Building a solid foundation in your child’s English spelling can be essential, especially in the working world today where one requires proficiency in English to excel. However, it can be a challenging task to ensure that your child score full marks for that spelling test every time, especially if he lacks strong memory skills. Sometimes, he might even capitalise random letters in a sentence too.
That’s why I’m here to share the following tips with you. These are guides that can “trick” your child’s brain to remember them more efficiently. Use these as examples on how you can guide your child to write more accurately in the future.
SPELLING WORD: YOUNG
Sometimes, your child can leave out the “U” in “Young”, spelling “Yong” instead. To solve this problem, simply remind him, “U are young!”
SPELLING WORDS: -EA and -EE WORDS
To help your child better remember all the words that contain either -ea (like teach and eat) or -ee (like free and sneeze), you can sing a jingle with him containing all those words! For example, “Free wheel for sheep that sneeze between their teeth.” The jingle doesn’t have to make sense as long as it is memorable and catchy.
SPELLING WORD: BIRTHDAY
Some children spell this as “barthday” or even “berthday”. To help prevent this, ask if your child sees the birthday candle in the word. This visual trick should help him better remember what the second letter of the word is.
SPELLING WORD: RAISIN
“Raisin” is not spelled as “raizin”. To prevent this error, inform your child (while drawing an “s” with your hand) that snakes like raisins.
SPELLING WORD: FENCES
This word can be easily misspelled as “fenses”. To correct this, ask your child, “Do you “c” the fences?”
I hope these visual tricks will help your child memorise tricky spelling in the future. See if you come up with similar techniques on your own to guide them in practising better writing!