Spelling is one of those subjects that lots of adults and children associate with repetition learning. In the classroom, it involves reciting words in front of the class, writing on the board, spelling quizzes, and spelling bees. At home, endless repetition is boring for kids. That’s why here are 5 creative ideas on how to make spelling fun for learning children.
Knowing how to make spelling fun involves injecting games that let students focus on achieving a certain goal. From helping their team win to receiving a prize at the finish line. With this, they may be more motivated to engage with the materials and more likely to learn a word’s spelling incidentally.
Through games, repetition is made more fun. The more you see, hear, or use a word, the more active it becomes in memory.
How to Make Spelling Fun for Kids
When kids associate learning how to spell along with positive experiences, it’s a big encouragement when they’re learning to spell, as well as reading and writing. And this is particularly important for students who need to work harder than their peers to master their literacy skills.
If you want to know how to make spelling fun, a recommended teaching approach is always multi-sensory learning. This type of learning involves using diverse sensory channels to reinforce the spelling material in memory.
Once we learn how to spell a particular word, spelling is mostly something we can do automatically. It happens without thinking too much about the letters needed or the order that they come in.
But before this happens, kids need to build up experience with a word in reading.
Here’s 5 ideas on how to make spelling fun.
#1 Visuals for boosting short-term memory
Writing in pen or pencil is good, but don’t rely solely on it. Try using brightly-colored crayons, markers, and chalk too. Let kids write each letter in different colors to create sentences that feature different colors, and even create rainbow words.
Writing that is visually stimulating can also serve as memory aids, especially when you put letters that are often missed out in a different color.
Other things you can try include:
- Creating collages that feature different sizes and different colors.
- Turning words into shapes.
- Tracing letter shapes on paper then coloring them in.
#2 Include sounds to help auditory learners
Try writing your own songs that you can chant to with your kids. Chant out letters that make up a word, accompanied by a tune. Beats and rhythm help you commit words to memory. In addition, rehearsing songs is a great way to check if you’ve got the spelling right whenever you get stuck.
Let your own kids develop their own word lists with easy and hard items that they can use on their classmates.
#3 Look for new ways to write
Much like in item number 1, spelling out words using different writing styles or writing materials is a good idea. A couple of things to try include:
- Spelling out words with glue then sprinkle with glitter on top.
- Write using ketchup or mustard.
- Tracing words in the air.
- Writing on an Etch-A-Sketch.
- Drawing and writing words in the dirt with a stick.
Activities like this provide kids with tactile sensory feedback that helps them remember spelling.
#4 Build things to add tactile elements
You can get wooden blocks with letters on them, so you can build towers that spell out words. Alternatively, you can use legos to build letter shapes. Clay is also a great toy for practicing spelling.
The bottomline is to get creative when it comes to forming letter shapes. Even chopsticks can be used as a learning tool. If you’ve got beads with letters on them, it’s also fun to string words together and then wear it as jewelry, like a necklace or a bracelet.
#5 Play games to encourage learning
One of the best tools that a parent and the best reading programs can use to motivate kids is to learn by promoting fun. Learning occurs as a by-product or it can be the object of the game. There are educational games, just like Scrabble, where you can make words out of a handful of letters of tiles.
The best part about playing games is that it involves other participants. If it’s digital, you can also learn from correct or incorrect responses that games give.
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