Spelling - how to help
Overview
This article provides you with a range of spelling activities that will be fun to do with your child – they will not only help your child to remember the spelling of new words on any spelling list they bring home for their homework, but will also give you a good opportunity to share in your child’s learning process!
We provide weekly spelling lists for children to learn ‘off by heart’. A test is held each week in class to test memorization and use.
Spot the word
Challenge your child to find the words on their list in other places around them, for example:
– on a road sign, notice or poster
– in a magazine, newspaper
– on television
– on the side of a cereal box.
You could award one point for each sighting and perhaps a bonus point for any unusual sightings and challenge your child to reach a set number of points.
Make the word
If your child is in the younger years at primary school, encourage them to make the words on their list out of different materials. These could include:
– magnetic letters
– large letters torn from magazines or newspapers
– pipe cleaners
– plasticine.
Jumble the words up for your child to rearrange. Making the letters into concrete things, rather than abstract ideas, will certainly help many children to memorise spellings and word shapes.
Word posters
Encourage your child to write the words on their list using different writing materials such as:
– felt pens
– paints
– chalks
– sticks in the sand
– different coloured pens joined together to create rainbow letters.
This has the same reinforcing effect on their learning as making words, above.
Alphabetical order
Ask your child to put the words on their spelling list into alphabetical order. You can help them by providing a copy of the alphabet or a simple dictionary. Increase the challenge by setting a time limit.
Look-say-cover-write-check
We encourage the ‘look-say-cover-write-check’ routine for learning new words. When learning the spelling of a new word, your child will be asked to:
– look at the new word very closely, spotting such things as its shape, the order of the letters, any smaller words contained within a larger word, or familiar letter patterns
– say the word quietly to themselves while they look at it
– cover the word or fold the paper back so that the word cannot be seen
– write the word from memory
– uncover the word and check to see if they are right (you can help with this)
– if they are wrong, your child can repeat the process.
Mnemonics or Memorable Strings
These are silly sentences that your child can make up and then learn, in order to remind them of how to spell a difficult word, by thinking of the first letter of each word in the sentence. Here are some examples.
– Because: Big Elephants Can Always Use Sticky Envelopes.
– Necessary/successful: if your child can’t remember how many Cs or Ss to use, remember this saying: One collar and two socks are necessary but two collars and two socks will make you successful.
– ‘No English word can end in ‘j’, this is a rule you must obey.’
– If your child confuses the spelling of ‘rhyme’ and ‘rhythm’, here is a mnemonic to help them: remember which word has two Hs: Rhythm Has Your TWO Hips Moving.
- There’s an e in pencil and an a in car - stationery (pens and pencils) and stationary (not moving)
Help your child to make up mnemonics for any words on their list that they are struggling with. They could then draw pictures to go with them.
Finding words within words
Your child can remember how to spell tricky words by spotting smaller words within them. Encourage them to mark the smaller words with bright pens. This can be made even more helpful by making up a short sentence to help your child remember the spelling. For example
– island: an island is land surrounded by water.
Hidden words
This is a game that you can prepare yourself. Write the words on your child’s spelling list, hidden in a series of letters. Now that they are hidden, ask your child to find them. For example:
– sfhplayknc – play
– nvzbikejfa – bike.
Your child could circle the hidden words with coloured pens. To raise the challenge, you could set a time limit on the game. For example, how many words can you find in one minute?
Word snap
Help your child to write each of the words on their spelling list on to a small piece of coloured card or paper. Make two sets of the words. Shuffle the words and then deal them out between you. Keeping the words face down, take it in turns to reveal one word at a time and place it on the table. When two of the same words are turned over, one after the other, the player who spots this shouts ‘snap’. At the end of the game, the player with the most pairs of matching words is the winner.
Silly sentences
This activity can be great fun. Talk to your child about what a sentence is and then challenge them to write a silly sentence, including as many of the words on their spelling list as possible. For example, your child may have to learn ‘room took hoop foot book’. They could make up a silly sentence such as ‘The boy took his book across the room but got his foot stuck in a hoop’. Again they could draw illustrations to go with the sentences.
Shannon’s game
This is a step on from the game of hangman. Without telling your child which one, choose one of the words on the list. Draw dashes onto a piece of paper, one dash for every letter in the word. With younger children, write the first letter of the word onto the first dash. Your child then has to guess the next letter – without looking at their list. If they are correct you write in the next letter. If they are incorrect, you draw the first part of the Hangman. Your child has to guess the whole word, letter by letter, before you complete the drawing.
Then let your child select a word while you guess the letters.
Crosswords
If your child is in Year 4 or above, challenge them to produce a crossword puzzle, using the words on their spelling list. Provide them with a blank grid and a dictionary. This will help them to write the clues. You can then answer the crossword. When you have finished, ask your child to check that you are correct.
Syllabification
This will help your child’s spelling by teaching them a strategy to use. It works by splitting the words into parts, called syllables. Every syllable must have a vowel in it. You can check how many syllables a word has by clapping it out. Here are some examples:
– four-teen
– when-e-ver
– tea-cher
– card-i-gan
– be-cause.
If the words on the spelling list contain more than one syllable, your child can identify the different parts, either by drawing a line between each syllable or by highlighting each syllable in a different colour. They could also cut the words into syllables and then try putting them back together.
In Conclusion
Praise your child for their work and remember that children develop these skills at different rates.
When checking spellings, go through letter by letter to show your child how much he knows, as well as the things he doesn’t. Help your child to experience success as a speller. And use these activities to demonstrate that learning – even the learning of a list of spellings – can often be an enjoyable thing.
This website at Woodlands Junior School in Kent has interesting ICT based links to help with spelling
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html