Teaching Spelling
Spelling is a complex skill to master with many grammatical rules to learn. Before teaching spelling your child must know the 42 letter sounds. Letter sounds are different to letter names, which children learn when they learn the alphabet. Letter sound knowledge is essential for your child to blend sounds and segment words which are both skills required for spelling.
The Jolly Phonics teaching method supports children to spell many regular words independently. Irregular words which do not follow the phonics system and cannot be easily segmented and spelt are referred to as Tricky Words. These words have irregular spelling patterns which have to be learnt.
As adults we instantly blend letter sounds together when we come to an unfamiliar word, for example, a new or unusual name. It is an automatic process, which we are not always aware of, but it is vital for reading and spelling.
Blending involves a child reading each individual letter sound in a word, and then combining the sounds to read the word. This comes naturally to many children once they have learnt the letter sounds, but for others it may take more time and require extra support. Your child may struggle with blending if they are not familiar with the 42 letter sounds. Children also need to be trained to read the first letter sound first, as some children read the last letter sound initially and this leads to frustration as they cannot then read or spell the word.
Segmenting involves a child breaking down a spoken word they hear into individual letter sounds. This is necessary for a child to be able to spell words with regular spelling patterns. For example, the word ‘went’ can be broken down into four sounds ‘w/e/n/t’. Whereas, the word 'fish' is broken down into three separate sounds 'f/i/sh'. Your child needs to hear and segment the letter sounds in words to spell successfully.
There are many practical resources to support your child with blending letter sounds and segmenting words such as:
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Magnetic Alphabet Lower Case letters
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Foam letters
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Adhesive backed foam letters
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Wooden alphabet blocks
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Paintbrushes and pots of water with glitter on the patio
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Glitter in a small tray (your child can use their finger or a paintbrush)
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Sand in a small tray
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Wooden Scrabble letters
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A child sized whiteboard with coloured markers
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A Megasketcher
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An easel with plain paper and markers
Flash Cards
Flash cards are a useful way of developing spelling. The Jolly Phonics Scheme offers flash cards which support segmentation and blending of letter sounds. These picture flash cards have words with corresponding dots to represent the sounds in each word.
When using flash cards to support spelling, say the word by segmenting each letter sound, and then encourage your child to have a go at writing the word. For example, the word 'cat' can be segmented into three letter sounds 'c/a/t'. Encourage your child to count the letter sounds on their fingers to identify the number of sounds in each word. The next step is for your child to write down the sounds they hear and then self-check their spelling, by blending the sounds.
Start with simple three letter words and progress on to four- and five letter words. For example the word ‘cloud’ can be segmented into four separate sounds ‘c/l/ou/d’. This method can be used to teach your child the spelling of regular words. Tricky Words also known as non-phonetic sight words have to be learnt. These words cannot be 'sounded out' and require a child to learn them by sight. The 'Look, Cover, Write, Check' method can be used to learn to spell tricky words.
You may choose to incorporate a reward or star chart into your spelling sessions for added motivation and success!