Hands-On Ways to Study Spelling Words

Awhile ago I put together a list of hands-on, engaging ways to study spelling words for a project. I realized that I should probably share it here, in case any of you are looking for ideas to make weekly studying more effective and fun!

I won't try to go into great detail about brain research because I really only have a basic understanding, but I have learned over the years that one way to make learning more likely to "stick" or be retained over time is to activate as many areas of the brain as you can simultaneously. That way, more brain cells fire together. When they fire together, they "wire" together and create connections, which make learning stronger and more likely to remembered.

So, for example, if your child just spells her words out loud, or just writes them, or just looks at them, she is only activating one part of her brain at a time. It would be more effective for her to say each letter out loud at the same time she writes them.

The particular study strategies in this document are mainly active, movement-oriented ideas. You may be able to combine other techniques to suit your child's personal learning style even better, though. A very basic way to create new methods to try is to think of visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), and kinesthetic (movement) ways of studying as three separate categories. Whenever possible, try to use TWO or even three of those categories at the same time. If you start seeing your child's spelling test scores go up or notice that he can remember words from a few weeks ago, you will know you are on the right track!

One more similar trick to integrate into your study nights is to use more than one color to write information; I am not sure of the exact science behind this, but I was taught that seeing two or more colors at the same time activates more brain cells than just one color, and thus creates more connections and stronger learning.


I think you should be able to view and print the pdf document by clicking on the link below. If that does not work, please let me know!

As an added piece of fun, you can cut out the little cards, put them into a "hat," and let your child draw a study technique randomly! Or, of course, they can just choose the ones they like the best. :)

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8UPEk-P-DO3REEwcGQxc05HTHM

Thank you for reading! We are glad you are here.