One thing to know about being a parent is that you are constantly teaching your children. Whether they go to school, whether they are homeschooled, whether they are outside, whether they are inside. You are teaching them in every single area of life, every single minute of every single day – and while that’s exhausting, it’s also quite wonderful. Children are learning from you from the moment they learn to sit up, roll over, speak; you are the first teacher, their first love, the person they go to who is a font of knowledge for all of the things that they want to know and learn.
Your children go from asking you why every five seconds, to asking you how to do something. They want to learn how to read, write, spell, draw – they want to know the facts, the myths, the legends, the mysteries. You get the point – kids want to know everything and it’s you they will ask. It’s not always easy to teach your children, however, and you have to understand that children aren’t like you. You can understand that if you were to look at a word you could learn to spell it and recognise all of the letters. Children will ask you how to spell a word, why the word is spelt that way, where the word comes from, and then also probably want to know who created the word in the first place. Children are curious, excitable, and they are sponges when it comes to learning. This is the golden thing to look for: a child who wants to learn is a miracle!
From using resources like Pennydellpuzzles.com to getting out in the real world, you need to make learning as fun as possible for your children. It is so much easier for your children to learn the information that you are teaching them if it’s delivered in a fun way. Using puzzles, for example, is one of the best ways to learn to spell because they have to put the word in the right order to be able to connect other clues. As your children learn how to write and how to spell things, it becomes a stepping stone in their development. Proper spelling and grammar are a must. Learning to spell may not be in a formal setting and it doesn’t have to be; you could ask them how to spell the words like kitchen, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner – to be honest, spelling can happen at any point in the day no matter where you are. You need to be able to make learning to spell fun just as much as you would make learning to count fun. Below, we have some of the most creative ways you can practice spelling words and help them to retain the information better.
- Create spelling charts. This is one of the ways that you can ensure that spelling at home is nothing too formal. When you create and laminate spelling charts for the walls you can list some of the items you have in each room, and encourage your children to learn by recognising those words. If you’ve ever seen Velcro ‘now and next’ boards, these have a picture and a word of an activity for your children to start putting in the right order. For example, a now and next board in the bathroom that you can help to create with your children, will help them to learn to put their activities in the bathroom in the right order. You could have the word toilet with a picture of a toilet, the sink with a picture of a sink – and you can help them to put it in the right order of how they would use the bathroom, wash the hands, dry the hands on a towel and then leave the room. This is one of the best ways to help your children learn to spell as they will sight those words every single day and those symbols will become easy to recognise.
- Create a spelling treasure hunt. Put a list together of the things in the house – everyday things – that you would want your child to find. Cut out all of these words, stick them on a piece of card and give your child a pen. As they find each item and recognise each letter, they can sound it out as they go. So, if you want them to find the bed, you would write the word bed, sound out the word with them so they can hear the word bed and let them go and find it. Then on the bed would be a treat as a congratulations for getting the word right. This is a great game and encourages children to want to try and sound out the words so they can get it right. Sounding out goes a long way to spelling
- Don’t underestimate the power of fridge magnets. It’s important that you recognise that not every child will have the same way. With the letter a number fridge magnets, you can help your children who are keen to take learners to do instead of just spell. They can move the letters into the right order at your request. If they are looking to find an apple, ask them to spell it on the refrigerator and help them learn to do it. You can really message I’m out of this one!
- Speaking of games, what about Scrabble? Board games are some of the best ways to help your children to learn to spell. Using puzzles – as we mentioned earlier – will really help them to understand words and how they sound. When you use games like Scrabble, you don’t just encourage them to spell the word, you can encourage them to learn the meaning behind it. This becomes an all encompassing way of learning how to spell, and they don’t even realize they are learning!
- Try incorporating memory games. With the help of flash cards, which are exceptionally useful when it comes to spelling, you can incorporate some memory games into your learning at home. You can write words and as they learn how to spell them, take some of the letters away. This then creates a missing word game rather than remembering the word game. Either way, your children will be learning to spell and they will be having fun while they do it.
- Incorporate technology. If you want to capture the attention of children of today, you need to have a look at what technology you are using to get there. If you want to give your children a great way to practice their spelling, turn off your predictive text and allow them to text you! With unlimited texting it’s so easy for you to receive the text and correct the spelling if necessary. You can also encourage them not to use emojis and actually use the words.
- Create words such as. This is such a great activity to do and there are so many great online resources out there to help. Creating words such as can be something that you do together, perhaps let the children pick the theme?
- Play Hangman. Hangman is an excellent game when it comes to learning how to spell. There is so much fun involved that the children don’t even realize that they are learning. It’s also a good way to correct their spelling so that when it is their time to be the Hangman, they can learn to spell the words correctly first.
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