spelling instruction Archives - Silver Moon Spelling Rules

As educators and parents of struggling spellers, we all can relate to the writing sample above. Students are often confused about how to double letters when they come at the end of a word. As seen in the word “tripp,” struggling spellers will often over-generalize doubling rules in an attempt to make sense of the spelling patterns that they’ve noticed on their own. This is neither unique nor irreparable; all you need are the tools to teach the rules!

Generalization is the skill used to apply one concept to many different situations. Generalization is often used in a positive way, and in education, we celebrate those moments our students generalize skills that we’ve explicitly taught as it often demonstrates mastery. In the spelling world, note that the words ‘generalization’ and ‘rule’ may be used to mean the same thing. Kelly Steinke, author of Silver Moon Spelling Rules, describes the reasoning for this in her up and coming book, Silver Moon Spelling Rules, Set 3.

“The term ‘spelling rule’ will be used interchangeably with the term ‘spelling generalization’. This is because, at this point, students need to use critical thinking skills to consider possible spelling choices when there may be more than one way to spell a given sound. Spelling rules are a construct, or way to think about and organize spelling choices.”

And yet, there is such a thing as over-generalization. This is that all-too-familiar phenomenon where a student takes a self-appointed spelling pattern and applies it to the wrong situations (as seen above in the writing sample). Think of this like that moment that you learned dessert comes after dinner. As soon as you generalized this “rule,” you might have begun to expect dessert after EVERY meal. I’m sure you learned quickly that this simply wasn’t a rule that you could generalize to each meal, or perhaps you’re like me and still learning.

Okay, so your student has some confusion over doubling. What now? It sure would be nice to simply tell your student the rule (often called the FLOSS rule) and fix the issue right there! However, we know we need a bit more than that to reach our students. Well, don’t panic because I’d like to share an engaging, multisensory set of strategies and FREE resources to alleviate the stress of tackling the doubling hurdle.

Once you’re sure that the prerequisite skills are met, you can begin to teach the spelling rule.

Did I catch your interest? Good. That’s the goal. This fun phrase was created to help students remember the doubling rule. You may be familiar with the traditional mnemonic FLOSS. And while this is a handy mnemonic that has been used for many years, it’s not very engaging. That’s how Sam and his fried zucchini were born.

“At the end of a word that has one vowel, double the letters F, L, S, and Z.”

Notice that the first letter to each word represents one of the four letters that will be doubled using this rule. Pretty nifty!

The easiest way to practice this skill is to give your student a list of words. Have your student find and circle all words with 1 syllable on the page by counting the vowels. Then, have your student read each 1 syllable word out loud.

Rather, provide the student with a resource that already has the rule written down for them. I highly suggest the Silver Moon Spelling Rules cards complete with illustrations of Sam and his fried zucchini. Both student and instructor sets of cards can be found at this handy link.

You may find that students have learned to memorize a lot of words. This is especially common when working with older students. Therefore, it’s difficult to know for sure if your student has really learned the spelling rule to the point of generalization (note that this is the ‘good kind’ of generalization). Using a mix of real words and nonsense words helps you better understand what your student knows and eliminates the memorization variable.

It may seem obvious to us, but it’s not always obvious to emerging readers and spellers.

Okay, okay...if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a teacher, FREE resources rock! Download, print, and enjoy these free reproducibles to practice our new rule.

As you can see, this is a really fun way to teach doubling that you can use with your students! I hope you give it a try and, if you love it, share this article with someone else.

If you want to see how the free reproducible work, check out this vlog where Kelly and Kate discuss the blog and the sheets!

I HATE SPELING!

Written by: Dan Patrick, Parent & Guest Blogger

That's right... I was the kid in grade school that had zero stars on the class "Spelling Stars" chart at the end of my 4th-grade year. To give some perspective, this chart was large, colorful and hung proudly next to the door for everyone to see. Each week, a spelling test consisting of 20 words was given to the class. If you spelled all 20 correctly, you received a nice, shiny gold star next to your name.At the end of the year, a few kids had 34-36 stars. This gave them supreme bragging

rights (we affectionately called them nerds). The majority of my classmates had somewhere between 15-30 stars and a few "not so gifted and talented" kids only had 5-10 stars. And there I was, dead last with exactly zero stars. I remember feeling like the dumbest kid in the world.Well, the story ends well. I recognized that I had strengths in math and science and eventually learned that I wasn't dumb, but that I needed to figure out how I learned.

Poor Spelling is often a Sign of Dyslexia or other Learning Disabilities

Unfortunately, some are not so lucky. Researchers believe that 15-20% of the population is affected by dyslexia, with the top 10% being severe enough to need some type of learning intervention and other supports and accommodations. Dyslexia is a learning disability that is neurobiological in origin and is considered a language acquisition disorder that primarily affects reading fluency, spelling, and reading words in isolation. There are many other symptoms of dyslexia and they persist despite having quality teachers, caring and involved parents and regular school attendance.

Spelling Instruction that Makes Sense!
This leads us to the reason for this post. In addition to one-on-one online and in-person instruction, Read Learning Educational Services, LLC offers professional development courses on systematic and multi-sensory spelling instruction using the Silver Moon® Spelling Rules program. The most recent course offering is designed for educators, private practitioners and dyslexia specialists and answers 5 key questions:

What are the 3 Foundational skills required to build strong spellers and readers?
How do I teach spelling in a simultaneously multi-sensory manner?
What spelling rules do I teach and in what order?
Which syllables and what division rules need to be taught in the Silver Moon® Spelling system?
What are the components of a Silver Moon® Spelling Rules lesson?

For more information, contact Kelly at KSteinke@Readlearningservices.com.

Sam Loves Fried Zucchini (aka the Floss Rule)