Spelling Pattern Practice
When a child comes across an unfamiliar word in reading, phonics skills can be used to “sound out” the word, applying what the child knows of the individual sound-letter connections. This is known as decoding. This skill can also help a child analyze a spelling word.
Most spelling programs use arbitrary word lists that may be based on phonics rules, word families, or spelling rules. The exercises are designed to help the child practice the words for memorization. Many children don’t think in terms of rules, and don’t apply them automatically when looking at their spelling words.
This Pattern Practice checklist (download samples at bottom of this page) is designed to train the brain to look for these patterns. It can be used with any type of learner. The words to be analyzed can be written in at the top of each column (replacing the words get, cake, eat, apple, play, and house on this chart). The child puts an “X” in the column after completing the direction for that row.
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Look at the word and its letters. This seems obvious, but many children don’t actually look at
the individual letters – they only see the first and last letters and the shape of the word.
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Look up the meaning of the word in the dictionary. This forces the brain to see the individual letters in the word, gives practice in alphabetizing, and teaches the use of guide words on the dictionary page. Older children can learn that words often have multiple meanings, with subtle shades or nuances of meaning. The more the child interacts with the word, the better. That’s the point of each of these steps.
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Say the name of each letter in the word. This is the name of the letter in the alphabet.
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Say each sound used in the word separately. This reminds the child that the name and the sound are not always the same (such as with short vowels and the consonants). The key to spelling is knowing all the different ways a sound can be coded or “spelled” and which code is the correct one for the word under study.
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Print how the word sounds. This is similar to the phonetic spelling found in dictionaries. For example, the word was would be spelled as wuz.
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Look at the word and see if it is spelled the way it sounds. Our English language has more sounds than letters of the alphabet. So chances are that the word is spelled differently.
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If not, notice what is different. Steps five through seven reinforce the idea that there are different ways to code a sound. Many children mistakenly spell a word phonetically. This exercise catches that mistake before it becomes a habit.
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Look to see if there are any other words you know in the word. This skill is used with multi-syllable words to teach children root or base words. Or it may be a compound word and you want the child to see how the words are combined. If the spelling word is one-syllable and the child finds a smaller word in it, that’s good, too, because it reinforces visual discrimination skills.
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Look to see if there are any letter patterns (such as a prefix, suffix, root, or word family). Again this trains the brain to look at the individual letters and look for patterns. The patterns can also include consonant blends, vowel teams, sound phrases such as –ake for make, bake, and cake, and affixes such as pre- and –tion.
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Print how the word looks (how it’s spelled, not how it sounds). This task reinforces the correct way of coding the word.
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Print the word in sand. The correct spelling is practiced again, with the sand serving as an extra sensory mode to reinforce learning. The texture of the sand forces the brain to process the sense of touch, process the visual shape of the markings in the sand, and direct the hand to form the correct letters – all of which increases attention and the likelihood that the correct spelling will be cemented in long-term memory.
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Practice writing the word. The child does not have to just write the word; you may want to let the child record it in a way that matches his/her learning style – making a drawing, writing a word poem with the letters, cutting out pictures that start with the same letter of each of the letters in the word, etc.
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Make sure it looks the way it is spelled. You want to make sure the child is practicing the correct spelling and not the way the word is sounded.
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Practice writing the word.
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Make sure it looks the way it is spelled.
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Practice writing the word. This checklist has the student practicing the word three times. The amount of practice needed will depend on the child’s learning style. Since spelling is a sequential skill, this is sufficient practice for sequential learners. They make think it’s tedious, but the point is to reinforce the brain connections. If the student has a hard time with this particular word, more practice may be needed. The more random and global the learner, the more practice that will be needed to force the brain to see the patterns.
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Make sure it looks the way it is spelled.
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Spell the word out loud, but with your eyes closed. This ensures that the child doesn’t inadvertently look at the paper. This also forces visual students to form a “picture” of the word in their mind; some visual students find it more helpful not to close their eyes, but look upward and to their dominant side.
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Make sure you spelled it the way it looks. Have the child compare what was said to the word on the page.
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Spell the word while bouncing a ball or tossing a bean bag. Have the child bounce the ball or toss the bean bag from one hand to the other while saying each letter of the word. The physical act of bouncing or tossing uses the large motor muscles and forces the brain to become “more active” or pay more attention. This increases the likelihood that the correct spelling with be transferred into long-term memory. Bouncing or tossing the ball from hand-to-hand forces the brain to activate and reinforce the cross-hemisphere connections between the left and right sides of the brain.
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Now write each word in a sentence. This gives the student the opportunity to see the word in context. The meaning of a word is stored in the right side of the brain. The coding process is stored in the left side of the brain. This exercise reinforces the cross-hemisphere connections as well, ensures that the student understands the word’s meaning, and connects an arbitrary word list to real-world skills.
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Download Blank Pattern Practice Form
Download Sample Pattern Practice Form
KEY WORDS: spelling, pattern, practice, problem, phonic
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