When you think about learning to spell, does it bring up stressful memories of tests and rote memorization? In the age of spell check, does learning to spell even matter? Indeed, it does. Spelling develops important skills that go hand-in-hand with reading. When kids learn phonics, spelling is a key part of what they’ll be working on. When kids learn to spell, they also develop a solid knowledge of letter-sound relationships. This, in turn, helps them become fluent readers and writers.
Given the key role spelling plays in reading development, it’s important to support your child with help at home. That doesn’t mean bringing back spelling tests! Talking about word patterns and reading together can be a great way to help your child master spelling.
The process children use to read words using their knowledge of letter sounds is called decoding. The opposite process is encoding. This involves using knowledge of letter sounds to write words on the page—in other words, spelling!
Decoding and encoding work together because both involve applying a knowledge of letter sounds. Both decoding (reading words) and encoding (writing words) are part of phonics instruction. It’s important to teach your child about decoding and encoding simultaneously since they work together to solidify their literacy development. As kids spell using their knowledge of phonics, they think about the sounds in the word and represent those sounds using letters. Called phonetic spelling, it is an important stage in spelling development.
In general, kids generally go through five stages of spelling development.
Kids may know some letters but have not yet connected them with the letters’ sounds. Their writing may consist of random letters. For example, RTID for “car.”
Kids’ understanding of letter sounds is still developing. Kids may partially represent some letter sounds with words. For example, they may write “dog” as “dg.”
In this stage, kids are able to write letters to correctly represent the letter sounds that they hear. For example, they may write “sed” for “said.”
As they progress, kids begin to shift from phonetic spelling to more conventional spelling patterns. They start to recognize and apply common rules and patterns, even if they don’t always do so correctly.
This is the final stage of spelling development. Kids have a strong understanding of standard rules and patterns. Their spelling is highly accurate, and they can confidently apply their knowledge of language rules.
In the early spelling stages, it’s helpful to let children experiment with spelling as they learn letter sounds. This approach is called invented spelling. Kids spell words based on their own understanding of letter-sound relationships instead of strictly following rules. For example, a child using invented spelling might write the word cat as ct because they are focused on the beginning and ending sounds. As your child gains more experience with reading and writing, their knowledge of conventional spelling will improve.
To help your child’s spelling development, start by making sure they have strong phonemic awareness skills. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words. If your child has strong phonemic awareness, they will be able to spell accurately and efficiently. Phonemic awareness activities that you can do at home include:
As your child begins to spell, encourage them to write at home. Activities you can incorporate include:
As children gain more experience spelling and reading, they develop an awareness of spelling patterns and rules. In this transitional stage of spelling development, you’ll see more words spelled correctly in their writing. You can help your child by pointing out spelling patterns in words they encounter. Some common patterns you might discuss include:
As you discuss different patterns with your child, remember that the goal is to have them learn to recognize patterns, not memorize a list of rules.
As children learn to spell, they may encounter certain challenges. As spelling often involves writing, they may run into issues with fine-motor skills such as holding and controlling their pencil. Encourage your child to practice writing with a pencil by tracing lines and circles, as well as alphabet letter tracing. There are also special pencil grips they can use to make writing easier.
You may also notice that your child is reversing letters, such as b and d. Many children do this as they are learning about letters, but if this substitution persists well into elementary school, you may want to discuss it with your child’s teacher.
Sometimes children struggle to represent all the sounds in a word. In this case, practice phonemic awareness to help them to identify the different sounds. Also, as your child develops an awareness of sight words—or words that are spelled irregularly—they may have difficulty memorizing the different conventional spellings. Help your child by playing games like Sight Word Concentration, where your child first writes sight words on index cards (two cards per word) and then turns them upside down. You can take turns trying to find matches of the words, reading each word aloud as you turn the card over. Sight word worksheets are a colorful way to help boost your child’s reading confidence and vocabulary.
When children develop strong spelling skills, it directly impacts their reading fluency. Children can recognize words in print more easily if they’ve had experience writing those same words. Instead of decoding each word sound-by-sound, they can read familiar words with automaticity, the ability to recognize words automatically. When children become fluent readers, they develop confidence, a larger vocabulary, and deeper knowledge of word patterns. All these skills help with spelling, too!
By far, the biggest way to support your child’s development as a reader and writer is to engage with your child. When helping your child with spelling, focus less on whether they have written a word correctly and more on their skill development over time. Keep the tone fun—you’re here to help! (You may also want to consider some of our spelling worksheets for a more hands-on learning opportunity at home.) Whether you’re reading stories or encouraging your child to write words, you play a big role in helping them to develop lifelong literacy skills.
Click to view videos of Hooked on Spelling gameplay.
Good readers are fluent readers, because they can read quickly, accurately, and sound as if they were speaking aloud instead of reading.
Reading is an essential skill that lets us unlock meaning from written words.
The ability to identify and work with the smallest units of sound in spoken words.
Phonics teaches children how letters in print represent individual sounds in spoken language.
The ability to understand and use a variety of words is one of the keys to reading success.
Understanding the meaning of what is written on the page is the goal of every reader.
Receive materials to enhance your child’s learning journey.
Access our library of free printables and more.
Boost confidence and foster a lifelong love of learning.
By signing up for our newsletter you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Over 6 million learners and counting!
Get Started Today
By signing up for our newsletter you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
