Supporting Literacy - Spelling Tips
Help enhance your child's spelling skills and help them ace those subject key words.
When teachers mark students’ work, one of the things they will do is identify inaccurate spelling, especially of subject key words. They will use the following symbol in the margin:
Below are some valuable strategies to enhance your child's spelling skills:
- Break words into syllables or phonemes, like "pl/ant/ing" for "planting."
- Utilise rhymes to memorise words with similar spellings, e.g., technology, chronology, biology.
- Pronounce silent letters when speaking words to reinforce spelling. Try saying "scissors" with a hard 'c' sound!
- Create mnemonics for tricky words. Remember "necessary" as "Never Eat Chips, Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young."
- Group words by families based on common prefixes (e.g., im-, irr-) or suffixes (e.g., -able, -ible).
- Employ rule-based strategies, such as doubling consonants in one-syllable words like "full" and "pass."
Remember these spelling rules:
- Change 'y' to 'i' when adding a suffix (e.g., try → tried).
- Use '-k' or '-ck' for the /k/ sound (e.g., "silk" or "pick").
- Add a silent 'e' after 'v' at the end of words (e.g., "pave," "have").
- Q and u are inseparable ("quest," "queen").
For more hints and tips, check out the BBC's resource: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zbmv2sg
Let's empower our children with strong spelling skills!