How to Help Your Child Improve Their Spelling

There are many reasons why a child may have trouble with spelling.  If you have serious concerns regarding your child’s spelling then please contact their English teacher to discuss the situation.  You might also like to consider whether your child needs a sight or hearing test.

If your child is a weak speller, there are several ways that you can help them to improve their spelling at home.  The following suggestions are from the Huntington Learning Centre:

1. Encourage mastery of the high frequency words – these are the words which are use the most often in the English language.
2. Help your child to understand the different sounds that letter combinations make.
3. Help your child understand word families: eg words that begin or end with the same letter chains
4. Practice, practice, practice – always ensure your child learns any spellings they bring home from school, or make your own spelling lists of words they frequently misspell.

Obviously, one of the best ways you can improve your child’s spelling is by encouraging them to read regularly.  Pick books that are of a suitable level for their reading and spelling ability or books that have an element of trouble; try to avoid books they will find too easy to read and which do not challenge them. 

For further information on ways to improve spelling visit the following websites:

https://huntingtonhelps.com/resources/blog/how-to-help-a-poor-speller

Cambridge University Press: World of Better Learning:  https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2016/04/05/supporting-spelling-strategies-helping-weaker-spellers/

How to Spell:  Top 8 Spelling Strategies:  https://howtospell.co.uk/ESL-spelling-strategies

There are also many videos on YouTube which are designed to help improve spelling.  I have found the following useful but there are also videos which focus on individual spelling rules: