bbcovert@juno.com

Spelling seems to be one of those things that you either excel at or you don’t. God blessed me with the ability to properly arrange letters. I loved to spell from an early age. I enjoyed trading spelling tests in class to grade my classmates’ work; my favorite part was putting the big red X beside misspelled words! My second favorite part was getting my test back with a 100% at the top of the page. I loved spelling bees and still have the trophy I won in 6th grade! So just imagine my frustration when I discovered that my children didn’t share my talent for spelling. What’s a homeschooler to do?

God must have a sense of humor. He saw how much pleasure I took in marking the misspelled words on my peers’ spelling papers, and He said, “Since you enjoy that so much, I’m going to bless you with a couple of children who don’t have the spelling gene. You will homeschool them. You can have fun putting red X’s all over their spelling tests!” Of course, as a mature adult, I no longer delight in the mistakes of others. Additionally, I didn’t realize that the children with whom I was blessed through adoption weren’t going to be excellent spellers. In the beginning (1st grade), I thought I had been blessed with two spelling geniuses. They enjoyed the flash card game and our little two-person spelling bees. Spelling words got a little more difficult in 2nd grade, and by 3rd grade I figured out that these kids weren’t born spellers.

I’ve heard that spelling can come naturally and need not be taught as a subject. That may be true for some children. It’s certainly not true for everyone. Even if you have a voracious reader, as I do, you still may need to teach spelling, and it still may seem hopeless. I have some tips that may not make spelling bee winners of your students, but they will make learning to spell a little less tear-inducing.

1. Introduce fewer words per week. When the words got more difficult, even six per week was too much for my kids. During monthly reviews, I found that they forgot the words learned in previous weeks! As they continued to advance through the grades, our curriculum presented them with 30 new spelling words each week! My overwhelmed students were destined for failure!

Luckily, I – not the curriculum – am the teacher. I can whittle the spelling list down to a more manageable number for us. Remember, you are in charge, and you can mold your educational materials to suit your homeschool.

2. Choose your own words rather than using a list from a book. You can determine which words give your student trouble by checking his or her writing assignments. You can create a word list from the misspelled words. In this way, your student is working on words he or she is more likely to use in real life and therefore needs to be able to spell.

3. Take more time on each word list. We homeschool! We don’t have to move on to the next lesson until the current one is completed to our satisfaction!

4. Teach to your student’s learning style. A visual learner needs to see the spelling words. An auditory learner needs to hear the words spoken and spelled out. A kinesthetic learner needs movement to occur with the words. A musical learner needs to sing the words and their spellings.

5. Make spelling fun. Does your student enjoy word searches, scrambled word puzzles, or other word games? In earlier years, my children loved playing “spelling bee.” I even called them by number rather than name. We also had a phonics curriculum that came with make-it-yourself board games. Those were fun. Now I go online and make word searches, choose-the-correct-spelling worksheets, fill-in-the-missing-letter worksheets, crack the code worksheets, crossword puzzles, and more. My kids love these and feel like they are having fun instead of working! The best website I know of for making spelling worksheets is the one I also write reading comprehensions for: www.edhelper.com. You can make word searches with your own spelling words without cost. However, if you want to access the many other puzzle building pages, you must become a subscriber. At $20 a year, it truly is a bargain, for you can create and download an unlimited supply of worksheets, plus have access to other language arts, math, science, and history pages.

6. I’ve heard that when kids want to communicate through the written word, they learn to spell. Give your student a reason to write, and he or she may become eager to learn correct spelling. Besides the traditional letters to grandparents and pen pals, your student may enjoy sending e-mail, which generally has a payoff of a quicker response than regular mail. Remember that the key is wanting to write. Assigning them writing projects when they don’t love to write won’t solve the problem.

Your child may not have the “spelling gene.” God has a reason for the weaknesses and strengths each of us has. By all means, work on strengthening any weaknesses, but don’t prod to the point of frustrating yourself and your child. Trust that the Lord has given your child everything he or she needs to fulfill His purpose in their lives!

Happy homeschooling!

Copyright 2006 by Brenda B. Covert