Literacy

How to support your child to spell

Spelling is an important tool that students require to successfully convey their message when writing. Reading, writing and spelling are closely interconnected. Good spellers are resourceful and will draw from what they have learned at school to work out how to spell the word. 

If your child is struggling to spell a word, try and treat your child as the expert in spelling. Encourage them to use what they have been taught at school (Read Write Inc for the younger years and Spelling Mastery for middle and senior years) to see if they can break the word up into smaller sounds that they may already know or to use a spelling pattern that they have been taught. 

If you're providing feedback, initially make sure you focus on what they have done right rather than what they have done wrong. After this, work with them to try and problem solve what might need fixing in the word. 

Be encouraging and don't dwell on errors. Children who lack confidence with spelling or are fearful of getting a word wrong, can restrict their expression of words to what they know and can become reluctant writers. 

The Primary English Teachers Association of Australia provide the following pieces of advice about what parents can do to help their child with spelling:

• Draw attention to words in the environment and in the books you read together, for example: ‘Look at those two words … they almost are identical except for the last letter’; ‘That word is really long’; ‘That word is French’; ‘That word has three syllables in it’; ‘Those two words rhyme’.
• Play games with spelling. Play games like Scrabble, crosswords, making words from number plates, letters in your names, words that can be spelled the same forward and backwards. Look for spelling apps that you can play together, for example, Boggle.
• Play word games like thinking of rhyming words, opposites, or words that sound like their meanings. The Internet has many fun and free spelling activities.
• Point out unusual words in the books you read together.
• Look for words in the environment.
• Show that you care about spelling. 
• Children learn to spell by writing and noticing words when they read. Make reading and writing an integral part of your child’s day.

Fortnightly Segments 

Writing Challenge

If your child enjoys their writing and is keen to write for enjoyment at home, below is a prompt that you could ask your child to write about. 

If you could invent anything, what would it be? How could it benefit people? 

Comprehension Question 

This fortnight’s questions are:

• How does this book relate to your life or the world around you? 
• What is the author's purpose? Why do you think he or she wrote the book?