Some gifted kids see a word once and can spell it. Some can spell words they’ve never seen or heard before.
And then there are my kids.
My kids can’t spell their way out of a paper bag*. They both read well above grade level, and they read a lot.
One child has weaknesses in phonological processing as measured by tools like the C-TOPP. The other child hits above the 90th percentile on these measures, but the spelling difficulties are similar.
At some point in this adventure, I realized that my instincts on teaching are well aligned with best practices, which includes multi-sensory education.** That is, the more active you make an activity using more senses, the better the material is learned and the longer it sticks.
Writing by hand uses more of the brain than typing. Color, sound, physical movement, visualization, and practice all aid in learning.
For a list of 12 words, we spend 6 days working on the list. The goal is not to commit to rote memory each spelling, but to learn spelling skills. We aim to use as much of the sensory system when learning a list of words. Each day takes less than 10 minutes.
Separate the sounds:
Day 1: For every spelling list, my son first reads the list slowly aloud. Then he reads each word, and separates each sound in order. So “cat” would be read “/c/ /a/ /t/.” He then puts letters to each sound, saying “c – a – t.” Covering up the list, he separates the sounds and spells the word again.
Day 2: He repeats this process but with me reading the list to him, so that he has to separate the sounds based on what he hears.
Color coding:
Day 3: We try to figure out what the spelling rule is. Generally for each list of 12 words, one or two rules are addressed. If this week’s spelling words are short versus long ‘a’ for instance, then the child writes out the list coded by the vowel sound. For instance the final list might look like:
tap
cap
tape
cape
Tactile spelling:
Day 4: My kids love American Sign Language and Morse Code. I read the list, he separates the sounds, and then finger spells in ASL or taps out the letters in Morse Code as he spells the word. This tactile approach has been particularly effective at pesky blends and r-controlled sounds as there is something distinct about the “.- .-.” and “.. .-.” for ‘ar’ and ‘ir’ as are the sequence of motions in ASL finger spelling.
Repetition:
Day 5: He writes each word three times in his neatest handwriting. The most fun way to do this is to play tic-tac-toe, where each player writes a spelling word instead of an ‘x’ or ‘o’. I model separating the sounds while I write each word when I’m playing.
Day 6: He takes a trial test as dictation. We look at what errors he made, figure out if they were “following the rules” errors or other errors. Often this involves more separating of sounds. Missed words are written three times color coded by the word.
Other kids spell their words while jumping rope, practice them with finger painting or dragging the finger on sand paper, making a cross word puzzle. There are dozens of multisensory activities that they can use. Kids who enjoy drawing might enjoy drawing picture with and around words, and others sometimes sing songs of their own creation or otherwise. I know a lot of parents whose kids have had great luck using Spelling City.
If this does not make progress on spelling, then it might be time to get an evaluation for masked learning or physical disabilities. The first stop should always be a proper hearing and vision exam.
*Actually, this is no longer true for my older child.
**Oddly, when searching for peer reviewed research on the efficacy of multisensory learning in a general education population (that is, not special education for children with learning disabilities), I'm finding very little. My experience as a professor has trained me that if I want my students to learn certain difficult concepts, I have to make it active, including a variety of
And then there are my kids.
My kids can’t spell their way out of a paper bag*. They both read well above grade level, and they read a lot.
One child has weaknesses in phonological processing as measured by tools like the C-TOPP. The other child hits above the 90th percentile on these measures, but the spelling difficulties are similar.
At some point in this adventure, I realized that my instincts on teaching are well aligned with best practices, which includes multi-sensory education.** That is, the more active you make an activity using more senses, the better the material is learned and the longer it sticks.
Writing by hand uses more of the brain than typing. Color, sound, physical movement, visualization, and practice all aid in learning.
For a list of 12 words, we spend 6 days working on the list. The goal is not to commit to rote memory each spelling, but to learn spelling skills. We aim to use as much of the sensory system when learning a list of words. Each day takes less than 10 minutes.
Separate the sounds:
Day 1: For every spelling list, my son first reads the list slowly aloud. Then he reads each word, and separates each sound in order. So “cat” would be read “/c/ /a/ /t/.” He then puts letters to each sound, saying “c – a – t.” Covering up the list, he separates the sounds and spells the word again.
Day 2: He repeats this process but with me reading the list to him, so that he has to separate the sounds based on what he hears.
Color coding:
Day 3: We try to figure out what the spelling rule is. Generally for each list of 12 words, one or two rules are addressed. If this week’s spelling words are short versus long ‘a’ for instance, then the child writes out the list coded by the vowel sound. For instance the final list might look like:
tap
cap
tape
cape
Tactile spelling:
Day 4: My kids love American Sign Language and Morse Code. I read the list, he separates the sounds, and then finger spells in ASL or taps out the letters in Morse Code as he spells the word. This tactile approach has been particularly effective at pesky blends and r-controlled sounds as there is something distinct about the “.- .-.” and “.. .-.” for ‘ar’ and ‘ir’ as are the sequence of motions in ASL finger spelling.
Repetition:
Day 5: He writes each word three times in his neatest handwriting. The most fun way to do this is to play tic-tac-toe, where each player writes a spelling word instead of an ‘x’ or ‘o’. I model separating the sounds while I write each word when I’m playing.
Day 6: He takes a trial test as dictation. We look at what errors he made, figure out if they were “following the rules” errors or other errors. Often this involves more separating of sounds. Missed words are written three times color coded by the word.
Other kids spell their words while jumping rope, practice them with finger painting or dragging the finger on sand paper, making a cross word puzzle. There are dozens of multisensory activities that they can use. Kids who enjoy drawing might enjoy drawing picture with and around words, and others sometimes sing songs of their own creation or otherwise. I know a lot of parents whose kids have had great luck using Spelling City.
If this does not make progress on spelling, then it might be time to get an evaluation for masked learning or physical disabilities. The first stop should always be a proper hearing and vision exam.
*Actually, this is no longer true for my older child.
**Oddly, when searching for peer reviewed research on the efficacy of multisensory learning in a general education population (that is, not special education for children with learning disabilities), I'm finding very little. My experience as a professor has trained me that if I want my students to learn certain difficult concepts, I have to make it active, including a variety of