How to help children with spelling, child struggling with spelling, remember spellings

How to Learn to Remember Spellings. Spelling tips and Strategies for Children

Your child may be given a set of words to learn each week and then tested on their ability to spell them. The National Curriculum has set out spelling rules, common letters strings, prefixes, suffixes, keywords etc that children must know by the end of certain year groups. It is important to keep on top of the suggestions made by the Primary National Curriculum to make sure children make progress and are using the new words learnt to improve their vocabulary and writing.

How to Improve Children's Spelling, Teaching Children New Vocabulary

How do you help your child learn to spell new words? How do you get them to remember the spelling, use it in their writing and remember what the word means?

There are many ways to help children improve their spelling. The key is to not only help them learn strategies to remember the spelling, but to also use the word in a sentence. Learning to read and learning to spell words go hand in hand.

Reading both fiction and non-fiction texts on a regular basis is essential. Reading helps reinforce the spelling of words without the child even realizing. It is one of the best ways to help your child learn new vocabulary. Reading allows children to come across words they wouldn't usually hear or use. Children will often try and figure out what the new vocabulary means by reading around the word or guessing what the word means. They may also try and use the new words they have learnt from reading in their writing. The more often a child uses a new word in their writing, the more likely they are to learn to spell the word and remember how to spell it.

How to Teach Spelling in a Fun Way

Children can learn to spell words in different ways:

by sounding out the word
breaking the word up into syllables
learning to spell the word by sight

Your child might learn their spellings better ad quicker if it is turned in a game. Teaching your child to spell in a fun way will encourage them to learn the words and remember them.

Here are some quick fun games you can play to teach your child to spell:

Using spelling flashcards.
Write the words your child needs to learn onto cards. Each word will be need to be written out twice i.e. 2 cards for each word. Mix the cards and place them face down on a table. Take it in turns to turns to cards over. Read the words on the cards. If they match, you keep them, if they don't match turn them face down again. The person with the most pairs of words is the winner.
Learn spellings by clapping them. You can clap each syllable e.g. app - le, break - fast, diff - er - ence
Play hangman using the words your child needs to learn. Alternatively, you could put rules into place e.g. the words used for hangman have to be an adjective or words that end in '-ible'
Ask your child to create a word search using the spelling words they need to learn.
Turn the words your child needs to learn into an anagram, can they rearrange the letters to spell the words e.g. rednfi = friend

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How Do You Remember Spelling Words?

Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check

This is a method commonly use to help children learn and remember how to spell words.

Look: Look at how the word is spelt.

Say: Look at the word and say it. Break the word into smaller chunks, e.g. ‘she’ to sh / e

Cover: Look at the word and say it. Cover the word, try and see it in your mind.

Write: Look at the word, say it, cover it and say it. Write the word without looking

Check: Cover the word and see if you can write it.

Spelling Tests at School - How to Help Your Child Memorise Spelling Words

You can test your child on the spellings they have learnt.
You can check to see if your child understands the meaning of a word by asking them to say a sentence using the word, or by writing a sentence.

Child Struggling with Spelling?

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