How Children Learn to Spell

There are two ways to learn to spell: memorize and sound out.

1. Memorize Words

Some students try to remember how the word looks when learning spelling words. This can work well for students with a good visual memory.

This strategy is also useful for remembering homophones (for example, which and witch) and irregular words (words that are difficult to sound out, such as sure and choir).

However, this strategy is difficult to use for long, complex words, and it doesn't help students spell unfamiliar words.

2. Sound Out The Word

Most English words can be sounded out if the student knows:

• How to break the word into syllables and sounds How letters and sounds are related How to apply spelling rules However, this strategy does not work well for homophones and irregular words.
  
  
• Efficient spellers are able to use both strategies effectively.
  
  
• Many students who struggle with spelling have difficulties with phonological awareness skills such as:
  
  
• Identifying rhyming words Perceiving the difference between similar sounds (for example, m and n) Identifying the first sound in a word Remembering the sequence of sounds in a word Breaking words into syllables.

This means that they have difficulties 'sounding out' when spelling words.

Gemm's Spelling Program

Gemm takes a multi-step approach to spelling. First we use Fast ForWord Language v2 or Fast ForWord Literacy to work on phonemic awareness so that the speller can more clearly hear every sound in every word.

Then we use the Fast ForWord to Reading series to work specifically on spelling rules and exceptions
Spelling Program