Starting Off With A Bange

Did you know that there are spelling rules?

Sure, you may know i before e except after c, and a few others as well.  But there are dozens of them.  Rules that help you decide when to use a j instead of a g, and when to use tch instead of ch.   I had no idea, which might be why I am such a terrible speller.  (Apparently I passed the problem on to Ezra because the other day, he spelled school as skuowl.)

Hooked on Spelling, which I bough Ezra last year, might get to the rules eventually, but I never saw them and we got bored with the program.  Gratefully, the “governess” is teaching some of the spelling rules to Ezra and he is walking around like he just got the keys to the kingdom.  Even better she showed me a method of having the boys learn their spelling words.  It’s designed to help kids who have trouble with symbol imagery and middle-aged women who never learned how to spell.

It will be a bit of trick to describe the system to you, but I’m going to attempt it because if you are a parent of a kid who struggles with spelling, I think you’ll want to try it.

1.  Divide the page into three columns.

2. In column one, you write the word while the student is watching.  Then you underline and note anything tricky about the word.  For the word bread, you would underline the ea and note that it does not follow the “when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking” rule.

3. In column two, the student writes the word.  They write the ea in a different color pen so that they pay attention to what is different about the word.

4.  The student folds column one over column two so that they can’t see either column, but column three is still exposed.  The student air writes the word on the paper while saying each letter aloud.  (Air writing is done with a finger, tracing invisible letters on the paper.)

5.  Finally, they write the word again in the third column and flip open the fold to see if they spelled it correctly.

You can do three to ten words at a time, but you go all the way across a row with one word before repeating the process again for the next word.  The next day, you give them a quick spelling test.  If they get a word correct for five days in a row, they get to highlight the word, and you only re-test once a month.

I love this plan.  I can introduce a new spelling rule every couple of weeks and use this method to teach the words.

The best part of the system is that there are pre-printed worksheets that I can buy. New rules; new systems to learn; school supplies to purchase online – this year is starting off with a bange.