- How to Improve Poor Spelling - David Tipton
There are many reasons for poor spelling in students. Among them are learning disabilities in reading and writing, dyslexia, and issues with phonemic awareness and visual-memory skills. Children who otherwise thrive at school but experience many misspellings within a writing assignment may simply be rushing, or unmotivated to check for and correct their mistakes.
Teachers and parents can work with students who have spelling difficulties in many ways to help them improve their spelling skills. Spelling is an important part of any writing assignment – test and school acceptance essays and reports, for example, will be marked down for multiple spelling errors and cause an otherwise good student to receive less than stellar marks.
Causes of Poor Spelling
Chronically poor spelling can be caused by a student’s inability to hear and distinguish phonemic sounds. This issue is an auditory processing problem. Kids who have auditory processing deficits will have trouble distinguishing between words that have subtle differences, such as pet and pat.
Some children will have no trouble recognizing phonemic sounds, but still have trouble spelling when it comes to more difficult words. For example, a child will be unable to spell words with silent letters such as heart, or through, which require a student to memorize and remember how it is spelled visually, after seeing the word several times while reading. Repeated misspellings of this type are caused by visual and/or memory processing problems.
Finally, poor spelling may be a symptom of a larger learning problem. Learning disorders such as a reading or writing disability or dyslexia are prevalent in students and must be identified early. Poor spelling is just one of many signs that one or all of these problems might be affecting a student's ability to learn efficiently.
Improving a Student’s Spelling Skills
Spelling troubles may not be caused by any type of disability, but instead may just be an issue with carelessness that has turned into a habit. If a child spells commonly misspelled words incorrectly even after being told the correct spelling several times, she may need to be taught the value of slowing down and checking her work, as well as how to use a dictionary or spell check program.
Special education teachers or councilors may be able to help determine what is going on with a poor speller by administering any number of effective evaluations that can point to the types of misspellings that occur, and hence the type of problem or disability a child may have.
Various methods may then be employed to teach better spelling skills, such as flashcards and picture/word associations to improve visual memory, and phonics and phonemic awareness programs like Fast Forward to help with auditory discrimination issues. Learning disabilities and dyslexia will require even more support, perhaps even tutors or in-school paraprofessional services.
Poor spelling can affect a student’s grades and self-esteem and in extreme cases, can even cause a good student to become discouraged and apathetic at school. It is important that the underlying cause of the spelling issues be identified as soon as possible so that the student will receive the proper academic support.
References:
Greene, Lawrence J. Roadblocks to Learning. NY: Warner Books, Inc., 2002.
Cooley, Myles L. Teaching Kids with Mental Health & Learning Disorders in the Regular Classroom. MN: Free Spirit Publishing, Inc., 2007.
Karen Plumley - Karen Plumley is a writer specializing in parenting and education. She works for Parenting NH and the Hippo, NH's most widely read ...
