| How can I help my child learn his or her spellings? | | | | have difficulty in hearing these syllables and thus |
| First of all arrange the words into easy to handle | | | | miss out chunks of the word when they are |
| groups. | | | | trying to spell them. I encourage clapping or |
| Random spellings with no obvious letter patterns | | | | tapping the beats in the words so that every part |
| are the hardest to learn. | | | | is heard. |
| For example a group with words like: question, | | | | Look, say, cover, write, check |
| adventure, physicalThese words are all quite | | | | This is a very useful way of learning spelling. |
| challenging and belong to different spelling groups | | | | Looking at the word should include noticing |
| I would tackle the word 'question' whilst looking at | | | | anything different or unusual in the spelling. For |
| other 'tion' wordsadventure is best learnt with | | | | example the silent 'h' in the word 'white' or the |
| other 'ture' wordsthe word 'physical' starts with | | | | 'ren' at the end of 'children'. Sometimes there are |
| the 'ph' sound which actually says /f/ coming | | | | words within words such as the 'pet' in the word |
| from the Greek | | | | 'competition'. |
| Common letter patterns | | | | Look at the word |
| Spellings that share a common letter pattern are | | | | Say the word |
| much easier to learn. If your child is having | | | | Cover up the word |
| problems it might be a good idea to approach the | | | | Write the word |
| teacher and ask if it's possible to have spellings | | | | Check the word |
| that can be grouped in this way.For example a | | | | By looking, saying, covering, writing and checking |
| typical spelling pattern might be 'tion'. Words in this | | | | the word, learning spellings becomes multi-sensory, |
| group | | | | thus increasing the chances of spellings being |
| tion | | | | remembered. |
| Syllables | | | | Don't overdo it. Depending on your child you might |
| If I was helping a student learn these words I | | | | want to divide up the spellings and just do a few |
| would probably further divide them into two and | | | | a day. Keep practising them until they become |
| three syllable words. For example op-tion, frac-tion | | | | automatic. If this is not happening, slow down and |
| and ques-tion all have two syllables or beats. | | | | do less. If your child is getting stressed then go to |
| Re-la-tion, per-fec-tion and pro-tec-tion all have | | | | the movies and forget about them for the time |
| three syllables or beats. | | | | being! |
| Children who have problems with spelling often | | | | |