How to Teach Children the Correct Spellings of a Word?

"It's a poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!"
I remember the day when I was in class three, I was asked to write a story on bear in my English test. My teacher just verbally told us the topic. I began writing the story with full enthusiasm and completed my test before time. I was pretty sure about the fact that I would score good marks in my test but I was stunned when I saw my marks. I scored very low marks than I expected to get and it was because I wrote bare in place of bear. It happened just because both the words have same pronunciation and I got puzzled. After my story it could have really made you think how much important is to spell the words correctly.

Successful spelling is a thinking activity, not simply a mugging activity. It’s a multi sensory task to improve spelling and it requires incredible brain power, repetition and strategic think. The solution regarding spelling is learning patterns and strategies for complicated words. The problem occurs for the common spellings only when the teachers lay emphasis on the correct spellings of words through different ways. You must be thinking why correct spellings of words make so much of difference? It’s because if you misspell the words then it can create confusion, can change the sense of the words and sometimes it can be disgraceful too. The wrong spellings for many reasons like:
• Right spelling prevents misunderstanding
• Your credibility of writing increases when you write it error free
• It makes professional communication easy
• Spell checkers do not work at times

Parents and teachers often wonder how to teach correct spelling to the children. They just think if there could be any magic formula to teach the children correct spelling of every word at one shot. They just hunt for a best approach and some spelling program to inculcate the students. The one good way to teach the correct spelling is to children is to play with the words and the vocabulary. You should use three kinds of methods for the learner: auditory, visual and kinesthetic. In simple words allow kids to listen the correct spelling of the words, let them see the spellings, and have hands on experience. Always teach spellings in a manner that makes sense to the child. It is useless to teach words which the kids unlikely to use and have little meaning.

You should always incorporate the words from the kid’s science and social studies including words related to events and special calendar days. In this way you can prepare them for academics and improve their knowledge for spellings as well. You should always give the foundation for the spellings to your children means you should ensure that the kids understand the sounds made by consonants, short vowel sounds, long vowel sounds and diphthongs. Try to simplify the spelling whenever required and at the same time introduce words that have the same patterns. Try to jot the tricky words together. Make them familiarize with other similar sounding words at one time like perfect, concern, perfume and discern. Also show them the words that sound the same in one shot like turn, curtains and return. When the students remember the spelling of one word in the group and some of the words which belong to the same group, then it becomes easy to spell the tricky words.