A simple spelling strategy parents can use at home…
I was talking with a friend of mine this week. She was helping her daughter with her spelling words for the week. I know many of you are cringing at that concept. It’s true, the research shows that we want to move away from teaching students to memorize words. Instead we want to teach spelling patterns, with a focus on learning the spelling pattern that maps with a particular phoneme, or sound. This concept is often referred to as “Word Study”. But…let’s save that for another blog post.
Back to my friend… Her daughter had a tough time spelling the word atrium. She was using the digraph ch to spell the blend tr. Spelling achrium for atrium. This is a pretty common misspelling. Often it has to do with what the student is hearing when the word is spoken to them or what the student is hearing when they say the word.
After spelling the word atrium incorrectly, her daughter’s self-esteem sank. My friend made a crucial decision at that very moment. She gave her daughter a few easier words to practice spelling. These were words she knew her daughter would be able to spell. She encouraged her daughter to sound out the words and focus on the grapheme(s), or letter(s), that match with each phoneme, or sound. In that moment of defeat her daughter’s confidence was low, but my friend gave her daughter a break from the tough word to build her confidence back up.
To refine that strategy even more, I recommend a few tips.
When the student spells the word achrium for atrium. Stop and ask them to stop and say each sound in the word. Tapping each sound on their fingers can help them map the sound, or phoneme, to the letter(s), or grapheme(s). Some students may even need a visual manipulative such as elkonin boxes or phoneme-grapheme maps.
If the student still needs support to spell the word correctly… use my friend’s strategy! Provide the student with words that include the tricky grapheme(s). I recommend that you strategically select words with the tr blend. In this case, I would provide the student with words like trap, trim, trust, trying, attract. You would increase the difficulty level as the student works on spelling these new practice words.
Finally, make your way back to the word in question. In this case, atrium. Isolate the sounds in the word. Encourage the student to use an elkonin box or a phoneme-grapheme map, if needed. Be sure to remind the student that this tricky grapheme, such as the tr blend, is a grapheme they know. Encourage the student to look back at the “easier” practice words they just spelled.
So, next time you’re workin with a student who misspells a word like atrium, I encourage you to use this simple strategy. You may even want to read more about the “Word Study” concept. Reading Rockets offers a simple breakdown of the concept here.
❤️🔤 -Niki
