How do you teach your students to spell words correctly? Do you simply hope that they take the time to memorize each new word? Or are there missing spelling strategies that you can teach them? Have you ever wondered what strategies you can show your students to help them improve their spelling?
One special education teacher, Penelope Steward, who taught for over 25 years found that by teaching the five phonetic skills below, she could eliminate the majority of her students' spelling errors.
“When they learned the phonetic skills, they would look at their own spelling and say “no it can’t be spelled that way.” I could eliminate a lot of spelling errors just by teaching the five phonetic skills. I saw a lot of improvement in spelling and reading just with the first few basic concepts I taught. I’ve worked with students of all ages with this methodology and it works for everyone.”
– Penelope Steward, ID
Reading Horizons Five Phonetic Skills:
- Phonetic Skill #1: When there is one guardian consonant (and nothing more) that follows the vowel, the vowel will be short.
- Phonetic Skill #2: When the vowel is followed by two guardian consonants and nothing more, the vowel will be short.
- Phonetic Skill #3: When a vowel stands alone, it will be long.
- Phonetic Skill #4: Silent E makes the first vowel long.
- Phonetic Skill #5: When vowels are adjacent, the second vowel is silent, and the first vowel is long.
The 5 Phonetic Skills taught in Reading Horizons methodology.
To gain more tips and information on teaching these skills, and many other decoding/encoding strategies found in the Reading Horizons methodology, sign up for the Reading Horizons Free Online Workshop for Teachers. This workshop provides you with simple, systematic teaching techniques that you can successfully use to help students understand the rules and structure of the English language.
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