How to Help Young Children Learn To Spell

Spelling puts fear into many parents’ hearts, especially if this part of English has not been their favourite. The best way to start preschoolers on their spelling journey is to play a rhyming game. '

Young children like the sound of rhymes and enjoy the challenge of finding the right rhyming words.

As spelling and vocabulary expansion go hand-in-hand, children learn the meaning of words at the same time. Some words are spelled the same but pronounced differently - to read vs. read (past form of the verb), to veer vs. veer (a noun). Others, called homophones, are pronounced the same but have different meanings and are spelled differently (here vs. hear, gate vs. gait, born vs. borne). Then there are words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have a different meaning understood from the context (to bear vs. a bear, to break vs. a break).

Watch for exceptions: the word beard which by all accounts should be pronounced as bear with a d added. But no, it is pronounced as beer with a d at the end. The thing to keep in mind is that to every rule in English there is an exception or two (or many) which needs to be memorized as one discovers it.

Start with three-letter words (and follow the alphabet to find a new first letter) like bug, dug, hug, jug, lug, mug, pug, rug, and tug. Then substitute an o for the u and you get bog, dog, fog, hog, jog, log, nog, and tog. You can continue replacing the middle vowel with an a, an i, and an e. Using this rhyming game, you could easily reach over forty words, some of which your preschooler had just heard perhaps for the first time.

If your child does not understand the meaning of the word, you can describe what the word means and use it in a short sentence. There, your young learner has just increased his vocabulary effortlessly as well as memorized the word and its spelling. He has learned with ease how to spell the words as they are very short and use the same middle letter within a set/group.

The next word to rhyme might be bad – you can dramatize the pronunciation and lengthen the vowel (To the point of sounding like a sheep. Baaad!) – and contrast it with the staccato of bed.

Continue rhyming with bad, cad, dad, fad, (eh) gad, had, lad, mad, pad, rad, sad, and tad, and explain that wad is pronounced differently although it is still spelled with an a in the middle. Another difference in spelling occurs in dead, head, lead, read which rhymes with bed, fed, led, red, Ted, wed, and zed (the Canadian version of z).

Once you run out of three-letter rhymes for words like bat, dot, nut, Bob, and others, move to four-letter words like beat (or beet), bead (but deed), gate (and gait), dye (or die), ride (but lied), and continue with 5-letter words like ahead, drone, beard, ready, or funny. Try to find more pairs of words that are pronounced the same but are spelled differently, for example, board vs. bored, red vs. read (past form of to read), loan vs. lone, made vs. maid, and dear vs. deer.

So far, so good. So now we can move on to diphthongs. I bet that you have not heard this word for years, but all it means is two vowels side by side: ue in blue, oi in boil, ea in feat, or oe in toe as a few examples. These words also have rhyming partners – blue, due, rue, sue; boil, coil, roil, soil; beat, feat, heat, meat; and doe, foe, hoe, and toe. See if you can find more three- and four-letter rhyming words for the above diphthongs.

Keep the spelling game short in duration, about five minutes to ten minutes at most, and choose just one set of words. Use the words in short sentences: for example, fickle (an adjective) – The weather is fickle. It rained, and now the sun is out; nickel (a noun – note the spelling) – I will give you a dime for two nickels. Other words in the group could be pickle (a type of food or a difficult situation), sickle (a farming tool), and tickle (to lightly touch or a throat irritation).

Enjoy this time of seeing your children develop the skills and interest in learning how to spell as you help them lay a foundation for mastering the English language. 

Written by Barboria Bjarne

Barboria Bjarne is a freelance writer and artist. She has written, illustrated, and self-published two children’s books: Quanny and Danny (rhyme) and Grayson and the Crumbly, Grumbly, Rumbly Cookie (prose).

Before she had started writing essays and children’s books, Barboria has had many roles: professional tennis player and tennis pro, accountant, homeschooling mom, medical researcher, raw food nutritionist, tutor…but now she’s engaged in her two favorite endeavors – fine art and writing for children and adults.

Barboria Bjarne lives with her family close to the Rockies – growing lavender on her urban homestead when not writing or painting. Visit her at www.bbjarnebooks.com.