Tuesday Tip - Should I have a stand-alone spelling program?

In today's Tuesday Tip, I discuss integrating phonics and spelling in literacy instruction, as it can improve learning and reduce cognitive load for students.

Video Transcript

Many classrooms and schools still have their literacy blocks divided into reading time and writing time. This may well include phonics for reading and spelling as connected to writing. When we do this, the impact's threefold. Firstly, we're taking up key instructional time that we know there is never enough of.

The second thing we do is place unnecessary pressure on working memory and cognitive load. This particularly impacts our struggling readers. The third impact of this practice is that we're denying children the power of learning about words through the reciprocal processes of decoding and encoding.

When you have a strong approach in your classroom, you do not require a separate spelling program. When you decode and encode every lesson, your phonics approach is your spelling. You may be wondering why then, given this information, I've decided to write a book about spelling for the early years.

Spelling Success in Action is designed to supplement and strengthen your existing phonics instruction. As an experienced teacher, I know how hard it is to fit everything in and respond to a range of student needs. Spelling Success in Action 1 enables early years teachers to teach about these really important concepts about the most common prefixes and suffixes.

And to get started on suffixing conventions when children are ready in a way that links meaningfully to their phonics approach. You can do this in one 15 to 20 minute lesson once a week or once a fortnight, and then take these concepts and use them in the context of your word- and sentence-level reading and writing.

If you are using our Reading Success in Action book number three, it lists spelling morphology detours. Spelling Success in Action fleshes those detours out into detailed lesson plans for you.

But even if you're using a phonics approach that is different from ours, you can still use Spelling Success in Action, book number one. It will support you to teach important concepts and connect them. I don't think we should have a separate spelling program from our phonics in the early years. That's why Spelling Success in Action has been written to complement your existing instruction. To help students understand how words work and build strong spelling, order your copy from jocelynseamereducation.com.

Want to know more?

Click here to find out how to kickstart your upper primary spelling journey.

Click here to find out how to tackle spelling in the early years.

And click here to find out how to teach spelling when you're not sure what you need to know.

Ready to help students with their spelling journey?  Join the Resource Room today.