How We Learn to Spell by Risa Attrell

Are you a good speller? Even if you don't think so, chances are that you can spell many many words.

Of course you can spell those common little words like if, and, the, we, me, etc etc. I bet you can spell even bigger common words like rain, house, camera, table, and so forth. Hey, I bet you can even spell many big 'hard' words like 'though', 'through' and even that funny word 'laugh' The list is endless. Did you ever think of all those words that you can spell? Let me ask you- HOW did you learn to spell so many words??

I know! It was Ms Jones your teacher in the 3rd grade, right? She's the one that gave you those lists of spelling words to study. You went home, recited aloud the spelling of those words 500 times, much to the annoyance of the rest of your family who was forced to listen. Then you were given a spelling test the next day, and you did well. And that is how you know how to spell all those words you know. Right?

You know how untrue that is! Nobody learns how to be a good speller from memorizing a list of words for a spelling test. For the most part, we learn to spell in two ways, namely reading, and writing. The more we read, the more we get familiar with how words look. Then if we see a common word misspelled, it looks funny to us. Without having to analyze each letter of the misspelled word, we know right away that the word just looks wrong to us. Take a look at the following sentence:

My frend and I injoy going owt.

How long did it take you to notice which words are spelled wrong? Did you have to look at every letter? Or did some words just jump out at you as not looking right? You know how words are supposed to look because you read. If schools want children to be good spellers, they should forget the word lists, and just encourage the kids to read. Think about this: How long will they remember the spellings of those words on the list? How long did you remember the words Ms Jones gave you in the 3rd grade? (Or whatever your teacher's name was)

The other way children learn to spell is by writing. That is if their teacher insists that they hand in work with proper spelling. This forces the child to ask an adult for help in spelling the words they don't know, or at least to consult with their good ol' spell -check

It is my strong opinion that for the most part spelling as a separate subject is a useless waste of time. That time could be better spent doing more reading and more writing. The only place I see spelling as a separate subject, as having any benefit, is perhaps in teaching our children those spelling rules such as " 'I' before 'E' except after C, except as in 'ay' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh.'

And now I will put this article through a spell check.

Risa Attrell is the author of a booklet called FUN WAYS TO HELP CHILDREN IMPROVE THEIR READING SKILLS, available at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/33543

This article may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author. If you would like to buy this article for your website, blog or print publication, please email the author at risaattrell@ymail.com