Spelling: This makes it fun!

To get to grips with spelling, children need motivation to keep at it. The motto is: learning by doing! Three practical tips.

Cipher

First, the alphabet is encoded in cipher: For each (or the most common) letters there is a symbol or a number - the writer uses this to encode a message. The recipient tries to crack the code. This helps to memorise words with tricky spellings.

Hangman

One player thinks of a word and draws a line on the sheet for each letter. The other player now guesses the word letter by letter. If the letter appears in the word, it is entered next to the corresponding line. If the guessing player is wrong, a gallows (or a flower, an animal, a house, etc.) is drawn in ten steps.

Feel letters

One player writes a letter or a word on the back of the other player, who has to guess what is written. Letter discoverers consciously recognise the typical lines and curves of the letters.

How spelling develops and how parents can help

Spelling develops in stages: Children from around the age of three still write words from memory. At the age of five to seven, they begin to translate sounds into letters. From the 2nd or 3rd grade, they learn to apply spelling rules. Corrections therefore only make sense if the children can understand them: Younger children can, for example, be read aloud sound by sound when spelling to show how letters and sounds relate to each other. More advanced writers can be made aware of regularities, such as the fact that a long i sound is usually written as ie. For children who are already somewhat familiar with writing, writing games can be a motivating way to draw attention to the spelling of words.
Picture: iStock

App tip: Word Wizard

Diese App verwandelt Buchstaben in Laute: Die Kinder bilden eigene Wörter und lassen sie vom «Wort-Zauberer» vorlesen oder sie fügen Buchstaben zu Wörtern zusammen, die ihnen diktiert werden. Für iPhone/iPad erhältlich. Kosten: Fr. 3.–.
This app transforms letters into sounds: the children form their own words and have them read out by the "word wizard" or they put letters together to form words that are dictated to them. Available for iPhone/iPad. Cost: Fr. 3.-.

Johanna Oeschger is a literature and linguistics scholar, teaches German and English at upper secondary level and works as a media didactician at LerNetz.