Fun Way to Practice Spelling with Your Kindergartner

Spelling in English is a challenge for anyone so it's important to practice with your kindergartner as early as possible! This activity is based on an expensive book I bought for my son - the concept is easily adapted for making at home (for much less money!) so let's get started!

Materials:

Picture file of three-letter words: To make this file, glue or tape a photo or draw a picture on one side of a piece of construction paper. Write the word on the other side. For added practice, have your child assist you with this process by glueing the pictures and writing the words as you spell them. Some words might be: cat, hat, bed, man, toy, pen, box, pig, cow, ant, big, cup, bag, dog, ear, red, bad, big, dig, sat, tap, pat, lot, not, map

Spiral notebook with at least 26 pages: Preferably an art notebook or scrapbook with slightly thicker paper

Instructions:

Turn the notebook horizontal with the spiral at the top. Cut the pages of the notebook into three equal parts by cutting up from the bottom to the spiral.

Now, in bright magic marker, write the letters of the alphabet from a-z in the flaps of each of the three sections. What you will have in the end is three mini flipcharts of the alphabet.

Note: Many kindergarten programs prefer that students focus on lower-case letters, so you may want to check on this. Also, check which sort of handwriting model the program uses. I taught my son the traditional way of writing the letters only to find out that our schools use the D'Nealian alphabet to aid later in the learning of cursive writing!

Activity:

Hold up a picture and pronounce the word at a normal pace, then more slowly, emphasizing the individual sounds that make up the word.

You child should flip the letters to the letters that spell the given word. For example, if you show a cat, they should flip c-a-t.
After they have spelled the word, turn your picture over to reveal the correct spelling.

Give the child a point for every correct spelling and yourself a point for every incorrect spelling if you want to make the activity into a game. Allow the child a second chance guess by reemphasizing the pronunciation of the word.

Once your child understand the basic concept, try having them think out situations such as: you have the word "bat" and you want to change it to "bag". How can you do this? This is one of the reasons that rhyming is so important in kindergarten. By understanding how to make this simple modifications, you greatly increase the number of words that you can spell and ultimately read!

Add to the picture file to keep the activity interesting and challenging. You can make the same activity using a notebook with four sections to practice more difficult words and spellings! Have fun and make spelling practice a daily activity!