We all know the power of repetition in learning spelling. That’s why our teachers made us copy our spelling words ten times each. Unfortunately repetition can also become mindless as your brain disengages from the task. So the balance when teaching spelling is to give our children the power of repetition without the boredom that often accompanies it.
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The repetition with writing the spelling words does get monotonous. So, along with the writing of the words and spelling them out loud, we have started our spelling “rap” songs. We use every word and make up a song; each word has to be “sung” and spelled out in the song. Rhyming is not a requisite for my daughter, but the song does have to make a little bit of sense. She loves music so this has turned into quite a different learning experience and we almost always end up in tears from laughing! But the benefits payoff – high marks in spelling. The time to create a song: 10 minutes; the practice session: 5 minutes; the time you spend together: priceless!
I don’t know if Sprite is too big for this to be fun, but at my 1st graders school they do ‘Rainbow Words’ with their spelling words. They get several different colors of crayons, and write the word over and over, tracing over the previously written letters, until the word comes out multicolored. His teacher says the kids think it’s great, and don’t even realize they have basically copied a word 5-10 times.