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Tip 6
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- Improve Awareness of the phoneme to grapheme connection:
A. Writing and saying the correct spelling
· If your students learn new words most easily by copying them in their own handwriting, suggest to them that they copy the word they want to learn onto a piece of paper in handwriting that they can see well. If they prefer they can just look at the word that they can already see written.
- Decide how the graphemes fit the sounds in the word and say each sound in phonological6 order whilst looking at the graphemes
B. Committing the spelling to memory
- So that the students have as clear an internal representation as possible ask them to visualise the word in their minds eye.
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You can obtain more information about phonology in Spelling Sense with NLP & Coaching Literacy Programme.
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Tip 7
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- When they think they have committed the word to visual memory, check by asking the student to recall the sounds for each grapheme.
- To check that they can visualise the appropriate graphemes ask them to write the word.
- Double check that they can visualise the graphemes by pointing randomly to a series of dashes on a white board representing the graphemes. Don’t actually let them see the graphemes written on the white board.
- Do not ask for a letter name because this is not always the same as the sound within the word and confuses some students
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The teacher/coach’s task is to help students discover what is not working and to help them change it to a strategy that they believe will be useful to them.
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Tip 8
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- Distract students for a minute and then tell them that you are going to ask them to spell the word:
a) Listen to the word ‘___________________’ (‘competition’)
b) repeat it and listen for the chunks and sounds in the word.
c) visualise the word again
d) Now ask the student to write the word on paper, saying the sounds as they write the graphemes.
e) Ask, “Is that correct?” They should get a ‘feeling’ that they ‘know’ that it is right.
f) If they are correct, a 'high-five' or short applause or “That’s right!” can be used to 'anchor' the process. If not let them review the parts to which they need to pay more attention.
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If they cannot recall the correct spelling, notice where the difficulty lies. It could be a problem with the way they say the sounds or the way they use their visual memory. Ask them what they think the problem is and work from there. You could encourage them to repeat the process in smaller chunks, clearer, sharper sounds, using brighter colours / larger graphemes for difficult to see graphemes.
NB Some students prefer not to say the sounds aloud because they feel others will be listening, so let them practise saying the sounds silently ‘inside their heads’.
You can obtain further information on memory and how to make spellings more memorable in Minding your Spelling with NLP & Coaching.
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