LEARNING SPELLINGS
CAN BE FUN!
Patterns
Sue Furby - Former English teacher and Literacy Co-ordinator
In the previous 2 issues I introduced you to two
methods for learning spellings in a fun way
Exercise
Create your own spelling families by looking
1. Words within words
2. Mnemonics, using phrases as an aid memoir.
I also showed you how these methods can be combined. I hope that
you and your children have had fun trying to spot shorter words
within longer ones and making up your own mnemonics.
(I set you a challenge in the last issue to come up with interesting
mnemonics for the word mnemonic. Email them with your name to
[email protected] and we’ll print them in the next edition.)
at the patterns of letters within words.
Of course you can also apply previous methods
to help your children learn the spellings.
Look at the example below:
BEGINNING
Method 1 – words within words
BEGINning/beginning
Method 2 – mnemonics
Ben Enjoys Getting into New...
Method 3 – Family 1 (1/2)
G/NN
Now, here’s another method, which should appeal to children who
enjoy number patterns and who enjoy creating lists/groups.. As with
the previous methods, it can be used with all children, but some will
find it more appealing than others.
This method helps them to remember to double a letter or not.
E.g. Necessary – Is it one C or two? One S or two?
You will need to create 3 lists or families:
Family 1
(1/2)
Family 2
(2/2)
Family 3
(2/1)
DiSaPPear
ADDreSS
DiFFeRent
Necessary
Occurred
Assistant
Beginning
Quarrelled
Effort
Professor
Aggressive
Appropri ate
Across
Immediately
es to hand,
elling famili
sp
f
o
le
b
ta
ur
, and
TIP: Keep yo
good place
is always a
e
g
id
fr
e
mily when
stuck to th
propriate fa
ap
e
th
to
s
rd
up
add any wo
soon build
em. You will
th
ss
ro
ac
ch words
you come
ly learn whi
k
ic
u
q
d
an
ps
family grou
hich family.
w
belong to
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