May 11
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Does your child have spelling problems?
If your child has spelling problems and his writing is full of mistakes, it’s usually for one or more of these reasons:
- He is not hearing and breaking up the words into their sound chunks
- He is not familiar with many general spelling patterns
- He is not applying his knowledge of spelling while writing
Check his ability to break up spoken words into spoken sounds (not letters)
For example, rain has three sound chunks, rrr sound, long a sound, nnn sound.
Ask him to say the word slowly and clap once for each sound.
If he can’t do this, show him how to do it, and start practising together with lots of short spoken words. It’s an oral activity, no writing required, and can be done anywhere, anytime.
Check his knowledge of simple spelling patterns for sounds
Phonetic spelling (sometimes called invented spelling) is a good thing. It shows that he is hearing the sounds in the word he is writing. It also indicates the patterns he needs to be taught.
Examples:
If he spells bak instead of back, he hears all the sounds, but may not have learned the _ck consonant digraph. This is an early spelling pattern.
If he spells rain as ran, he may not know this early _ai_ vowel digraph. Ask if he has learned any ways to represent the long a sound.
Here are some of the patterns for the long a sound:
__ay as in say
__ai as in rain
_a_e as in make
If he doesn’t know any of these patterns, he may not know them for the other long vowel sounds either.
Before you start on introducing patterns for long vowel sounds, it’s important to check first that he knows the sound of the short vowels. That is, a says ah, e says eh, i says ih, o says oh, u says uh. If he confuses long and short vowel sounds, work on the short vowels first. When you’re sure he knows them, then start with one easy pattern for the long a sound, eg _ay.
Show him words that contain the pattern, eg say, may, day, play. Take turns to hunt for words that contain this pattern in books or ads or packets, and circle or highlight them.
When he spells these words correctly in his writing, put a tick over each word. This is a simple but very powerful strategy to get him to focus on spelling these words correctly. Only tick words containing the pattern you’re focusing on.
Check whether he applies the patterns he knows in his writing
Early writers often have difficulty concentrating both on their ideas for writing and applying their spelling knowledge at the same time. Over time, use of correct spelling becomes automatic.
If he does know many spelling patterns but doesn’t use them when writing, ask him to look back and edit any words that he knows he’s written incorrectly. Tick each correction. Ignore words that are not correctly spelt because he probably does not know the pattern. However use this information to find out what patterns are unknown. Always choose the easiest of these patterns to work on. Just work on one pattern at a time and stick with it for some time. It’s tempting to rush through the patterns, especially when you see that there are many that he doesn’t know, but each pattern takes time to learn, and you should not move on until he knows it and has shown you that he can use it. Show him words that contain the pattern. Then get him to hunt for these words as above. Then reward him with a tick when he uses them.
Don’t let spelling problems become a major focus in his writing. This is a big mistake which often results in switching off young writers. Value the content of his writing above his spelling skills. Writing is for the purpose of sharing a message. Celebrate what he is saying and ask questions about it. You will turn his attitude towards writing from positive to negative. This is a major factor in improving writing skills.
If your child is very reluctant to write, How To Get Your Child To Write tells you exactly how to help.
