Mum Sunday -Spelling

Spelling

This is one of those ‘hot’ topics like handwriting.

I would love to know what parents think of it. Do they think the spelling lists that come home every week work? Is it purely a rote learning activity? Does it work?

As a teacher I wonder what the best way to teach spelling is. We have so many schemes of work out there and schools decide when and what one they use. Very much like phonics and handwriting where some schools teach it and others don’t.

Mr 7 was sent home his spelling list last week to learn for the term. Now as he is a reluctant writer I know that spelling is going to be an issue as well. I also know that he doesn’t like testing. He gets very agitated, shuts down and lacks confidence in these situations.

Therefore it doesn’t surprise me that he is sent home a list of very easy words. However I know that he can spell the majority of these words. Straight away he rattled off 16/21 correct. I also know for the past year we have been working on those 5 other words that he just struggles to spell.

I get this as my dad and I also share this same pattern. He continues to spell ‘I’ll’ as ‘I’lle’ even after 65 years and I have a few words that took me ages to learn to spell and which I have to really think carefully about when writing. So are there words out there that we just struggle to spell? Should we then penalize children for this?

The teacher/mum in me asked for some more words which we got. Straight away on this list he spelt 11/29 words correct. But are lists the best way to teach spelling? And what is the point of asking students to learn to spell by rote if it can’t be applied to their writing? I taught a student once that could rattle of her spelling list every week perfectly but could never apply it in her writing. One of the reasons why I feel sending home lists every week doesn’t always work.

I don’t have an answer. I still think spelling rules and learning ‘family words’ can be beneficial. Children can apply these and also see common patterns. Then I also feel that with children who struggle to spell or are dyslexic is there a point? In today’s world most of our written work in done on the computer ( another reason the handwriting debate continues) shouldn’t we be better off teaching them how to use spell check correctly?

Yes, there are some difficulties here as well. I had a student who had dysgraphia and struggled to spell. While teaching him spell check I also had to teach him strategies to enable him to re-look at what he had typed as some of his words, spell check didn’t always pick up.

But then do we create a nation of people who can’t spell?

Do we need to look carefully at the children we are teaching and work out how to teach them spelling? We all don’t learn the same.

I am a visual speller; I need to write it down to ‘see’ if it looks right. Others can spell off the top of their head while others learnt to spell in rhyme, music or saw patterns. By teaching one way are we restricting others?

I know that my son learnt to spell ‘because’ singing it, knows that ‘they, then, them’ are ‘the’ with a y,n,m and ‘there’ is T to the H to the e,r,e sung like he is rapping. And should, could would- add w,sh, c and remember the rest by reciting ‘oh you lucky duck’.

And the best one I learnt the other day for Wednesday= nest without the T.