Has the value of teaching students to spell accurately been lost in the age of computers and spell-checkers? Should spelling instruction be considered only marginally crucial in schools today? The practices connected with traditional approaches to spelling instruction suggest that schools and teachers might place less value or importance on spelling than other academic content areas.

Spelling Is Important for Reading and Writing

Research has revealed that learning to spell and reading relies on much of the same underlying knowledge, such as connections between letters and sounds. Not surprisingly, spelling instruction can help children better understand that essential knowledge in better reading. Spelling and reading make and rely on the detailed, thoughtful description of a word. Understanding the spelling of a word makes the expression of it solid and easy for fluent reading.

Research also bears a strong relationship between spelling and writing: Writers who must think too hard about the spelling use valuable cognitive resources needed for higher-level composition features. Writing is a thoughtful juggling act that depends on using essential skills with automaticity (e.g., handwriting, spelling, grammar, and punctuation) to focus on a topic, organization, word choice, and audience needs. Poor spellers may limit what they write to words they can spell, with the necessary loss of verbal power, or lose track of their thoughts when they get fastened trying to spell a word.

5 Tips to Help a Child Struggling with Spelling

Chunking

Break words into pieces that are easier to spell (e.g., “planting” can be broken down into [pl] [ant] [ing]). Students will begin to recognize habitual patterns and sometimes even find familiar words within new ones. You can model this method at first, but students should come to do it alone whenever they’re faced with a long or unusual word. Encourage the habit by using a visual organizer where the individual parts are separated.

Rhyming

Rhymes will show students how familiar sounds often translate to common spellings. Enter the concept aurally through songs and nursery rhymes and then build rhyming word lists. Model how altering a single letter in a short word can make a rhyme with similar spelling (e.g., “dog,” “fog,” “log”). Students can then understand how many words of their own they can make from a single root (stick to simple terms like “all,” “sing,” and “hat”).

Use sight and sound

Have a child spell the words perfectly into a tape or digital recorder and play the recording back many times while looking at the word and touching each letter while doing so. Or ask children to outline an animal or other figure lightly in pencil. Then, write the week’s spelling words in small lettering around the shape in a thin black marker. Erase the pencil marks, and the terms form the outline of that shape.

Read regularly

One of the best ways to improve your child’s spelling is by helping them to read regularly. Pick books that are of a proper level for their reading and spelling ability or books with an element of trouble; try to avoid books they will find too easy to read and do not challenge them.

Use Physical and Visual Aids

Make spelling hands-on. Many kids with learning disabilities have difficulty spelling verbally, so the more interactive the spelling exercises, the more information a child will learn. Use word tiles, magnetic letters, flashcards, and other visual aids that allow the child to see the word they are spelling.

Encourage reading. Would you please read to the child and let them follow along with the page as you tell the story? It will help them become more familiar with a range of words, as well as the context in which they’re used. It’s essential to take time for the child to read to you. Studies have shown that good readers are also good spellers and good speakers.

Conclusion

While often neglected, spelling is an essential academic skill for students to learn in school. Further, you can teach spelling directly and systematically.

Studying spelling words can be a dreaded activity for many students, teachers, and even parents. Fortunately, there are ways to make learning spelling words fun, from worksheet activities to classroom games and hands-on activities. Apply the above-mentioned simple ideas to make learning spelling words fun, and you’ll never have to bother about your child or students mourning about having to learn them again.