English is a tricky language to learn in part because of all the different ways to spell the same sound.
Last week, during my Facebook Live last week, “How do I teach a sound that has multiple spellings?”
We took a look at two typical grade three spelling lists that are being given to and used to assess students on their spelling knowledge. I talked about the problems with the methods being used, as well as proposed alternative approaches to teaching spelling and reading.
In the old days, the student’s Readers included the spelling rules that related to each lesson, and as a result students were proficient readers and spellers by grade 8, which was when many students used to graduate. If a student knew the spelling rule, they could apply the rule to unfamiliar words and successfully read and spell them. However, the spelling rules are no longer being taught.
Nowadays many teachers are using confusing spelling lists that have multiple spellings for the same sound.
The child’s ability to spell is based on the outcome of weekly spelling tests. This is not a true test of spelling, because many children take the list home, and simply memorize the words. Soon after the ‘spelling test’, the words are usually forgotten. Even adults claim they have ‘terrible spelling’ and don’t know why or how to improve. I strongly encourage the teaching of spelling rules and generalizations as an antidote to this situation, since I have found that children can spell very well if they know and apply them.
Another common practice in schools is to use Word Walls. These are lists of words that start with a particular letter that students can look at and use as a quick lookup list. The problem with this is that many common words in English are not spelled using the letter you would guess if only hearing the word, and as a result the students cannot find the word on the word wall. For example, ‘knee’ sounds like it should start with an ‘n’ not a ‘k’. A child looking on the word wall under ‘n’ would never see ‘knee’ and so would not find out how to spell it or have any clue about which other letter to look for it under.
There is a solution for this problem: use a Sound Wall instead of a Word Wall. A Sound Wall takes a sound and lists all the different spellings there are for that sound, often with a list of words as examples. So instead of a child looking for a ‘word’, they are looking at their spelling choices for a ‘sound’ and are looking at the rules that govern each spelling choice so that they can make their best guess. This greatly assists students to find and learn how to learn and apply spelling rules – not just to memorize, a strategy that doesn’t work for many children.
I suggest that educators set up Sound Walls in their classroom because it helps all students learn how to correctly spell tricky words, regardless of their abilities.
Be sure to stay tuned for announcements of my teaching materials that will help educators teach spelling rules in fun and easily memorable ways.
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