Spelling

 

"Hey, how do you spell…?" is a familiar refrain around homes with school-age children. Since correct spelling can be a roadblock to the creative process, teachers often allow invented spelling in the early grades. But the next step is to help children move from misspelling words (wud, kant, shood) to conventional spelling—all the while keeping their spontaneity and enthusiasm for writing intact.

The English language poses numerous challenges for learning spelling rules. It seems that for every rule there is an exception. Helping your child stick with it and feel confident in using the rules he or she is taught is a worthwhile activity. Relying on spell checkers at this age is much too early (despite your child's protests to the contrary)!

To excel at spelling in second and third grade, your child should be familiar with consonants, vowels, and the common combinations. In these grades, children will be studying word families (phonograms) or certain spelling rules. (Remember i before e except after c?) Words with silent letters, plurals, double consonants, tricky vowel combinations, and compound words will also appear on their spelling lists.

Weekly spelling tests are pretty routine at this age. The lists may come from a traditional spelling book, from the story vocabulary in their reading textbooks, or from other things happening in class (a play, a field trip, a science class).

It is time to mention homophones again—those pairs (or sometimes triplets) of words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (like know and no). At some point during your child's education, you will probably find yourself contributing to the longest list of homophones ever written. Homophones can be tricky for children when they write, so it's good to help your young writer recognize which/witch, one/won, use/yews.

Apostrophes are important elements in spelling. They appear in contractions such as they're (they are) and in possessive nouns such as baby's. Teachers may count the spelling as incorrect if apostrophes are missing (or are present when they should not be). Often children see them as extraneous marks rather than parts of a correctly spelled word. This may be a good point to reinforce apostrophes with your young writer. While you're at it, remind him or her to use capital letters in order to spell proper nouns correctly.

Most of the time children need to spell out words when writing, but sometimes it's acceptable to use abbreviations—or shortened forms of word spellings. Here are the ones that your second or third grader will come across most often:

• Days of the week and months of the year (Mon., Jan.)
• Names and titles (Mr., Dr.)

They will often use abbreviations in writing charts, schedules, and letters.

Spelling relies on a variety of language arts skills—some reading, phonics, writing, and vocabulary. So, a few errors here and there shouldn't cause alarm. If you don't see improvements over time, however, be sure to speak up. With practice and proper instruction, most children can master the basic spelling rules. The more children can see words written, the more they will begin to develop an innate sense about spelling.

 

Taken from www.kz.com