Some children are just naturally ‘good spellers’. However, children who are not naturally good spellers can improve their spelling. Keep in mind that these children will also likely need more practise to remember the correct spelling of words that contain phonemes that can be represented by more than one grapheme, contain rarely used graphemes, are rule breakers or have unpronounced letters.
Phonological Awareness
The written word is a code for the spoken word. Reading requires decoding (deciphering the code) while spelling requires encoding (writing down the code). Each word is comprised of one or more phonemes (sounds) which are represented by one or more letters (graphemes).
Consequently, the starting point in teaching children how to spell is to teach them how to break words into syllables and to identify the sounds in the word. There is one syllable and three phonemes in ‘sharp’ – /sh/-/ar/-/p/. Children can start practising this skill even before they can write. It is an easy activity to incorporate into the day as it doesn’t take very long. Start with words that have only two or three sounds and gradually increase.
If children have difficulty identifying syllables have them place their hand under their jaw and feel how many times it goes down. There is one jaw movement for each syllable. Alternatively, have them locate the jaw ‘hinge’, which is about 2cm across and 2cm down from their ear. Press this location on either side firmly with their thumbs. Again, they should be able to feel the jaw movement as they say the word.
To add variety, as children say each sound or syllable, they can:
- Jump into hoops
- Hit the table with a flyswat
- Gently slap down the side of one arm (one slap for each phoneme) or touch a different body part starting at the head and moving down for each syllable
- Hold up a finger for each phoneme and clap each syllable.
As children become more competent, they can start manipulating the phonemes. Say a word and then ask them to:
- Leave off the first sound (mend becomes end).
- Leave off the last sound (mend becomes men).
- Change the first sound to a different sound (change /m/ in mend to /b/ – becomes bend)
- Change the last sound (change /t/ in fit to /g/ – become fig)
- Change the vowel sound (change /e/ in men to /a/ – becomes man)
- Add on or change suffixes (start with ‘paint’ and add on /er/ – becomes painter – change /er/ to /s/ – becomes ‘paints’ – change to ‘ing’). Discuss the meaning when adding on the different suffixes.
- Add on or change prefixes (start with ‘tract’ and add on ‘pro’ – becomes ‘protract’ – change ‘pro’ to ‘con’ – becomes ‘contract’ – change to ‘de’ or ‘re’). Discuss the meaning when adding on the different prefixes.
Click here for more phonological awareness activities.
Phonics
Systematically teach children the common letters and letter combinations used to teach the various sounds. It is recommended that this is explicitly taught using a systematic program. Choose a program that will not only teach your child the phonic knowledge they require but will also have the added benefit of developing their reading vocabulary.
Rules or Conventions
Although there are hundreds of words that can be spelled correctly just by identifying the sounds and knowing the letter or letter combinations that represent those sound, not all words can be spelled using this simple strategy.
However, there are many sounds that can be represented using different letter combinations. For example, /ay/ is most commonly represented by ‘ai’ (rain), ‘a-e’ (cake), ‘ay’ (tray). This is where knowing when knowing the rules or conventions associated with the use of these graphemes is useful. If a word ends with the /ay/ sound, then it is most likely going to be ‘ay’ (tray), but it is unlikely to be this grapheme if it occurs in the middle or at the beginning of a word. You also need to keep in mind that there are quite a few other ways of representing the /ay/ sound which are not quite so frequently used.
There are also a whole range of letter combinations that are not commonly used in English (e.g., ngk) and rules or conventions associated with adding on suffixes. It is useful to systematically teach these rules and conventions and also apply this knowledge to words in the students’ spelling lists. You may find the rules videos are useful resource.
The following may be useful resources
- Spelling rules videos
- Rules Rule books are useful resources
- Spelling rules posters
–Black and white
–Coloured
Morphemic Knowledge
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning. They can be a whole word comprised of one of more syllables (cup, kangaroo), they can be part of a word (tele-meaning far+phone –meaning sound=telephone), and they can be a simple phoneme represented by one or more letters (/u/ in ‘aboard’=on, /t/ in parked indicates past tense). Morphemes include stems (both root words or bound stems and base words or unbound stems), prefixes and suffixes.
An understanding of the morphemes contained in a specific word allows students to transfer this knowledge to other words. For example, If you know the spelling and meaning of the morphemes in ‘retractable’, then you could work out the likely spelling and meaning of a whole range of other words like ‘return’, ‘contract’ and ‘readable’.
A knowledge of morphemes also helps when the pronunciation of a word changes when a suffix is added, even though the spelling of the stem remains the same (e.g., relate – relative, prepare – preparation). It also helps when the prefix or suffix is pronounced differently (e.g., painted, parked, farmed).
Memory and Etymology
Sometimes phonological awareness, phonics, spelling rules and conventions, and morpheme knowledge are not sufficient. This is where a knowledge of the history of the word (etymology) and/or memory strategies come in useful. For example, the ‘ou’ representing the /oo/ sound in ‘could’, ‘would’ and ‘should’ is rarely used to represent this sound and in addition you need to remember that silent ‘l’. So, in addition to identifying the phonemes and the graphemes representing those phonemes, sometimes it is useful to use a memory prompt (e.g., o u lucky duck).
Similarly, it can be difficult to remember the silent ‘k’ in ‘knife’, but knowing that this letter used to be pronounced might be helpful.
See the Tricks and Information page for lots of helpful videos:
Some students require multiple opportunities to practice spelling words before it becomes embedded in their long-term memory. You can make your own app-based spelling activity using the A+ Spelling app.
It is also useful to know that any purchase of the Cracking the ABC Code Spelling Books now includes FREE access to spelling games following this format.