Family Cinema The final stop on our quest to master schwa will take us to the movies, so pile your crew into the car and get ready to enjoy the latest flick. If you close your eyes, you may just pick up the scent of fresh, buttery popcorn and detect the excited whispers of families […]
Bacon Salad and Travel by Camel Good food and traveling?! How can this blog get any better? Today I’m going to take you on a little trip via an unconventional mode: between the bumps and humps of a camel. Along our journey, we will make one stop for lunch, and you guessed it, we will […]
The queen wanted a quick fix to the ‘Qu’ query. You see, everyone was asking her why she never did anything without her loyal ‘U,’ and quite frankly, she quaked at the thought of being without her ‘U’! I wonder if you’ve caught on to my quips, but if you haven’t, we are going to […]
The Huge Hedgehog This rule is a follow-up to the Gentle Giraffe rule. It involves this spunky, slightly huge, hedgehog! Because words in English cannot end with the letter J, it’s important to let your student know that when they hear /j/ at the end, they must choose a different spelling. To introduce this spelling […]
Let’s start with a scenario. I am working with a student on the basic letter sound correspondences, and I get to the letter G. I don’t know about you, but this is one letter sound correspondence that makes me hold my breath. Why? Let’s reenact a conversation that I’ve had many times while showing students […]
Extra Exam We’ve all been there: palms sweaty and heart racing just before we are supposed to take the exam that we feel completely unprepared for. To make matters worse, we are surrounded by classmates who seem to know exactly what they’re doing while we flounder in our own panic! Photo by Thought Catalog on […]
Have You Met My Friend, Schwa? As a natural English language inquirer, my friends have come to see me as the resident spelling guru of our group, so naturally, I get all the puzzling spelling questions. My most recent inquiry was, “I heard that something called schwa is the most common vowel in the English […]
A Yummy Double Whammy As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, it’s easy to allow our minds to wander to lazy summer days eating sweet treats to the tune of carnival rides and laughter. I’d like to keep this sentiment alive with our next rule: Taffy Apple. Photo by John Jackson on […]
The Secret Cricket Has Spoken Psst...PSST! I have a secret to share with you...I know the secret to spelling a really tricky sound. It’s one of those sounds that even good spellers sometimes mix up. Do you know the best part? I give you permission to share this secret with ANYONE! If you’ve been following […]
Avoiding the Spelling ICK with a Sick Trick: Spelling /K/ at the end of a word Imagine yourself as a struggling speller… You know your letter-sound correspondences. You’ve worked hard to learn the differences between long and short vowel sounds, and you’ve worked through these funky things called digraphs (th, sh, ch, ck, wh). Now […]
