Spelling Tips – Spelling Corrections

TutorGiant.com

     It’s easy to tell children to correct their spelling by simply writing the word over and over.  That’s fine if it an honest, infrequent mistake. 

     What many people don’t know, is, that if a child often makes spelling mistakes, there is an underlying ‘reason’.  When I say ‘reason’ I’m not referring to anything serious here.  I am referring to a ‘spelling’ strategy that has gone awry.

     If your child is consistently misspelling words, you can help by finding the cause.

1.    First ask your child to read the word that is written down.  More often than not, your child will see his error and correct it.

2.    Now, examine the reason behind the spelling mistake. 

a) Is your child mispronouncing the word?  If so, have your child repeat the word after you.  Get your child to clearly say the word.  This will help him sound out the letters, thus not (hopefully not) making a similar mistake in the future.

b) Is your child unclear about a certain spelling rule? For example is your child unfamiliar or forgetful of such rules as, “i before e”, “drop the y and add an i”…

If so, remind your child and give him/her other examples with the same rule for practice.

c) Did your child ‘chunk’ the word correctly?  That is, did your child, when spelling the word, break it down into parts?  For example, the word ‘trip’ has a consonant blend of ‘tr’ and the two letters ‘ip’.  If your child tried to spell ‘trip’ correctly, he would have probably spelled the ‘t’ and the ‘r’ together, then the ‘i’ and ‘p’ after.  You can teach ‘chunking’ by showing your child lists of word families and consonant blends.

     If you find the reason(s) for your child’s spelling mistakes, you should get your child to verbalize ‘why’ he/she made the spelling error.  Having your child say it out loud will improve his/her chances on not making the same ‘type’ of spelling mistake again.

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