Most of the students hate to spell words, but have to. To remember each letter for every word is so boring and sometimes too challenging. Is there any good way to help make this spelling task much easier and more fun? It's something that I often bear in mind and try to find solutions for.
For my third graders, spelling words correctly is so important, otherwise, they could fail their tests. In order to help these kids who had no idea what spelling word is since they didn't have to spell words in grade one and two, I figured out an interesting way for them to do it. That is to spell the word like a wizard says real spells.
The first word I taught them to spell today is "hello". I held up two fingers and spin them in the air like a wizard mumbling some magical spell "h-e-l-l-o", and when the last letter came out of my lips, I pointed my fingers to somebody and shouted out "hello", and made that someone say hello with a funny gesture which the whole class designed together beforehand.
Spelling words in this way is more like a game than learning to remember words. Every student felt excited and couldn't wait to try the spell. And in very short time, they remembered how to spell "hello". Then we tried with another one -- "goodbye". It turned out to be a piece of cake. Students found it easy to spell it, even it is much longer than "hello". And the gesture of this "goodbye" spell was to fly a kiss and wave goodbye, which made the whole class laugh really hard. I was glad that the students really enjoy this activity. Spelling words seemed not a burden for them right now. And I hope it will never be.
Making learning fun and easy is beneficial to young kids. Teachers just have to try different ways to make it happen.
