Spelling Hints: Making Memorization Easier

Our youngest son struggles with spelling. He's finally figured out the b and d, but frequently still writes words with random capital letters. This year has been a struggle. Some of the typical memorization games I designed for our oldest son haven't seemed to improve the outcome of his weekly tests. It just wasn't sticking.

No two kids are alike. 

To make it easier, I've been giving him tricks - sometimes visualizations, sometimes jingles, and sometimes a silly sentence. Guess what? Test scores are rising!

Here's a few examples of what we've done the last few weeks.

SPELLING WORD: YOUNG
My son kept leaving the u out of young. I told him to remember: U are young!

SPELLING WORDS: -EA and -EE WORDS
I knew this was going to be a gargantuan challenge. I divided the list. Once I had all the -ee words, I made a sentence for him to remember: "Free wheel for sheep that sneeze between their teeth." To make it more memorable, we sang it. Any other words he's tested that are not in this sentence are -ea words. This trick helped him during our first few nights practicing. Eventually, he didn't have to sing the jingle sentence. He had memorized which words were -ea (beach, eat, teach, reason, etc.) and which were -ee!

SPELLING WORD: BIRTHDAY
Every time my son spelled birthday, he said the second letter was an a. I told him to look at the word. Do you see the birthday candle in the word? YES! This visualization really did the trick (pun intended)!

SPELLING WORD: RAISIN
There's no z in raisin, but try telling that to my son two weeks ago. I told him to remember, "snakes (drawing an s with my hand) like raisins."

SPELLING WORD: FENCES
That c sure sounds like an s, doesn't it? To help my son remember, we came up with the hint: Do you "c" fences?

SPELLING WORD: TRAIN
Sometimes I point out words within words to help my son. When he spelled train initially, he left out the r. I showed him train is really t-rain. BOOM! No more missing letter!

A few hints, a simple song, or a silly sentence have made all the difference for us. I hope some of these tips help you and your kids!

A-MAZE-ING Spelling Practice

Our 2nd grade son has been doing activities I made for our now 12-year-old son. It's been fun to rediscover so many of the activities I created years ago. Since our two boys are very different, it's still fun to create customized activities for him. And since he loves mazes and needs to practice spelling, this is one such activity.

I made four mazes. One for a 7-letter word, 6-letter word, 5-letter word, and 4-letter word.

Imagine the bottom boxes filled in with the letters in your child's spelling word. Follow the lines up to the shape above and add the respective letters there. Download a PDF of the four mazes from Google Drive here (remember, teachers, to use your personal email address if you need to request access as your school probably limits messages from outside their domain). 

This is quick, simple, and fun. Spelling practice doesn't have to be boring. Just make it a-MAZE-ing!

Sign Language Sight Word Decoding (free printables)

I'm not sure how it happened but the other night I explained to my boys about Koko and how they'd taught the gorilla to communicate with sign language. We watched a YouTube video which captured all of our attention.

To expose my sons a little more to American Sign Language, I made some fun printables (the boys were my hand models). Click on the links in the list below to download the free PDFs from Google Drive.

1. A-Z alphabet cards
2. 1-page American Sign Language Alphabet cheat sheet (on the same PDF as the cards)
3. Sight word cards spelled with sign language for decoding

I gave my six year old son the last two of these three printables (with the cards cut apart) and explained to him that he needed to decode the sign language letters to figure out what the sight word was and read it to me. 

He enjoyed the challenge, especially because many letters resemble a fast, just with different finger formations.

To go with the activity, we read two great fiction books that provided some context for our activity. 

You're on a Roll - CVC Dice Game

Our almost six year old is starting kindergarten in less than a month. Where oh where did the summer go? We're still working on sounding out letters and words to reinforce his phonics knowledge.

I made a fun CVC activity for him to practice phonics, blending sounds, and early reading skills.

The game has three DIY dice, two with consonants and one with the vowels.

He rolled them all and with help we checked to see if he'd made a real CVC word or a nonsensical word. If one die rolled "YOU CHOOSE," he could use the other two letter rolled and choose the third letter to form a word.

My son is a long way from thinking of words on his own or knowing their spelling. I gave him a list of words for him to reference. 

We made a game out of it and took turns rolling to see which one of us (him or me) could make more of the CVC words on the list, circling each as we rolled it.

This free download is the third iteration of the activity. The first two ways to play were WAY more complicated than they needed to be. All you need is a kid to show you how to take the game you designed and play it the best way - the easiest, most fun way. I should have consulted him first!

Download the game here. Print on heavyweight cardstock, cut out, score the lines and fold your dice. I used a low-temp glue gun to glue the tabs together.

Spin & Spell {Gross Motor Spelling Practice}

Spelling can be B-O-R-I-N-G. Practice consists of me saying the word and my son reciting the letters … blah, blah, blah …. yadda, yadda, yadda.

Recognizing that my son is a kinesthetic learner, I thought it might be fun to practice spelling in a more active way.

I still recited the words.

But what came next was a whole lot more fun.

My son took a turn with the gross motor spelling spinner I made, flicking the metal paper clip that I threaded through a brad inserted in the center hole.

Whatever it landed on, he did: spelling the word while doing jumping jacks, making arm circles for every vowel, or skiing down imaginary moguls one letter at a time.

This gross motor spelling practice exercised the body AND the brain, and it was fun too!

Download a PDF of the spinner here. Print on sticker paper or glue to a recycled piece of chipboard (e.g. cereal box). Cut out, punch a hole in the center, and use a paper clip and brad to make the spinner. Voila!

Fill the Bushel Spelling (or Sight Word) Game

This week was my first time volunteering in my son's 3rd grade class. The teacher had me work one-on-one with a few students helping them learn their spelling words. It reminded me of just how boring studying spelling words can be. In brainstorming new ways to practice with my own oldest son, I came up with this idea.

This little game focuses on learning five words.

Quiz your child or look at their pretest to see which words on the list they are struggling with. Those are the five.

For this game you need to print five bushels and a special die. Download the 6-page PDF I made here. Print onto heavyweight cardstock. Cut, fold, and glue the die together.

Either laminate the five bushel pages or slip them into plastic sheet protectors. Label each on the line at the top of the page with one challenging spelling word (or use sight words if that's what you're working on). Use a fine tip-dry erase marker.

Now grab your kiddo and tell them it's time to "Fill the Bushel."

How to Play

The player rolls the die. If they roll a four, for example, they find the page with that number on it, look at the word at the top of the page, and copy it onto one of the apples in the bushel with the dry-erase marker.

If the player rolls the worm, they roll again until the die shows a number. That number tells them what bushel to erase a word from; that was a bad apple and it must be thrown out. If they roll the number that has no words yet, he/she moves on without any erasing (rolling again to see what bushel to add a word to).

Kids can either stop rolling when one of the bushels is full or keep going until ALL the bushels are full, keeping track of which were filled 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

The repetition of writing the five words again and again is sure to help him remember them when it's test time.

My son got caught up in the game and forgot we were practicing spelling. That totally fills MY bucket.

UPDATE: A blog follower came up with a great adaptation for her kiddo. She plans to use this little game to help her kindergartener practice writing certain letters. (What a good idea!!) I modified the PDF so the apples have ruled guidelines to help kids. Download this variation here.

Popcorn Letters (Pre-K and Elementary Spelling)

I've been working hard to feed our boys healthier snacks and lately, there's no snack requested more than popcorn. I even whipped up some tasty cinnamon-glazed popcorn this weekend (MMMMmmm).

So when I saw Mrs. Jones's popcorn words, I was excited.

Instead of word work, though, I thought we could do some spelling practice.

I made an alphabet of letters on popcorn pieces.

I printed four sets of the popcorn alphabet, cut apart the letters, and grabbed a few popcorn buckets.

Now it was time for both of my boys to play!

Download a free 3-page PDF of the popcorn alphabet here.

LEARNING THE LETTERS IN MY NAME Popcorn Game (PreK)

For my just-turned-four-year-old son, learning the letters in his name has been a struggle. I've been itching to find ways to help make this fun. I took a piece of 8 1/2 by 11-inch office paper and cut it the long way, taping the short ends together so I had one long strip of paper.

Then, I wrote the letters in his name leaving a generous amount of space between each. Now, I grabbed only the popcorn letters that make up his name, wadded them up a little, and tossed them into a popcorn cup.

It was his job to pull them out, say each letter out loud (he repeated after me), and match the popcorn's letter with the letter in his name, placing the popcorn letters in piles on top of the handwritten name banner I made. He really enjoyed this game and the two books we read to go along with it as well.

SPELLING PRACTICE Popcorn Game (Elementary)

My oldest son toted home his first spelling list this week (the 2nd week of 3rd grade). While the list is shockingly easy compared to last year (they're implementing a new literacy program), I wanted him to get in the habit of studying spelling. The popcorn letters were the perfect spelling manipulative.

For his activity, I used a BIG popcorn bowl we had on hand and all the letters from four sets of the popcorn alphabet.

I wrote a handful of the words in his notebook and told him to pull the pieces out, trying to find the letters to spell each of the words.

Each word got a score - the number of extra popcorn letters that were pulled out before the entire word was spelled. One word only had 15, another 62! My son had fun counting and recording each word's score.

When he was done, we read The Popcorn Book. WOWZERS, there sure is a lot to learn about popcorn!

Irregular Plurals Card Game

It's been awhile since I got out our tricky plurals cards to practice irregular plurals. I thought I'd find a new way to practice irregular plural nouns - you know, those words that in their plural form don't have an s or es on the end. What better way than a card game?

Before we got playful, we read Brain P. Cleary's Feet and Puppies, Thieves and Guppies: What are Irregular Plurals?  Wacky illustrations combine with a whimsical rhyming explanation of the wacky inconsistencies of the English language.

Then I handed him a shuffled a deck of 32 cards.

Download a free 4-page PDF of the irregular plural noun cards here.
To keep them from being see-through, glue patterned scrapbook
paper to the back and cut out.

Five cards were dealt to each of us. The rest of the cards were laid face down and scrambled around in a messy pile. The game is played like "Go Fish."

Players take turns asking their opponent(s) if they have the singular or plural form of the cards in their hand, until they have a match. If the opponent provides the card, the player gets to ask again, until they are told "I don't have that card" and must draw a card from the pile in the middle.

When a player runs out of cards, the game is over. Whoever has the most matches is the winner.

Sidewalk Chalk Spelling Hop

I'm not going to lie. I've had good intentions of making an alphabet mat like the ones here and here for QUITE some time. Truth be told, I'm lazy. Not only would I have to sew, paint, or fashion the letters from tape, I'd have to store the thing after its use.

Sidewalk chalk was the answer!

The idea hit me like a lightning bolt while I was at work. That day, I came home, pulled the car in the garage and before I even hit the door to the house, grabbed our sidewalk chalk to make an outdoor alphabet mat on the driveway.

I didn't even change out of my heeled sandals (which I regretted later).

I made a grid six squares across and five squares down. In the first box, I put a big star. Each box following had a letter of the alphabet (in hindsight, I should have written them in lower case). There were three blank boxes left. To those I added a question mark, an apostrophe, and the words "capital letter."

When my son got off the bus and walked up on me finishing up, he was psyched. I explained that it was time to practice spelling. "Outside?" he asked. "Absolutely," I replied.

The rules were simple.

• Start and end every word at the star.
• Get from one letter to the next trying not to step on other letters in the process (which isn't always possible, but kids sure have fun trying).
• If you get stuck, step on the question mark square.
• If the word begins with a capital letter (proper noun, etc.), step on the "capital letter" square before you head to the first letter in the word.
• If you misspell the word, you have to go back to the star and begin again.

This was just as much fun as the last time I got crazy with the sidewalk chalk! (Check out our Driveway Dice Roll game here.)

I knew the activity was a hit when a neighborhood boy came over to play and after I'd explained that the grid was for spelling practice, he said, "I want to try it!" My son and his friend had a bit of a spell off, trying to stump each other. If it weren't for "Wednesday," I think my son would have won!

We've Flipped Over Homophones!

Who's kidding who? Homophones can be confusing. What's the difference between pair and pear? You're and your? And wheel and we'll? Oy.

To make our homophone drills fun, I made some flip sticks. It's simple. Grab some jumbo wooden craft sticks and square Post-It notes. Write the homophones down, one on each of two notes. Place one face down and center the craft stick on it, so the top of the stick catches the adhesive part of the Post-It. Now place the other note on top (sticky side down), sandwiching the craft stick between the two notes.

Make several of the homophone flip sticks. Use the words in sentences and have your child flip the stick to the right word.

Our List of Homophones

Hour

Our

Are

Ate

Eight

For

Four

Pair

Pear

Knew

New

We'll

Wheel

You're

Your

Note: Since we had an odd number of words, are had a blank post-it on the back of its flip stick.

Our Practice Sentences

It was a gift for her father.

I was tired of waiting for him.

Practice was going to start in four minutes!

All I needed was four more cards to win the game.

I loved my new shoes.

Come and meet my new baby sister.

I knew all the answers to the problems.

She knew I was lying.

Swimming lessons started in an hour.

The cakes takes an hour to bake.

Our teacher told us to be quiet.

She rode in our car to the piano recital.

The flowers are bright yellow.

Are you feeling alright?

I ate my entire hamburger, I was so hungry.

My dad ate the pickle even though it was sour.

There were eight children lined up waiting to go outside.

I finish school in eight days.

There were lots of shoes by the door, but I couldn't find my pair.

I lost my pair of mittens at school.

I had my choice of an apple, orange, or pear.

The pear tree had lots of fruit.

We'll be out of town that weekend visiting friends.                         

I guess we'll eat at the football game.

The toy car was missing a wheel.

The bike's wheel was bent.

Your brother tells funny jokes.

I like your shirt.

You're the first student to complete the assignment.

You're making a mess!

I went through the list randomly and kept track of how many my son got right; he was anxious to know his score as practice progressed and so excited to only get two wrong. (Too bad you're and your tripped him up!)

Looking for even MORE fun with homophones? Download my FREE homophones memory game.

Big City of Word Skyscrapers

Spelling words, spelling words, oh how we're growing tired of spelling words. If you've been a faithful follower this month, you might have noticed a pattern - spelling word activities every Monday. (I think it's safe to say we're in a rut.) So, without further adieu, I give you the last spelling activity you'll see here for awhile.

Some spelling activities are best for review, after a fair amount of practice. This activity, like Spelling Race and Roll &Write, is perfect for that early practice when a child is just beginning to memorize the correct spelling of a handful of words.

The supply list is short: graph paper, pencil, and a yellow highlighter.

Make a Word Skyscraper

Along the bottom of the page, my son wrote the spelling words, one letter in each box. He spaced the words with one empty box between each.

Then he repeated the words, omitting one letter (either the first or last) on each line, making a stair-stepped skyscraper building for each word from the bottom up. The top of the skyscraper had just one letter (either the first or last).

Here's one of his skyscrapers:

i

in

inv

inve

inven

invent

inventi

inventio

invention

inventions

(The repetition of writing the letters again and again really helps my son with memorization.)

Who's Home in the Word Skyscraper?

Once each word skyscraper was complete, I had my son look at each line of letters (or each story in the skyscraper). Were there any other real words revealed?

In the example above, there were five: I, in, invent, invention, and inventions.

He colored those boxes with the yellow highlighter, simulating lights. (Everyone that lives on the ground floor is always home.)

Tell Me About Your City

With his city of words complete, I asked him several questions.

• Which skyscraper is the tallest?
• Which skyscraper has the most people home?
• Which skyscraper has the fewest people at home?

Repetition works. And spelling practice can be fun.

3 Simple Spelling Review Activities

Is it the end of the school year yet? Oy! Those spelling lists just keep on comin' home with my son.

If you're like me, you'll do anything to find a creative way to make practicing them fun. (Sadly, there is always grumbling from my son when I pull out the list to review.)

Here are some new ideas he's enjoyed recently.

No. 1: Spelling Review Ball Toss

My son is a kinesthetic learner. It's like his brain gets moving when his body is moving too. One day I picked up his Nerf football and we practiced the words one by one, tossing the ball back and forth. I'd say a letter and he'd come up with the next one, with the ball whizzing between us. 

If the ball dropped, we started the word again. If his spelling was incorrect, I explained the error and we began again. We can't continue on to the next word until each one is spelled right.

VARIATION: Take your spelling practice outside. Grab a basketball. Read the words on the list and as your child recites the spelling, have them dribble the ball (one bounce per letter).

No. 2: Invisible Ink Spelling Review

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little with that title. But seriously, crayon resist makes it easy for kids to self-check their spelling practice. Simply grab a piece of paper and fold it in half the long way. If it's not lined, make lines. Using a white crayon (or I use a fine-tip Crayola twistables colored pencil), write the correct spelling of each word on the right side of the fold. The child spells each word on the left and then gets to use watercolor paint to reveal the "invisible word" on the right. Maybe my son is naive, but he thinks this is nothing short of magic.

No. 3: A-MAZE-ing Spelling

I can't take credit for this idea, although I'd like to. It's genius. Alissa at Creative With Kids shared this idea back in 2011. You can actually turn your child's spelling words into mazes. It takes a little front-end prep (you need to sign up for a free account at Fontstruct and download the Mazey font; also free), but once your computer is equipped with the new font, it's just a matter of typing the spelling words and hitting print.

NOTE: Because my son had the words groan and grown on his list the first week that we did this, I added a sentence above each of the word's mazes to help him understand the difference in the word's use and meaning.

My son had LOADS of fun with this! Once he'd wound his way through the maze, he colored the letters in the maze so it was easier to read the word.

Wheel of Fortune-Inspired Spelling Game

Each week, we start practicing the spelling list by simply reciting the letters in each word. If my son gets the words wrong (usually five or six out of 12-15 words), I circle them and those are the ones we focus our afterschool study on.

This week our spelling practice was inspired by the game show Wheel of Fortune. I call it Word Reveal.

My son had fun with this activity (and, honestly, I kind of got a kick out of playing Vanna White).

What You Need

3-page Word Reveal PDF (download it here)

3 sheets of legal-sized paper to print on

Laminate

Fine-tip dry-erase marker

Spelling words (up to six)

Page Marker Post-It notes

 

Either of these sizes of Post-Its work with the game board.

Prep

With the "Word Reveal" PDF printed on legal paper and laminated, grab the spelling list. Write the spelling words (one word per each line of boxes and one letter in each box) with the dry-erase marker. Over the top of each letter, place a Post-It Note Page Marker (there are some guide lines to help you position the notes). Make sure you can't see the letter through the note (i.e. don't use the yellow Post-Its!).

NOTE: You can trim the three pages once laminated, use packing tape to form hinges, and make it into a tri-fold game board for easy storage.

It's helpful to write down the words your child is practicing to refer to.

Play

Invite your child to guess letters. You can either uncover every "a" (as an example) on the Word Reveal board, or just the "a"s that are in one word at a time (it's your choice).

As more and more letters are uncovered, encourage your child to try and guess which of their spelling words are on the game board. If they guess right, have them spell the word, peeling back the Post-Its as they recite each letter to make sure their spelling is accurate.

Once practice is done, reward your child for their hard work with a hug, high-five, or special treat!

There, Their, or They're: You Be the Judge

My son got off the bus last week with a long face. He'd failed the pre-test and came home with the easy list of spelling words. I was surprised; he's good at spelling. As soon as he handed me the list, I understood.

There. Their. And they're. That's what had happened.

Not only had his teacher expected him to spell them right, but he needed to know when to use which one in a sentence. My son had totally botched it up.

Those three words sound EXACTLY the same but are used COMPLETELY differently. How confusing!!

To help him study, I gave him a little lesson with some tips and tricks.

There

Within this word is another word: here. There usually represents a place.

Very often, if you can substitute here in place of there, you've used it correctly.

Their

This is a possessive pronoun. I reminded my son that "I" was also a pronoun, which was a hint to help him remember that this their is the only one spelled with an i.

If you can replace their with our and the sentence still makes sense, you've used it correctly.

They're

Among these three words (there, their, and they're), this is the only one that is a contraction. It's an abbreviation for they are.

If you can put they are in place of they're, you used the right word.

Now it was time to put his knowledge to the test.

Download a 1-page PDF of this worksheet here.

"You be the judge," I said. "Read the sentences on the post-it notes and decide if the correct there, their, or they're was used."

I reminded him that the scale on my DIY worksheet needed to be balanced, so an equal number of sentences should be on the incorrect side as the correct side.

This took LOADS of thought and he referenced the cheat sheet of hints I made several times. I was so proud when he caught two misplaced sentences moments before handing me the worksheet to check. He'd sorted all the sentences correctly!

I gave him eight sentences to sort. Here they are, along with some extras we'll be using for future practice:

Correct:

I put my shoes right there.

It was their team's turn to answer.

They're my favorite band!

There is the book I lost.

Their car is blue, not grey.

I asked, but they're out of town that day.

Let's go there.

Their house is the one with the picket fence.

They're too short to ride the roller coaster.

Incorrect:

Their are no cookies left!    <<should be there>>

There excited for the party.   <<should be They're>>

Why didn't they listen to they're teacher?   <<should be their>>

Are we almost they're?  <<should be there>>

Their daydreaming, instead of listening. <<should be they're>>

There project was the winner. <<should be Their>>

My favorite pizza place is right their.  <<should be there>>

I can't see them; there too many people here.  <<should be they're>>

Lots of people are stopping at there lemonade stand. <<should be their>>

Scrabble Math Spelling

If you've surfed Pinterest any time in the last six months, I've no doubt you've seen these marvelous little tiles. You can download them (like I did) from Jimmie's Collage. I printed two copies onto magnet paper (you just run the magnetic pages through your printer) and cut them out.

Use a metal surface and have your child use the tiles to spell the words from their spelling list. Warning: There's no "w" on the print-out; either use the "m" upside down or use a "blank" tile.

Once the word is spelled, add up the numbers on the tiles.

My son loved the challenge of seeing which word would add up to the highest number.

"Experiment" was the winner on his list with 22. WHOA!

Look at his face. No caption is necessary.

Want to extend the math lesson? Have your child put the words in order from least to most points. How many more points did the winning word have vs. the losing word?

This activity was great fun for both my boys. I read the word from the spelling list. My oldest son spelled it out loud and my youngest son and I hunted for the letters. The second-grader got great addition and spelling practice. My preschooler got a lesson in letter recognition. No wonder this idea has gone viral! I'm putting this in our regular rotation for spelling practice.