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While the Little Mr. was still learning to read (as well as a few months after he could read independently), we would do some spelling exercises here and there where I would ask him how to spell a word, which was encouraged by Jim Yang's Children Learning Reading program. But he mostly associated a letter's sound with the letter rather than the letter's name. For example, in the video below, instead of saying he needed the "U" or "E" for the words he was trying to spell, he said their sounds instead ("uh" and "eh"). This makes reading easier because when you say the sounds in order, you say end up saying the word out loud. But it made spelling a little harder because he would immediately think of the sound the letter made, and couldn't connect it to the letter's name quickly enough.
So I would need to ask the following up question, "Good! But what letter makes the "uh" sound?", and after a moment's thought he'd say, "the letter U!". But when he started answering with letter names rather than letter sounds when I asked him to spell a word, it inspired me to add a spelling activity/mini lesson to our routine.
When should I start these spelling activities?
After your child is able to read, ask him to spell simple words every now and then, and once your child starts to respond with letter names rather than sounds, or is starting to better grasp the concept of the difference between a letter's name and the sound it makes, you can try these 5-minute spelling activities.
Something to note:
I don't expect him to be able to spell every single word before going to school. My primary goal in teaching him to spell was to get him familiar with the concept of spelling as well as start to introduce him to the more difficult spellings out there. When he does go to school, hopefully he'll have a good foundation to help him understand the lessons taught more quickly and easily.
Mini Lesson 1: Spell 2-3 letter words, and practice writing words
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED:
For just spelling: Knows letter sounds, can respond with a letter name rather than the letter sound when you ask them to spell a word.
For spelling and writing - above spelling milestones PLUS: can write individual letters
DURATION: 5-10 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
Pencil and paper (or whiteboard and whiteboard marker) if you want your child to write the words they spell
OR: letter magnets/toys to spell the word
Choose 2-3 letter words that use only one sound for each letter.
The same letter can sound differently in different words, so to keep things as simple as possible, choose only the primary sound for each letter. In this case, we used the sounds of the letters taught in Stage 1 of Jim Yang's Children Learning Reading course as the sounds for each letter.
Because our son was learning to write letters at the same time, I used this activity to introduce writing words to him. But you can do this as just a spelling activity without having your child write anything too. If you do want to practice both writing and spelling, here's how we did it:
After spelling 3 words (1st part of the mini lesson), I would have him write those 3 words (2nd part of the mini lesson), but this second part is only if you'd like to have your toddler practice writing words. I've explained this in more detail below:
Part 1: Spell 3 words
Ask your child to spell a word that uses only those sounds (eg. CAT, NUT, SET, etc). If your child struggles or says "I don't know", you can nudge them in the right direction by asking these questions:
What is the first sound in the word?
What letter makes that sound? or, What's the name of the letter that makes that sound?
When your child says the correct letter for the first sound, write down that letter as you start to make the word. If your child is still struggling with writing, you can write the dotted lines for the letter so they can trace it later. If your child is already good at tracing letters, you can draw a line to have them practice writing without dotted lines.
Then ask them, "What letter comes next in ______ (whichever word you chose)?". I usually repeat the word slowly so they can better hear all the sounds that make up the word. Again, if they struggle, use the same types of questions mentioned above:
What is the next sound in the word?
What sound comes after /c/ (Or whatever the first sound of the word is)?
What letter makes this sound? or, What's the name of the letter this makes that sound?
When your child is still learning to hear a letter's sound and respond with it's name when you're asking them to spell a word, trying to spell just 1 word a day might take the whole of the 5 minutes, along with exhausting their attention span and interest. But once they start getting it, aim for asking your child to spell at least three different 3-letter words a day.
Alternate way to do Part 1 without writing:
When your child says the correct letter for the first sound, have them get that letter magnet / toy to begin to spell it out. Then when they say the second letter, have them get the second letter and put it next to the first, until they spell out the whole word. Here's an example using our letter toy (you can do it this way instead of writing for all the spelling activities if you prefer):
Part 2 (optional): Have them write the 3 words they just spelled
Have your child trace the dotted letters to write the word and/or attempt to write the word themselves on the lines you drew. The Little Mr. was working on mastering uppercase letters for his Writing activity at the time (Teach your toddler to write letters and numbers, 3b), so I only used upper case letters during this Spelling activity.
After spelling the words, both tracing and writing the word by themselves afterwards can make the whole activity take longer than 5 minutes, so depending on your child's current writing ability you can choose to do just the tracing, or just have them write the word by themselves. Don't aim for perfection for the words he writes himself - these will rarely be legible letters and words, especially in the beginning. The goal of this was to just give him repeated practice writing letters by himself. It was great to see his progress, especially when you compare his very first attempts to his current one!
2-3 letter words you can use:
I just thought up words at the top of my head at the time, trying to use as many letters of the alphabet as possible to give him practice with all the letter sounds. Here is a list of the words I chose along with some more words that I plan to use when Copycat gets old enough to do these spelling activities. Feel free to use these and/or think up your own 2-3 letter words.
2 letter words:
IN, ON, IT, AN, UP
3 letter words (all letter sounds used except for "Q"):
AND
BAD, BIN, BOX, BUG
CAN, CAT, COT, CUP
DIG, DOG
FAN, FUN, FAT
GAP
HAD, HEN, HIT
JAM, JET, JOG
KIT
LIP, LOG
MET, MUD
NUT
PAN
RAT, RED, RIM, RUN
SET
TIP, TOP
VET
WEB, WIN
YAP, YES, YUM
ZIT
When they get really confident and are able to spell the words you give them consistently, you can progress to the next spelling activity.
Mini Lesson 2: Spell 4-6 letter words
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED:
For just spelling: Knows letter sounds, can respond with a letter name rather than the letter sound when you ask them to spell a word, can easily spell 2-3 letter words
For spelling and writing - above spelling milestones PLUS: can write individual letters
DURATION: 5-10 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
Pencil and paper (or whiteboard and whiteboard marker) if you want your child to write the words they spell
OR: letter magnets/toys to spell the word
Choose 4-6 letter words that use the same sounds for each letter as the previous activity.
Part 1: Spelling 4-6 letter words
Using the same letter sounds as the previous activity, ask your child to spell a four-letter word that uses only those sounds. Either write down the correct letters as he says them, or have them get those toy letters to spell the word.
Part 2 (optional): Have them write the 3 words they just spelled
Have your child trace the dotted letters and/or write the word themselves. By this point the Little Mr. had become proficient enough with his upper case letters that we moved onto practicing lower case letters for his Writing activity (Teaching your toddler to write letters and numbers, 3b), so I switched to just using lower case letters for this Spelling activity.
4-6 letter words you can use:
The leap from spelling 3-letter words to 4-letter words was the hardest for my son to make. Spelling 3 letter words was easy, but spelling 4-letter words was "too hard". But with practice he got more comfortable spelling 4-letter words, and once he consistently spelled 4-letter words correctly, I moved onto 5-letter words, then 6 letter words. Here are the ones I used, along with some added that I plan to use when Copycat gets old enough (you can add an "S" to make some of them 5/6/7 letter words).
4 letter words:
BEND, BLIP, BLOB, BODY, BUMP
CLIP, COPY
DROP, DRIP
EXIT
FAST, FLAG, FLAP, FROM, FROG
GRAN, GRIN
HELM
JEST
KEPT
PRAM
QUIT
SKIP, SLID, SLIP
TEST, TEXT, TRIP
VEST, WELD, ZEST
For these "QU" words, explain that the "Q" never is by itself, but always goes with a U: QUIT, QUIZ
5 letter words:
AGONY
EXIST
FRONT
SLUMP
QUILT
SQUID
6 letter words:
BOXFUL
GRUMPY
During each session, I asked the Little Mr. to spell at least three words, but if he was done in just a minute and clearly still had both the energy and interest, I would ask him to spell a few more words (without needing to write them down) to maximize the effectiveness of the 5 minute activity.
Once they can consistently spell even longer words that use the one sound of the letter you're using, you can think about moving onto Spelling and Writing Part 2 (especially because it's harder to think of / find longer words that are limited to the one sound of each letter you're using) - it's coming soon!
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