Guidelines for Teaching Spelling

Spelling can be a tough, anxiety-inducing task for your child, particularly if they know that they’re struggling to complete lessons.  If your child has difficulty with your current spelling exercises, take a moment to evaluate the way that you’ve designed them. How involved are you with your child’s learning process? Do you give him an overview of the concepts involved and then let him work on his own or are you constantly involved with the lesson?

When a child struggles with a subject, it’s not likely that they’ll pick up on the material without some guidance; make sure that you’re present to help them through the more difficult examples. It’s critical that you create a supportive learning environment for your child so that they don’t feel ashamed for making mistakes as they try to spell. What follows are a few guidelines to ensure that you foster a productive space for your child to learn spelling.

Plan Lessons for their Skill Level

First rule to keep in mind: don’t rush your child’s progress. If they can only spell at a very basic level, design lessons to review the basics (pronunciation of syllables, the most common phonics, etc.) again and again until they feel comfortable with them. If your child doesn’t have a solid grasp on the basics, then they won’t have a solid foundation and they’ll continue to struggle in more rigorous exercises.

If you’re unsure about the extent of your child’s difficulty with the subject, assess their skill by presenting them with a series of words that steadily increase in complexity. Have them spell out the words on paper first so they can see the letters coming together on the page. Review the exercise and find the most glaringly misspelled words. Don’t use these words as the beginning of your next lesson. Review the previous words first and have your child work their way towards the more difficult words.

Use Topical Words to Encourage their Learning

I’ve seen many spelling guides stress that kids learn faster if the instructor includes words into lessons that are relevant to everyday life. You could, for instance, plan a lesson of spelling general household items so your child has an immediate point of reference for each word involved. It’s no secret that children will learn material more readily if they can relate to the subject matter. While you shouldn’t show preferential treatment to these topical words, your child’s enthusiasm to learn their spelling may encourage them to reinvent themselves in the spelling of other words.

Engage the Student’s Senses

Children also learn better when they completely immerse themselves in a subject; this means designing lesson plans that allow them to utilize multiple senses and skill sets to interpret information. For instance, you could draw up flashcards that feature pictures corresponding to the words that have an easy to understand physical representation (chair, bicycle, etc.). Encourage your child to say the name of the word aloud and write the word beneath the picture, pronouncing every letter as they write them out. If your child can spell compound words, try drawing a series of pictures to convey the meaning of the word you want to spell (side by side pictures of a stick of butter and a housefly for the word “butterfly,” for example).

If your child is in the very beginning stages of spelling, invest in block letters that they can hold and put together to form words and sounds. It may help them to mentally visualize words in the future if they began their spelling education through tactile learning.

Be Patient

Most of all remain patient throughout your child’s struggle with spelling. It may be maddening for you as their teacher to watch your child fret over the spelling of the same few words over and over, but if you express your frustration it could discourage them from further attempts at improvement. In a nutshell, don’t harp on your child’s mistakes; find constructive ways to show them the error of their ways while remaining upbeat so they don’t get down on themselves for struggling. Show your child that you have the perseverance to help them master spelling no matter how many setbacks occur.

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Author Bio:

This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at online colleges about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5@gmail.com.