Supporting Your Child With Spelling
11 Sep 2023
Supporting Your Child With Spelling
Each Monday the children are introduced to this week’s spelling focus and are given words to practice at home. On Friday there will be a quiz to see how they have got on.
The words are written on a grid to enable a ‘LOOK at the word, SAY the word, COVER it up, then WRITE and CHECK’ method of learning. These sheets are there for support and structure but do not necessarily need to be filled in providing your child is practicing their spellings in some form each day. Please keep the spelling books at home and bring them back to school on Friday.
Here are some ideas you could try when helping your child to learn their spellings.
- Make sure they can read the words. Point to a word and ask them to read it (they might need to sound it out first and then blend)
- Say the word and ask your child to say and count the sounds (i.e. segment it) e.g. rain - /r//ai//n/ - 3 sounds
- Make sure your child is covering up the word when they are having a go at writing it (NB they should not be copying)
- Help them to check what they have written and ‘fix’ anything that needs fixing. Talk about how they could remember next time.
- Let them use magnetic letters to spell the words
- Let them use their favourite pen on different paper or chalk on a chalkboard etc
- Remember that if you are using the words to play a spelling game in the car then your child could either say the sounds – e.g. /d/ /ow/ /n/ (3 sounds) or they could use the letter names to spell the word – e.g. ‘D’ ‘O’ ‘W’ ‘N’ (4 letters) but it is never appropriate to spell using the sounds the letters make.