Many of the children who have been at school for a year or more are able to read a good number of basic words - what we call high frequency words. But spelling them is a different matter. It can be a challenge to develop a connection between letters and their sounds or phonemes. They need to learn the 44 phonemes in English and the "code" for writing them down.
Spelling is a fundamental skill that children need to develop for effective communication. They need to be able to start a word by hearing and recording the correct initial letter and then get most of the following letters in the right order as an embedded mistake is hard to eliminate. With many exposures and practice using the look, say, cover, write and check method a child becomes familiar with the correct spelling.
Spelling is part of our literacy programme as well as home learning. Attention is drawn to groups of letters in a word that make certain sounds, for example the "ai" sound in "pain" is different from the "ay" in "play". This helps children become aware of visual patterns in written language and the possible sequences of letters when they are attempting to write words themselves.
Some of the methods I am using are to "over pronounce" words so that children can hear and memorise the correct spelling. It helps them think about the letters that represent the sounds in a word. An example of this is the word "went". Many children leave out the letter "n" but when I over pronounce it, they realise what letter is missing. Writing the letters they have difficulty with in a different colour or highlighter makes the children recognise where they need to take care and remember the tricky bits.
Other fun ways of learning spelling words are games with high frequency words that the children need to say before they move on, words with missing gaps, spelling riddles, word searches (which make the children look at the whole word and correctly search for each letter) and spelling quizzes against other students.
Spelling has more uses than memorising lists of words. I have found three main uses - the more familiar a child is with a word, they are more likely to recognise it in their reading texts, and to use it in their own story writing, and the third use is that a child will also be more likely to use it in their speech. They love to say the new words and as I am trying to inspire some children to increase their oral language, I have been encouraged to find this unexpected outcome of teaching children how to learn to spell.
