- Michelle Casey
- The Challenges of Teaching Spelling
- What Are The Spelling Milestones For Students?
- How Do We Teach spelling?
- The Lexical-Linguistic Approach
- Bonus: 3 Spelling Strategies For Your Classroom
- Sources
Dealing with spelling myths and misconceptions
It’s commonly thought that spelling is a fixed ability or a genetic trait and it’s dependent entirely on reading ability and memory. In reality, spelling is a skill that can be learned, must be taught explicitly, and requires more than a good memory to be properly understood.
Teacher confidence in spelling knowledge
While most educators have above average literacy skills, teaching spelling effectively requires deep pedagogical content knowledge. The way spelling was taught in the past has not adequately equipped some teachers with the depth of knowledge they require to teach spelling to the next generation.
Insufficient time to deliver proper instruction
In an increasingly crowded curriculum, teachers have less time to focus on each subject. Spelling can easily become a casualty in the fight against time. It’s frequently given a reduced focus in the larger subject of literacy and ends up with less attention than it deserves.
As with all learning areas, students progress at different rates and may follow a range of learning pathways. Yet many academics have presented theories on the stages of development of spelling acquisition. There is a risk that an overemphasis on the stages of development can limit students’ exposure to rich connected learning and a wide range of s...
To help students become confident spellers we need to build their understanding of phonology, orthography, morphology and etymology, grow their lexical stores, and develop efficient memory and retrieval techniques. We’ve developed a new spelling approach that addresses these disparate elements into one method:
The Lexical-Linguistic Approach gives students the tools and knowledge they need to make better attempts at spelling unknown words.
Look, say, cover, write, check
This is a classic spelling strategy that helps students memorize spellings by both sound and visual appearance. Students: 1. Study a word in its correct spelling 2. Cover it up 3. Write it themselves as they remember it 4. Check their spelling against the original. This is especially effective for drilling hard-to-spell words.
Mnemonics
Mnemonics are memory aids. They might be phrases, visuals, rhymes, or anything else that helps students recall a spelling pattern. For example: 1. Because: big elephants can always understand smaller elephants 2. I would like a piece of pie 3. Rhythm: rhythm helps your two hips move 4. Words ending in ‘-ful’ are too full for the extra ‘l’ Challenge your students to come up with their own mnemonics. It doesn’t matter if they’re nonsensical – they’ll still help with long term memory.
Chunking
Chunking is the process of breaking words into individual building blocks that are easy to spell. Encourage students to sound out the individual syllables in a word, and then have them spell those one at a time before putting them all together. For example, ‘planting’ can be broken down into [pl] [ant] [ing]. Chunking makes the spelling process much less daunting for early learners, particularly with longer words.
Moon, B. (2014). The Literacy Skills of Secondary Teaching Undergraduates: Results of Diagnostic Testing and a Discussion of Findings. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(12). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n12.8
Students should be encouraged to spell these words in ‘chunks’ to enhance both. For instance, once students can spell single-syllable, CVC words like sun, pump, frog, and blush. They can begin to spell words like sunset, finish, and pumpkin. When spelling these words in isolation, we encourage students to spell one chunk at a time and then ...
- Build a foundation with phonics instruction. Teaching phonics shows students the relationship between the letters they see (the graphemes) and the sounds they hear (the phonemes).
- Teach word patterns. With a strong knowledge of phonics, students are ready to tackle spelling patterns. Research shows rule-based learning is a powerful teaching method as your students can apply what they learn to a wide range of vocabulary.
- Make the most of word lists. As you introduce vocabulary sets, students can also learn the spelling. The key is to add a manageable amount of words per week so you don’t overwhelm them.
- Use spelling strategies a.k.a ‘look, say, cover, write, check’ ‘Look, say, cover, write, check’ (LSCWC) is a memorisation exercise students can use to practise spelling.
- Study the origins of words. The National Curriculum non-statutory spelling guidance suggests exploring the etymology of words to help pupils see the links between spellings.
- Create neologisms to teach spelling. Shakespeare played with words and their meanings to create new words like “bedroom” and “bloodstained”. Getting our pupils to create new words and discuss the potential meaning behind their creations will open possibilities for them to see yet more patterns in words they encounter in future.
- Perform contraction surgery. Every single year I encounter pupils who struggle to spell contracted words accurately. The baffling thing is that they can all spell “did”, “would”, “should”, “could” and “not” correctly, which means that the apostrophe itself is clearly the problem; pupils do not understand its use.
- Get pupils to spot irregular verbs. Spelling patterns mainly differ for irregular verbs, so pupils need to learn these. For example: to walk > walked > has walked = regular.
Nov 6, 2012 · Teachers should work on placing an emphasis on the letter sounds and connecting these sounds to different letters. It is this emphasis that will help the student begin to make the connection between the letters and the sounds they use to communicate. A teacher who understands how students learn to spell will be a great asset and will be able to ...
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BBC Teach > Skillswise > English. Useful techniques to help with your spelling using memory aids, plurals, common letter patterns, prefixes and suffixes and root words.
