Reading and writing are companion activities. Learning to be successful at each involves learning many of the same skills. Children who develop effective early reading skills are primed to become successful writers. Many of the abilities that they build when learning to read can be applied to their writing. This is especially true when learning to spell.

Moving from Reading to Spelling

The primary building block of a child’s reading ability is her phonemic awareness. Before she can begin reading print words on a page the child needs to develop an understanding of how language works. Phonemic awareness or the understanding that words are comprised of units of sound is the basis of language. Children usually begin to develop phonemic awareness early in their lives as they listen to the words used by the adults around them. Over time they come to an awareness of how words are constructed out of phonemes or units of sound. From here they are primed to move towards decoding the written versions of the words they have learned to construct orally. The same holds true for spelling. Without phonemic awareness children are not able to learn to spell the words they want to use in their writing. They must understand that words are constructed from “pieces” of sound before they can begin writing them.

Learning to spell a word naturally follows learning to read it. When a child learns to decode and read a new word he is integrating it into his internal vocabulary. The word becomes part of the “bank” of words he knows how to read. Once the child is able to control the word internally, he can use it externally by writing. Learning to spell a word that is already a part of one’s reading vocabulary allows the child to exert external control over the word. He is able to demonstrate and extend what he already knows by turning the tables and creating a text using words he previously experienced others using in their writing.

Using Reading to Build Spelling Skills

Phonetic Spelling

Because children rely heavily on their phonemic awareness and understanding of phonics (relationship between sounds and print letters) when reading new words it stands to reason that they use they also use these skills when spelling unfamiliar words. Many young writers (and even some older writers) use phonetic spelling in their writing. Phonetic spelling occurs when a child does not know the standard spelling of a word and instead uses her knowledge of phonics to create a logical approximation of its spelling. This is different than inventive spelling, a core concept in Whole Language instruction. When a child uses inventive spelling, she creates her own version of the spelling of a word she does not already know. Inventive spelling, unlike phonetic spelling, does not necessarily rely on phonics. The child can use any combination of letters to “invent” the way an unfamiliar word is spelled. Phonetic spelling is systematic, relying on a core understanding of the ways that words are typically spelled.

Teaching children to spell new words phonetically is an important part of literacy development and is an extension of reading instruction. Parents and teachers should encourage children to use the understanding of phonics that they have developed through reading when writing. They should ask children to draw on their knowledge of sound-letter connections to “sound out” words they want to write, but are unsure how to spell.

Spelling Sight Words

One of the ways young people become more effective and efficient readers is by learning to identify the words most often used in texts “on sight”. These words are known as sight words. There are 220 general words and 95 nouns that have been identified as the most frequently occurring words in children’s texts. Parents and educators have made these words the core of vocabulary instruction in the early grades. Most children have integrated these sight words, also known as Dolch words, into their reading vocabularies by the end of third grade. This means that when they encounter these words in a new text they are able to quickly identify and understand them in context.

Because sight words are already a part of a child’s reading vocabulary they are perfect material for teaching him to spell. He knows what each sight word looks like in print and therefore can easily and smoothly transition into spelling it. Teachers and parents should use the sight words that a child has mastered in reading as the basis for spelling instruction. Spelling lists should be comprised of words that a child encounters in on a regular basis in reading and in daily life.

Mutually Beneficial: Spelling Instruction Enhances Reading Ability

While reading skills such as phonemic awareness and the ability to apply phonics provide the basis for spelling instruction, the benefits of learning to spell are not confined to writing. Though it is true that good readers are more likely to become good spellers the opposite is also true. Spelling instruction enhances a child’s ability to read. Studies have shown when children receive regular, explicit spelling instruction their word recognition skills increase. It is believed that while drawing on their phonemic awareness and phonics skills to spell, children are reinforcing these abilities. This in turn makes these skills more effective when children are reading.

Spelling instruction is not only an important part of the Language Arts classroom’s writing program, it also benefits students’ reading abilities. Because both spelling draws on the cornerstones of effective reading (phonemic awareness and phonics) instruction in this area helps children become stronger readers as well as making them more proficient writers. While many educators know this to be true they struggle to plan and implement spelling instruction in their classrooms. Here you’ll find some of the most successful methods for teaching children to spell.

Phonics Based Spelling Instruction

When young children attempt to spell new words they often fall back on the phonics skills they have learned during reading instruction to “sound” them out. They draw on their understanding of the connection between letters and sounds to make educated guesses about how words are spelled. While this method is not effective for all English words (since many have irregular spellings), this strategy is generally an effective and productive one for children to use. Teachers and parents should encourage children to use and build on what they know about phonics when teaching them how to spell. Children should be taught to segment the phonemes (sound units) in a word they are trying to spell and to connect these with the letters they associate them with when reading. For example, if a child is attempting to spell “hat” a teacher could remind him of what he already knows about the letters that make each of the sounds in this word. The teacher should encourage him to write the letters that he knows are associated with the sounds /h/ /a/ /t/. Even if the child’s spelling of the word is not exactly correct, the act of using segmentation to spell builds important skills that he can often apply when writing.

Direct Spelling Instruction

By far the most effective method of spelling instruction is direct teaching. While some approaches to literacy instruction favor allowing children to discover and invent word spellings as they learn to write, research shows that direct spelling instruction has the most beneficial and long lasting effects for readers and writers. Children tend to retain the words that they learn to spell during direct instruction and are able to apply them in both their reading and writing.

When employing direct instruction teachers should select words that are appropriate for their students’ current developmental levels. For example, Dolch sight word lists provide excellent age-appropriate collections of words to draw from when teaching spelling. Teachers should encourage students to use their knowledge of phonics as well as memorizing the spelling of words presented in a weekly spelling word list. They should provide the children with many opportunities to use and practice the words so that they will internalize and master their spellings.

Orthographic Patterns

While the English language contains many words that feature irregular spellings, there are even more that follow general patterns of construction. Letter or orthographic patterns reoccur frequently in our language. Teaching children these basic patterns will help them master the spelling of many words. For example, understanding the orthographic pattern of using the vowel set “ie”after all consonants except for “c” allows young writers to “unlock” many words. Children should be explicitly taught these patterns and then be given opportunities to practice producing words using them.

Spelling in Context

Anytime instruction can be made authentic for students it stands a strong chance of producing true learning. While it is important that children receive direct spelling instruction this does not mean that words should be taught in isolation. Rather students should have opportunities to use spelling words in context. Spelling word lists should come from texts that children are reading. High frequency words such as those featured on Dolch’s sight word lists are used regularly in grade level texts. Teachers should draw on these lists when selecting words to focus on during spelling instruction. In addition, they should select words that are important and have personal meaning to their students. For example, if a class is studying the rainforest their teacher should select related words such as wet, rain, hot and plants for spelling instruction during this unit of study. Children will be more engaged and interested in learning the words because they will be seeing and using them in context on a regular basis during the unit. In addition, spelling instruction will positively affect reading ability because children will be able to transfer their knowledge words they have learned during spelling lessons to their reading experiences.

Knowing the meanings of words on the page is essential for reading comprehension. While few would deny this fact, the role that vocabulary plays in reading is often ignored or overlooked in reading education. A strong vocabulary is one of the pillars of reading comprehension.

What Exactly is Vocabulary?

In its simplest terms vocabulary is words. Your vocabulary is the words you know and can use. While children often have extensive oral vocabularies (words they use in speech) translating these to print often poses challenges. Vocabulary, as it applies to reading, is not only a person’s knowledge of words, but also his ability to recognize these words in print. Learning new vocabulary involves connecting the oral and print versions of the words and integrating them into our vocabulary “knowledge base”.

Vocabulary is multifaceted and complex. Each new word a person learns has denotation(s) and connotation(s). A word’s denotation is its literal definition. For example the denotation of “frugal” is economic in use or spending. Connotations, on the other hand, are the implied meanings of words. Consider the connotations of the word “frugal”. Calling someone “frugal” is usually a compliment meaning that the person is careful and conservative in her spending. If you were to change the word “frugal” to “cheap” the connotation would be different. While “frugal” and “cheap” have essentially the same dictionary definitions, their connotations are very different.

Relationship Between Comprehension and Vocabulary

Vocabulary is inextricably linked to comprehension. Simply put: you cannot comprehend a text if you do not understand the words being used in it! Vocabulary knowledge is the greatest single predictor of a reader’s ability to comprehend a text. When a reader comes to a text with knowledge of its vocabulary or is able to use strategies to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading he is very likely to be able to understand what the piece is saying. This is why vocabulary is often used to determine the difficulty of a text. The proportion of challenging words in a piece of writing is the standard measure for determining a text’s difficulty.

Methods for Acquiring New Vocabulary

There are four standard ways that we learn new vocabulary words: through explicit or implicit instruction, multimedia and through association. Explicit instruction of vocabulary is the pre-teaching of words or root analysis strategies prior to a reading experience. Implicit instruction, on the other hand, occurs naturally and spontaneously during reading. When a reader comes to an unfamiliar word she is taught the word or discovers the meaning using independent strategies such as context clue identification and analysis. Multimedia learning occurs when the reader uses a non-print source to discover the meanings of unfamiliar words. Pictures, hypertext and American Sign Language are common methods for teaching and learning vocabulary through multimedia. Finally, learning through association happens when a reader is able to connect a new word to prior knowledge. This connection allows her to add the new word to her reading vocabulary.

Any or all of these methods can be used alone or in combination for any reading task. Ultimately, readers should be able to apply vocabulary learning methods flexibly and independently.

Impact of Vocabulary on Reading Ability

It is not surprising that vocabulary knowledge increases reading comprehension. This is especially true when new words are taught prior to the reading experience and the reader has multiple exposures to the words.

Vocabulary knowledge is not only essential for reading comprehension it is also critical for academic success. Because reading is an important component of every instructional program, regardless of the content focus, vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in a child’s academic performance. Each content area has its own set of vocabulary that is essential for understanding its concepts and ideas. Vocabulary knowledge is thus a predictor of a child’s general academic success. Furthermore researchers have found that students coming into 4th grade with significant vocabulary deficits not only have difficulty with reading comprehension, they also are unlikely to catch up with their similar aged peers.

Word walls have become a mainstay in elementary classrooms. They are not only a great tool for the early grades, but can be used all the way through high school. Word walls are an excellent way for any teacher or parent to help the young people they are working with develop and reinforce their vocabularies. They provide subtle reminders of new and important words. As a new word is learned it is written in large print on a sentence strip or piece of paper and hung up on the wall in a location where the child is likely to see it often. Not only will his repetitive viewing of the word reinforce it in the child’s memory, it is also easily accessible for the parent or teacher to refer to when talking with the child about it.

Here are 10 of the best strategies for creating your word walls in your classroom:

1. Sight Word Wall: Primary grade texts are comprised primarily of sight words. If a child can master the sight words for her grade level she can easily tackle 50-75% of the words in the texts she will read. Teachers and parents can help foster this development by writing each new sight word the child learns on a sentence strip or 8 1/2”x 11” piece of paper and posting on the wall it along with other sight words the child has mastered. Over time the wall will grow to include all of the sight words necessary to read grade level texts.
2. Literature Based Word Wall: Word walls can also be created to help students during a literature study. The teacher should select keywords, new vocabulary words or even characters’ names from the piece of literature the class will be reading. As these words are encountered in the text or are introduced during vocabulary instruction they should be written on sentence strips or computer paper and posted together in a central location in the classroom. The wall will aid students in learning these new vocabulary words as well as easily accessing important information when discussing the book in class.
3. Seasonal Word Wall: Elementary grade classrooms often organize units around the seasons of the year. Important keywords focusing on a particular season can be used to create a seasonal word wall. As each word is introduced it should be written on a sentence strip or computer paper and posted in the classroom. Over time a collection of words related to the season will develop. At the end of the season the words can be moved to another part of the classroom. As the seasons progress students will be able to look back at the collections of words associated with each to see the commonalities and differences between each.
4. Writing Word Wall: Word walls aren’t just tools to help support children’s reading development. They can also be valuable aids during writing instruction.Writers, especially those in the younger grades, often have difficulty retrieving a wide variety of words to use in their writing. Teachers can help spark their memories by posting lists of words on the wall. The list can be general or specific. If your class is studying a particular mode of writing you can post words that are often used in that type of writing. For example, when the class is working on compare-contrast writing words such as “similar”, “different”, “same” and “opposite”could be posted on the word wall to remind students to use these in their writing.
5. Spelling Word Wall: Spelling word walls are excellent tools to aid students throughout the year. A spelling word wall should be organized alphabetically to help students locate the words as they need to spell them. The wall should be comprised of words the class encounters and wants to learn to spell. Common spelling errors in writing, key words from literature, weekly spelling lists and even students’ names can be added to the word wall. The wall should also be a “work in progress”. Words should be added as the teacher and students decide they need to learn to spell them. Many teachers keep the words up on the wall even during tests, but cover them with blank paper to prevent students from using the wall while being tested.
6. Parts of Speech Word Wall: Sometimes students struggle to understand which part of speech a word fits into. They may not remember if “pretty” is a verb because someone can “be” pretty, a noun because “pretty” usually refers to a person, place or thing or an adjective because it is a descriptive word. To help students categorize their vocabularies and understand basic concepts of grammar, teachers can create a word wall organized by part of speech (ie. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). As students learn or study new words they can add each to the correct part of speech.
7. Phonics/Phonemic Word Wall: Phonics (the connection between sounds and print letters) and phonemic awareness (the understanding that words are comprised of sound units) are critical to reading. Parents and teachers can help children develop phonemic awareness and phonics skills through word walls. Words that children are familiar with (such as sight words) can be categorized on the word wall by sound. For example, a word wall could have a short “i” sound category where words such as “it”, “in” and “sit” would be located. Organizing words in this way helps children make connections between sounds and print.
8. Content Area Word Wall: Word walls are not just for English/Language Arts classrooms. They can be incorporated in any content area classroom also. In fact, because many students struggle with content area vocabulary, they can be extremely valuable aids in helping them acquire the terms necessary to understand content area concepts and texts. Content area teachers should write important vocabulary and key words students need to learn on sentence strips or computer paper. As each word is introduced it should be added to the wall. The wall will provide a visual cue for students as they discuss and write about content area topics. The wall should continue to be a “work in progress” growing throughout the school year as new terms are learned.
9. Unit/Chapter Word Wall: Content area word walls do not have to be used for an entire school year. They can simply be an aid for a particular unit or chapter of study. The teacher should select key terms from the unit and chapter and write them on sentence strips or computer paper. As each word is introduced it should be added to the wall. At the end of the unit or chapter the word wall can come down. This is an excellent way to incorporate a word wall into your classroom if you have limited space available.
10. Standardized Test Preparation Word Wall: One of the often overlooked aspects of standardized test preparation is the vocabulary used in question and answer choices. Generally each standardized test has its own question stems, organization and methods for presenting answer choices. There is, in effect, a “vocabulary” for each test. Teachers can help students become more effective test takers by familiarizing them with the key words used in a particular standardized test. One of the ways of doing this is by creating a test preparation word wall. All of the key terms used in questions and answers should be written on sentence strips or computer paper and posted together on a wall. Students should be encouraged to understand and use these terms throughout the year so that they will be comfortable with them come test time.

Because vocabulary knowledge is critical to reading comprehension, it is important that those working with young readers help foster their development of a large “word bank” and effective vocabulary learning strategies. There are several effective explicit (intentional, planned instruction) and implicit (spontaneous instruction as a child comes to new words in a text) strategies that adults can employ with readers of any age.

Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

Pre-teaching Vocabulary Words

One of the most effective methods of helping children learn new vocabulary words is to teach unfamiliar words used in a text prior to the reading experience. Adults (either alone or with the child(ren)) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. Then these words should be defined and discussed. It is important for the adult to not only tell the child(ren) what the word means, but also to discuss its meaning. This allows the child(ren) to develop an understanding of the word’s connotations as well as its denotation. Also, discussion provides the adult with feedback about how well the child(ren) understands the word. After pre-teaching vocabulary words, the child(ren) should read the text.

Repeated Exposure to Words

It may seem common sense that the more times we are exposed to a word, the stronger our understanding becomes. However, repeated exposure to new vocabulary words is often ignored. Adults often forget a person (especially a child) needs to hear and use a word several times before it truly becomes a part of her vocabulary. Providing multiple opportunities to use a new word in its written and spoken form helps children solidify their understanding of it.

Keyword Method

Like pre-teaching, the keyword method occurs before a child reads a particular text. In this method, unfamiliar words are introduced prior to reading. However, rather than encouraging the child to remember a definition for a new word, the adult teaches him a “word clue” to help him understand it. This “word clue” or keyword might be a part of the definition, an illustrative example or an image that the reader connects to the word to make it easier to remember the meaning when reading it in context. The idea behind the keyword method is to create an easy cognitive link to the word’s meaning that the reader can access efficiently during a reading experience.

Word Maps

The word map is an excellent method for scaffolding a child’s vocabulary learning. Like the other explicit instructional methods, the adult (either alone or with the child(ren)) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. For each of these new vocabulary words the child (with the support of the adult) creates a graphic organizer for the word. At the top or center of the organizer is the vocabulary word. Branching off of the word are three categories: classification (what class or group does the word belong to), qualities (what is the word like) and examples. Using prior knowledge the child fills in each of these three categories. Word maps help readers develop complete understandings of words. This strategy is best used with children in grades 3-12.

Root Analysis

While root analysis is taught explicitly, the ultimate goal is for readers to use this strategy independently. Many of the words in the English language are derived from Latin or Greek roots. They either contain a “core” root (the primary component of the word) or use prefixes or suffixes that hold meaning. Adults should focus on teaching children the most commonly occurring roots, prefixes and suffixes. As each is taught examples of its use in common word should be shared and examined. The reader should see how the root helps her understand the word’s definition. Children should then be given practice analyzing words to determine their roots and definitions. When a reader is able to break down unfamiliar words into their prefixes, suffixes and roots they can begin to determine their meanings.

Restructuring Reading Materials

This strategy is particularly effective for helping struggling readers improve their vocabularies. Sometimes grade level materials are inaccessible to readers because there are too many unfamiliar words in them. Adults can restructure the materials in several different ways to help readers comprehend them more easily. A portion of the difficult words can be replaced with “easier” synonyms to help the reader understand the overall text. Vocabulary footnotes (definitions provided at the bottom of the page) can be added for particularly challenging words so that the reader can easily “look up” the word while still reading the text. An accompanying vocabulary guide can be provided for the text. Words that are included in the guide should be highlighted or printed in bold text to direct the reader to check the vocabulary guide if the word or its meaning is unfamiliar.

Implicit Vocabulary Instruction

Incidental Learning

Incidental vocabulary learning occurs all of the time when we read. Based on the way a word is used in a text we are able to determine its meaning. Consider this example: “Megan’s fluxoolingy hair reached all the way down to her knees”. While you may not know the word “fluxoolingy” you could determine that it has something to do with length since the rest of the sentence focuses on describing where Megan’s hair comes to on her body. Adults should model this sort of incidental vocabulary learning for children to help them develop their own skills.

Context Skills

Context skills are the strategies that a reader uses for incidental vocabulary learning. Texts are full of “clues” about the meanings of words. Other words in a sentence or paragraph, captions, illustrations and titles provide readers with information about the text that they can use to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. These features are often referred to as “context clues” because they are contained within the context of the piece of writing rather than outside it. Young readers should be taught to find and use context clues for learning new vocabulary words. Adult modeling and practice are key for helping children develop this important reading skill.