I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to how to help my 7 year old learn his spelling words for school. I have had him write them five times each. I wrote them on flash cards. I have a computer game he plays called Reader Rabbit. Any ideas?
When my daughter was in school it helped her to say the spelling to me before she wrote them down. I make up songs or rhymes for the harder words. Her teacher once suggested we have her write the words with her finger in sugar or salt.
Can she spell them jumping rope or bouncing a ball? This sometimes helps my oldest daughter. She's a movement person, and does best when moving around.
I have my daughter write them several times too. I also have her write a sentence using each word. And she also makes up her own little songs to help her remember.
Writing them seems to work great. So does the sentence idea. My kids do not like to recite them when asked, however.
my dd loved jumping her out. Saying them then jumping each letter out. Kind of like what Jackie said.
My dd will say the word while clapping in syllables then spell each syllable. It also helps her to write them in the syllable at first then later put the word together.
if you can have them tape the words, record them somehow, and listen to them when they are playing, that will help too!
homemade worksheets Something that helped my dd is homemade worksheets. I would write the words leaving out the consonant one time and the vowel on the next worksheet. We worked on the vowels 2 days, the consonants 1 day, a mixture the last day, then a test. It worked well with her and she enjoyed it. Melanee Isaiah 40:31
I like that idea, you know I have to admit I have become lazy in my teaching of spelling, because it takes so much effort, but I have found in the past that it really is worth the extra work...
Try Spelling Power. It's expensive, but it goes all through adult, and takes only about 15-30 minutes a day. The book is thick and not very teacher-friendly, but it's very easy once you understand it!
No, it's just one BIG book that's orange. I think there's two different Spelling Power program, so they're easily confused.
discovery.com has a link on there you can put your child spelling words in and make puzzles and things out of them for them to do. My dd's use to love to do them. But, I don't think it helped them spell them. Jump roping is what worked for us.
If you go to teachingmadeeasier.com, you can sign up for a demo, you just enter in the words and then you can make up lists, word searches and so on. One thing I tried was writing the words on contruction paper then cutting out all the letters. Then my dd would have to put the scrambled letters together to make the spelling word. Any kind of game like that to actually touch and see the words worked for my dd. Writing them out is great! But my dd would get bored and still didn't retain them as well as when she worked with them.
sorry if I sound like I am turning lazy this year, with my arm hurting most of the time due to the torn rotator cuff thing and knowing half way through this fall/winter semester i WILL BE having surgery I am trying to make it as easy as possible to still keep school going.... I love these ideas though! I will have kids make thier own cards to teach one another thier spelling words, that way they are learning one anothers words as well! Maybe I can come up with a game they can play each week with spelling words....
I have only heard good things about that Spelling Power. I tried to find it on eBay and it was going for almost as much as if it were new. I think I am going to continue to look. It may be expensive but from what I understand you won't need to buy spelling books again. Maybe that is an exaggeration, I have no idea. Sounds kinda like one. But I figure if I can use it on both my kids for a few years or so than it is worth it.
I just looked on eBay there are some offered up for bid. There is an auction ending in about 5 days and the bid right now is $2.99 for Spelling Power--big Orange book. There is an auction ending in a few hours for the same book for $26.00. So, you never know! Check it out. I already have my spelling stuff this year so I am not sure I will be bidding on the $2.99 one. I am sure it will go up.
