1. If your child does not have any sentence writing skills: 2. If your child isn’t sure how to spell a word: Here are links to my previous posts about sound boxes and syllables: 3. If your child has spelling errors: 4. If your child forgets to start the sentence with a capital letter and/or…
Supporting young writers through scaffolding: The word “scaffolding” in education refers to providing guided support to a child as he or she is developing new skills and working toward independence. Just like scaffolding in construction is a temporary structure that helps workers safely get their jobs done, educational scaffolding is temporary as well. Skills needed…
The Golden Vowel Rule: The Golden Vowel Rule is the most important rule. There are a lot of reading and spelling rules, but all of those rules get broken frequently. This rule is the one rule that hardly ever gets broken. Rule #2: The second rule forces kids to slow down and listen carefully in…
Learn to Read: Step One: I want to help my child learn to read and learn to spell. Where do I start? Yes: Go to number 2. No: Start with Name Games Step 2: My child can recognize and spell his/her name. What is next? Yes: Go to number 3. No: Start with short vowel…
1. Letter Tracing I highly recommend starting early with three lined printing paper. If you don’t have access to dotted letters for tracing, using a highlighter is just as easy. 2. Rainbow Words: Write your child’s name with a highlighter and let him or her use multiple colors to trace the letters. 3. Letter Scramble:…
Question #1: 1. A word family is a group of words that all share a common root word. For example, the words bat, cat, hat and sat all share the root word “at. Question #2: 2. Word families help your child sound out multisyllabic words more easily and improve rhyming and spelling skills. Question #3:…
Pin this post to save it for later: Say these consonant names out loud: They all contain the sound of long vowel e. Now say these consonant names out loud: They all contain the sound of short vowel e. . Understanding that vowels help consonants spell/say their names can be useful for children who struggle…
Spending time on syllables can help a child: When it comes to spelling, there are A LOT of rules. The problem is that all of those rules also have multiple rule breakers! One rule that is very difficult to find a rule breaker for is, “Every syllable in every word has to have at least…
Sound boxes are a helpful strategy for students who are just starting to spell words and for more experienced kids who still make a lot of spelling errors. I find them extremely helpful for practicing long vowel spelling patterns, or, as I like to say, the different ways a vowel spells its name in a…
-long vowel u spelling patterns -long vowel u stories -long vowel u songs -long vowel u worksheets -long vowel u activity ideas When I begin teaching the long Vowel U sound, I start with a video that shows a few ways that long Vowel U can spell its name: After watching and discussing the long…