“Do I really have to?” Our son has asked this question often when the time has come to study his spelling words. He does not mind completing his written homework, but, like many other kids, he just does not like plain studying. My wife and I have tried the old-fashioned at-home quizzing, but that got tedious for all of us. We want him to enjoy studying and learn the words for longer than just answering them correctly on the spelling test. We want him to know how to spell so he does not rely on the computer to correct his mistakes for him. What happens when he must hand-write an assignment or a test essay answer and does not have the computer to electronically check for spelling? He will have to do that for himself.
MS Word
At first, we would call out the words and have our son type them onto a MS Word page. The program highlights misspelled words, so he could see which words he missed. He would have to try to correct the words twice before right-clicking the word to see the suggestions. If it got to that point, then he would at least see the correct spelling. However, we would not let him just click on the word. He would have to type it correctly three times to learn the spelling. That worked well for a while, but everything loses its luster eventually.
MS Paint
Our son thought of this one himself. To make studying more fun, he would pull up photos on the computer through MS Paint. He would then type his spelling words on the picture and check the spelling himself. Other times, he would use the paintbrush. With this, though, he had no electronic checking, so we had to verify spelling. It was fun for him to paint words over our faces or hide them in the background and make us search for them to check their spellings.
Text messaging
This did not last as long as we thought it would, but it may help many other kids. Our son discovered the world of text messaging. The problem, though, is that at age 11, few of his friends have phones and text plans. However, my wife started having him type his spelling words into the phone text message and send them to her. She would then send back the misspelled words for him to try again. After a few weeks, though, he lost interest in texting because he had no one else to text with. Maybe as he gets older, he will text again, but by then, he will not have spelling tests. It did work well for those few weeks we used it.
Body language
We saw this on a kids’ game show. Occasionally, when our son feels silly, he will lie on the floor and spell the words by forming his body in the shapes of the letters. We have to watch carefully because he moves fast. The problem is that it tires him out, so we sometimes do not get through the whole list this way, but he has a lot of fun doing it. We have to finish out the old-fashioned way.
Alternating the letters
Often, we will make a game out of the spelling. One of us will call out the words, and the other with our son will alternate saying the letters. Occasionally, my wife or I will purposely say an incorrect letter to see if he notices. If he does not notice, or he makes a mistake himself, then spell the word and he has to spell it correctly three times. Whichever method we use, we always return to the misspelled words and go through them again.
Success
Our son is a straight-A student overall, but he does have some trouble on his spelling tests. It seems that he misses just one letter each time he gets one wrong. We know, though, that he gives his best effort, and he learns more than his score might show. By using these creative methods, plus the school’s online quiz program, our son has greatly improved his study habits and spelling grades. He makes more high grades on his spelling tests now, and he can figure out why he misses what he does. This lesson could grow with him and expand to other subjects as he reaches junior high next year and high school not long after.
More from this contributor:
Ensuring that Our Sons Earns a Quality Education
Setting Strong Positive Examples for Our Son
Keeping Our Eleven-Year-Old Son Active During Fall