How do we teach spelling? 

Spelling can be a tricky skill for many young learners. Most kids find that reading words is much easier than spelling them, which is true. When we are reading we don’t have as much to recall because the letters are already on the paper to jog our memory. When we are spelling we start with only the sounds and have to recall what letters to use to spell those sounds. 

Another reason spelling can be tricky is the way many of us have been taught, and then teach our own kids, is to just memorize words. I remember I got my spelling list from school each week and wrote them over and over again to practice. What we know now though is that our brains simply cannot store every single word we learn. There are just too many. So, our brains have a more efficient way of storing words in parts so we can automatically read and spell them. We store the words through a mental process called orthographic mapping. Basically, we recall the parts of words (sounds) and store those in our memory along with their letter formations and letter/sound correspondence. It is much easier for us to store letter/sound patterns than whole words. So, we don’t want to memorize spelling words, our brains will eventually run out of room. We need to map words out! This means we hear each sound in the word and then pull those spelling patterns from our memory. We must have phonemic awareness to be able to do this! If you’re unsure what phonemic awareness is, go back in our blog posts and you will find more information!

Here’s what this actually looks like: 

Let’s say we’re spelling the word: “sneak”

1. Step 1 Say it: Child says the word “sneak”
2. Step 2 Say each sound: “ /s/ /n/ /e/ /k/ “
3. Step 3 Map it: Draw a line or a box for each sound ___ ___ ___ ___
4. Step 4 Write the sounds: sn  ea  k

It is important not to skip the mapping step, especially early in spelling instruction. We store patterns based on the sounds, so be sure to draw a box or line for each sound in the word. Remember, that is NOT the same as drawing a line or box for each letter. For example, In “sneak” the “ea” only makes one sound, the long e sound. So, it only has one line when we map it out and we write both the letters that spell that sound on that line. 

I have a spelling tool in my TpT store that works wonders for spelling help! It includes all the steps in a fun way. Check it out here. It has a pop it feature which also makes it so much fun! Kids pop out each sound before they map it.