‹ News / Tips & Help
Why do we Teach Spelling?
It’s a question often asked as there is now so much technological support to help us as adults – “Hey Siri, how do you spell collaboration? Alexa, can you spell pedagogy?” Never mind wonderful Google who will send us to dictionary.com in a second.
As teachers, we know spelling is important for communicating, for getting your voice out there, for giving a first impression of your writing and for making spelling second nature so that you can focus on composition. All of these reasons are important but there is one more: for engaging and enthusing our impressionable young learners with a thirst for knowledge about words. This is why we should teach spelling – to learn more about words. Learn where words come from, what they’re linked with, what they mean and other words that mean a similar thing, what shape they are, how they sound in different accents, which phonemes we’ve borrowed from the French…so much to learn about words. The teaching of spelling should be as engaging as the introduction to a new picture book or reading your favourite novel out loud.
Realistically though, there is a lot about the teaching of spelling that doesn’t feel very exciting or engaging. There are ways we can improve the teaching of spelling in our classrooms. We can start by making the learning collaborative and to encourage more talk. More talk means more engagement.
Try one of these, next time you teach a spelling lesson:
- Use your teacher talk to model and demonstrate enthusiasm for finding a particular rule or pattern.
- Set a problem, an investigation, something that pupils have to grapple with – fascination lies at the heart of engagement.
- Give pupils time to think and talk before practising spellings: exploration is needed for the thinking and creative processes involved in becoming a writer.
- Encourage time for reflection and talking through errors with a partner: the most effect learners are the ones that can self-regulate and organise their own learning. Encourage pupils to discuss which strategies worked and which ones didn’t so they can approach next week’s spellings in a different way.
Pupils need to develop a wide range of knowledge about words and the way in which the English language is made up. In EYFS and KS1, pupils begin their spelling journey on a ‘Developmental approach’ where they learn the sounds of the English language and the graphemes that represent them. As they move from Y2 into KS2 pupils will consider the patterns in words, the links to other words, what words look like and their origin. It is important for us as teachers to ensure we develop all aspects of pupils’ word knowledge. There are four main forms of knowledge to be developed as identified in ‘Teaching Spelling 6-11: designing effective learning in English and across the curriculum by Kirstie Hewett (UKLA, 2019)’:
