Spelling instruction should be more than taking a pre-test on Monday, writing the words repeatedly for memorization, and taking the post-test on Friday. Teachers instead should emphasize strategies children already rely on when decoding unfamiliar words, refraining from games, activities, or exercises that separate letters in ways that do not reinforce common spelling patterns. The following sections describe the essentials of quality spelling instruction and provide guidelines for choosing or developing exceptional spelling activities and lessons.
The Essentials of Quality Spelling Instruction
When learning to spell, or to encode words, children use the same processes they use when reading, or decoding, words. Emergent readers and writers rely on phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate sounds, and their understanding of the alphabet and letter-sound relationships to both decode and encode words in the beginning, and while this serves as a strong foundation for conventional spelling, as children mature, spelling instruction should also include word patterns, structural analysis, and derivatives.
Once children learn the alphabet, they soon realize that linking single letters to sounds is not an efficient way to spell. A focus on beginning and final consonant sounds, long and short vowels, and the "word families" or patterns common to English (such as the -ame ending in "game", "same", and "came") allows them to decode and encode words through analogy. For example, if they know "and", they can easily generate "band", "sand", or "hand".
Structural analysis includes the study of syllables. Once children can hear and identify the natural syllable breaks in a word, they can use the patterns in each syllable to decode and encode (spell) difficult words. Learning to break words apart by identifying the parts of compound words, separating the root words from common prefixes and suffixes, and making contractions is also a help when learning to spell.
Finally, older children can continue to progress in their spelling knowledge by studying word derivatives, such as the Latin and Greek roots of common words, and less common prefixes and suffixes such as pre-, dis-, -ous, and -tion. This higher level of spelling knowledge can be combined with vocabulary practice, with a focus on not only encoding the word properly, but also being able to use it in a meaningful way.
Choosing and Developing Quality K-8 Spelling Activities
Spelling workbooks and online teaching sites have a wide variety of spelling activities and lessons, some of which build on prior phonemic awareness and phonics instruction, and others which counter that instruction by forcing children to break words into single letters that do not necessarily match the sounds heard in the words, rather than focusing on the patterns found in the syllables (such as the "Sparkle" game).
Teachers should carefully consider the spelling activities they use and choose only those which reinforce or extend their other reading and writing instruction. For example, if studying sight vocabulary in reading, looking at the spelling patterns of those words would be useful instruction. Use of a word wall to help hold children accountable in their own writing for words they've learned to spell already is also appropriate.
Spelling instruction can be much more interesting and meaningful than just using the words in sentences or writing them repeatedly toward memorization. Spelling skills are best built on existing phonemic awareness and beginning phonics instruction, and should eventually transition to a focus on meaning and the overall development of oral and written vocabulary.
Further Reading
Gentry, J. Richard. The Science of Spelling: The Explicit Specifics That Make Great Readers and Writers (And Spellers!). Portsmouth, NH: 2004.
Pinnell, Gay Su & Irene Fountas. Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
Barbara Abromitis - Barbara Abromitis, Ed.D. is a freelance writer and educational consultant, with degrees in reading education and educational psychology, ...
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