Together Autumn 2016 | Page 20

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 20