It seems that most studies of teaching spelling begin at the same place: a child’s understanding of communication begins with sound. From infancy they are surrounded by sounds, which become words. As they are exposed to printed text, they learn to associate phonemes, the sounds they here with graphemes, the visual representation of those words.

Toddlers who are exposed to the alphabet are usually fascinated with the letters. Once they have learned the names of the letters, they can begin to invent spellings.

Students entering the first grade will have developed their invented spelling. At this grade level when they begin to read, teaching spelling becomes a critical part of the process. Reading along with a spoken text will extend their grasp of letters and help them understand the complexities of certain sounds and their related spellings.

Teaching spelling begins with lots of reading. If the student needs help, that’s just encouragement to keep on reading. Hand in hand with this early process is frequent writing assignments. Made up spellings are the precursor to correct spellings, but the student has to be comfortable with the process.

A suggested website to check out is: http://tips-about-kids.com

Transitioning to proper spelling is another critical point in the process of teaching spelling. Reading helps, but it is not the complete answer since English is only partially phonetic. Rote memory can help. If a student has a printed list of the 100 or 200 most common words in his writing folder it will serve as a reference source until the correctly spelled word can be visualized.

One of the important components of teaching spelling is discussion of spelling patterns. All of the lessons we learned about long A’s and short A’s still apply. Showing a classroom that ea and ee both produce the long E sound will help a student sound words out and also narrow the possibilities for spelling an unfamiliar word.

Some of us are born spellers; some born mis-spellers. It seems to be as simple as that, although dyslexia seems to be much more common than originally thought when it was first diagnosed. By the middle of the elementary grades, it will be clear that spelling ability varies greatly among students and that often it has little to do with native intelligence.

At this juncture, the most important traits for teaching spelling are patience and compassion. It is important to keep away or take away any stigma associated with the problem.

Teaching spelling to problem spellers may become a process of teaching the importance of proofreading. That’s not a common process with elementary and secondary students but it may become an important one for a student who struggles with spelling.

Teresa Styles
http://educationgold.com/