Spelling Activities

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Spelling Activities to help your child learn his or her spellings.

If your child is finding it hard spelling and remembering words, here are some tips to help the process.

First of all arrange the words into easy to handle groups with common letter patterns

Remember, random spellings with no obvious letter patterns are the hardest to learn.

For example a group with words like question, adventure, physical, superstition, would be tricky words to learn at the same time.

These words are all quite challenging and belong to different spelling groups.

I would tackle the word ‘question’ and 'superstition' whilst looking at other ‘tion’ words

adventure is best learnt with other ‘ture’ words

the word ‘physical’ starts with the ‘ph’ sound which actually says /f/ coming from the Greek

So spellings that share a common letter pattern are easier to learn. If your child is having problems with school spelling tests, it might be a good idea to approach the teacher and ask if it’s possible to have spellings that can be grouped in this way.

For example a typical spelling pattern might be ‘tion’. Words in this group include:

option

fraction

question

relation

perfection

protection

Arrange the words into syllables

If I was helping a student learn these words I would probably further divide them into two and three syllable words. For example op-tion, frac-tion and ques-tion all have two syllables or beats.

Re-la-tion, per-fec-tion and pro-tec-tion all have three syllables or beats.

Children who have problems with spelling often have difficulty in hearing these syllables and thus miss out chunks of the word when they are trying to spell them.

I encourage clapping or tapping the beats in the words so that every part is heard. These kind of spelling activites improve phonological awareness or an awreness of how words sound.

Use the Look, say, cover, write, check method

This is a very useful way of learning spelling. Looking at the word should include noticing anything different or unusual in the spelling.

For example the silent ‘h’ in the word ‘white’ or the ‘ren’ at the end of ‘children’. Sometimes there are words within words such as the ’pet’ in the word ’competition’.

Look at the word Say the word Cover up the word Write the word Check the word

By looking, saying, covering, writing and checking the word, learning spellings becomes multi-sensory, thus increasing the chances of spellings being remembered.

Don’t overdo it

Depending on your child you might want to divide up the spellings and just do a few a day. Keep practising them until they become automatic. If this is not happening, slow down and do less. Leave enough time and don't cram, otherwise things will become stressful and your child will suffer.

Take a break

If your child is getting stressed then go to the movies and forget about spelling activites for the time being! Try and keep it light and keep it fun.

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