Spelling: Instructional Guidelines

Second through third graders should be introduced to plurals and past tense, and patterns or rules including:

• q followed by a u (the sound /kw/)

  This sound is always spelled with the letters qu. (Sidenote: In the English language q is always followed by u.)

• drop e and adding ing

  For words that end in “silent e”, the e must be dropped before you add a suffix beginning with a vowel (such as -ing or -ed). For example: ride – riding, cure – curable, age – aging, ice – icicle, offense – offensive.

• adding suffixes

  Adding consonant suffixes is easy. Just add them, but if a word ends with a y, you must change y to an i before adding any suffix! Common suffixes include:

  • -ness
  • -less
  • -ly
  • -ful
  • -hood
  • -wise
  • -cess
  • -ment
  • -ty

  • -ry
  • -ward
  • -age
  • -ant
  • -ance
  • -al
  • -ism
  • -able
  • -an

  • -es
  • -ed
  • -er
  • -est
  • -y
  • -ist
  • -ish
  • -ing
  • -ar

  • -on
  • -ous
  • -or
  • -ual
  • -unt
  • -um
  • -us
  • -ive
   
• ch-tch
• c, k, and ck

  The sound of /k/: this sound can be spelled four ways. (c, cc, k, and ck)

• hard and soft c and g

  The consonants c and g make twp different sounds, hard and soft. Below are examples of these sounds.

  • Hard G: gorilla, gum
  • Soft G: gem, gym
  • Hard C: courage, cat
  • Soft C: receive, cell
• plural endings

  Plural words are always spelled with a single letter s, unless you can hear a new syllable on the plural word. In that case, use -es. For example: loss – losses, bank – banks, twitch – twitches, tree – trees, box – boxes.

• prefixes

  Adding prefixes generally does not change the spelling of the word. Common prefixes include:

  • anti-
  • auto-
  • dis-

  • in-
  • il-
  • im-
  • inter-

  • mis-
  • post-
  • pre-
  • re-

  • sub-
  • super-
  • trans-
  • un-
   
• consonant doubling

  Words that end in a short vowel sound must have the final consonant doubled to protect the sound when adding a vowel suffix. Examples include: upset – upsetting, occur – occurred, refer – referred, remit – remittance.

A teacher’s instruction should also include activities in homophones (sea/see), contractions (cannot; can’t) and compounds (two words that when combined have a different meaning than when they are separate; e.g., cup and cake become cupcake).

An awareness of spelling development can help teachers plan instruction. For precommunicative and semiphonetic spellers, teachers may teach alphabet knowledge, letter-sound correspondences, the concept of “wordness,” and left-to-right directionality. At the phonetic stage, students might be introduced, in the context of writing, to word families, spelling patterns, phonics, and word structures.

Teachers can encourage purposeful writing, such as the writing of messages, lists, plans, signs, letters, stories, songs, and poems.

Teachers can also provide opportunities for frequent writing, which, when integrated with all aspects of the curriculum, should be a natural part of the daily classroom routine. Frequent application of spelling knowledge by students while writing encourages spelling competency.

Teachers can also make use of instructional games since children acquire language, in large part, from their alertness to language around them.

Instruction should be clear, but it doesn’t have to be dull! Students can become word-pattern detectives, hunting for samples of words and looking for clues to help form their understanding of spelling rules. They can develop knowledge through word sorts and spelling games. The mastering of spelling rules and patterns through fun activities can make learning enjoyable for all!