How to Teach Spelling So Kids Will Remember

Sarah Major, M.Ed. is passionate about working in harmony with a child's immaculate design to support their learning strengths. As a Title 1 Program Director and Designer, Sarah earned awards for creating her own multisensory educational resources that have now been sold in all 50 states and over 150 countries. By design, Sarah’s approach transforms symbol-heavy spelling content into whole-brain materials that engage all learners through an emphasis on understanding letter sounds rather than memorization.

Has your child ever earned 100% on Friday's spelling test—and then misspelled the same words the following week?

Or maybe studying the spelling list itself is a struggle. Your child copies the words, says the letters aloud, practices them again and again, and still can't remember how to spell them when test day arrives.

If this sounds familiar, the problem may not be a lack of effort.

The way spelling is being practiced may not be helping your child understand how words work.

Spelling becomes much more meaningful when children learn to hear the sounds in words, connect those sounds with their spellings, notice patterns across words, and apply what they learn in reading and writing.

Instead of asking children only to memorize:

H-I-G-H

we can help them understand that the word high contains two sounds:

/h/ /ī/

and that in this word, the long /ī/ sound is spelled igh.

Now the letters aren't simply a sequence to memorize. They represent sounds and patterns the child can recognize and use again.

That's the difference between memorizing a spelling word for Friday and learning something about spelling that can be used long after the test is over.

Why Is Spelling Important?

Spelling is much more than getting words correct on a weekly test.

Reading and spelling are closely connected. When children read, they connect written letters and letter combinations with the sounds and words they represent. When they spell, they work in the other direction—starting with a spoken word, identifying its sounds, and representing those sounds in writing.

As spelling becomes increasingly automatic, children can also devote more attention to what they want to communicate in their writing rather than stopping repeatedly to figure out how to spell individual words.

That's why effective spelling instruction should help children do more than remember a list.

We want them to develop knowledge they can apply to unfamiliar words, reading, and authentic writing.

Why Doesn't Memorizing Spelling Words Always Work?

Many of us learned spelling through a familiar routine:

Get a list on Monday.

Copy each word several times.

Study the words.

Take the test on Friday.

For some children, that produces a good test score.

But a good score doesn't necessarily tell us whether the child has learned something transferable about spelling.

A child may memorize night for a test without recognizing that the same igh spelling represents /ī/ in:

light
right
fight
sight
might

Likewise, repeatedly saying:

N-I-G-H-T

doesn't necessarily draw the child's attention to the sounds in the word or the spelling pattern those letters represent.

Rote memorization isn't inherently bad. Practice and repeated exposure are important for developing automaticity.

The problem is relying on memorization of isolated letter sequences as the primary way children learn to spell.

Effective spelling instruction helps children understand the structure behind the words they're practicing.

How to Teach Spelling So Kids Remember

Here are seven ways to make spelling practice more meaningful and transferable.

1. Start With the Sounds in the Word

Before asking a child to memorize the letters in a word, help them listen to the spoken word.

Say the word slowly.

What sounds do you hear?

For example:

fight

contains three phonemes, or individual speech sounds:

/f/ /ī/ /t/

Then connect each sound with its spelling:

f – igh – t

This helps the child understand that spelling isn't simply about remembering a string of letter names.

The letters and letter combinations represent the sounds in the word.

Depending on the child's age and the word you're teaching, you might have the child:

• say the word;
• stretch or segment the sounds;
• count the sounds;
• move a token for each sound;
• build the word with letter tiles; and
• write the word while saying its sounds.

The goal is to establish a strong connection between what the child hears and what the child writes.

2. Group Words by Spelling Pattern

Instead of organizing every spelling list around a theme—months, animals, seasons, and so forth—group words that allow children to study a useful spelling pattern.

For example, suppose you're teaching igh as a spelling for long /ī/.

Your list might include:

high
sigh
light
night
right
might
fight
bright

Now the words aren't eight unrelated items.

They share something important.

As children encounter the pattern repeatedly, they begin learning something they can apply beyond a single word.

When they later encounter flight or tight, they have a familiar spelling pattern to draw upon.

This is much more powerful than learning each word as though it has nothing to do with any other word.

3. Make the Pattern Easy to See

Once you've grouped words by pattern, arrange them so the shared spelling stands out.

For example:

high
sigh
light
night
right
might
fight
bright

Ask:

“What do you notice?”

Let the child find the common pattern.

Then talk about what that spelling represents in these words.

This is an excellent place to use children's visual strengths.

We're not asking them to memorize the appearance of an entire word instead of learning phonics.

We're using the visual pattern to draw attention to the phonics.

That distinction is important.

4. Add Color and Hands-On Practice With a Purpose

Now let the child interact with the pattern.

They might highlight igh in every word, underline it, build the words with letter tiles, sort words according to spelling patterns, or write the shared spelling in a different color.

For example:

What do all these words have in common?

Then:

What sound does the highlighted part represent?

Color and hands-on activity shouldn't distract from the spelling concept. Their purpose is to direct the child's attention toward it.

This is one of the principles behind Child1st's multisensory approach: use visual, tactile, and kinesthetic supports to make the important information clearer and more memorable.

5. Show Children How Much of the Word They Already Know

A long word can look intimidating when a child thinks every letter must be remembered independently.

Patterns change that.

Consider fight.

Once the child knows igh represents /ī/ in this word, listen to the remaining sounds:

/f/ /ī/ /t/

The child isn't trying to hold five unrelated letters in memory.

They're connecting three sounds with their spellings:

f + igh + t

Now compare:

night = n + igh + t

light = l + igh + t

right = r + igh + t

The child begins to see both what changes and what stays the same.

This is how spelling knowledge becomes reusable.

Instead of teaching:

“Remember this word.”

we can increasingly teach:

“Notice how this word works.”

6. Use the Words in Meaningful Reading and Writing

Spelling shouldn't live only on a spelling list.

Children need opportunities to retrieve and use what they're learning.

One of our favorite activities is to challenge children to make a sentence containing as many of the pattern words as possible.

For example:

The bright light shone high in the night sky.

That's much more interesting than writing eight unrelated sentences simply because the assignment requires one sentence per spelling word.

You can have fun with it.

Can your child make the sentence silly?

Can they use four words?

Five?

Can they write a short story using several of them?

Then look for the same spelling pattern while reading.

Every time children recognize the pattern in another context, they're reinforcing the connection between sound, spelling, reading, and writing.

7. Illustrate the Meaning

Finally, invite your child to illustrate the sentence or story.

If the sentence is:

The bright light shone high in the night sky,

the child can picture and draw that scene.

Why include drawing in a spelling lesson?

Because spelling isn't merely a collection of symbols. Words carry meaning.

An illustration can give children another way to interact with the sentence they've created and can be especially engaging for learners who naturally think visually.

The drawing doesn't replace sound-spelling instruction or spelling practice.

It adds meaning to it.

How Can I Help My Child Memorize Spelling Words?

Sometimes a child really does need to learn a particular word by a certain date.

Maybe there's a Friday spelling test tomorrow.

The same principles still help.

Rather than beginning with repeated copying, work through the word.

Ask:

What sounds do you hear?

Which spellings do you already know?

Is there a familiar spelling pattern?

Which part of this word is unexpected or needs special attention?

Then practice retrieving the spelling rather than only looking at it.

Have the child say the word, segment it, spell it, cover it, write it from memory, and check it.

If there's an unexpected part, draw attention specifically to that part.

This makes practice much more focused than copying the entire word ten times regardless of what the child already knows.

What About Words That Don't Follow the Pattern We Expect?

English spelling is complex.

Children will encounter words containing spellings they haven't learned yet, multiple possible spellings for the same sound, and words with parts that aren't what they initially expect.

That doesn't mean phonics and spelling patterns have failed.

It means children need increasingly sophisticated knowledge about how English spelling works.

For a word with an unexpected part, first identify what is predictable.

Then explicitly draw attention to the part the child needs to remember.

This keeps the child from treating the entire word as an arbitrary visual shape.

There is often much more structure in a word than first appears.

Should Kids Still Have Spelling Lists and Tests?

A spelling list isn't automatically a problem. 

The more important question is:

What are children learning from the list?

A useful list can give children repeated practice with a sound-spelling pattern or concept they're currently learning.

A test can also provide information about what children have retained.

But the Friday test shouldn't be the final goal.

Ask whether the child can:

spell the pattern words later,

recognize the pattern while reading,

use those spellings in authentic writing,

and eventually apply the pattern to words that weren't on the original list.

That's a much better indication that learning has transferred.

How to Help a Child Who Struggles With Spelling

If your child consistently struggles with spelling, resist the temptation to simply increase the amount of copying.

More practice can help—but only if the child is practicing something useful.

Instead, determine where the difficulty lies.

Can the child hear and segment the individual sounds in the word?

Do they know which letters or letter combinations can represent those sounds?

Do they recognize common spelling patterns?

Can they read the pattern they're trying to spell?

Can they spell the word correctly during practice but not retrieve it later?

Does the child understand the pattern but need more practice to make it automatic?

The answers help you determine what to teach next.

A child who cannot segment the sounds in ship needs different support from a child who can easily hear /sh/ /ĭ/ /p/ but doesn't yet know how /sh/ is spelled.

Specific instruction is more useful than simply concluding:

“My child is bad at spelling.”

Multisensory Spelling Should Reinforce the Skill Being Taught

At Child1st, we believe strongly in multisensory instruction.

But multisensory doesn't simply mean adding an activity that uses the hands, eyes, or body.

The activity should reinforce the learning objective.

If children highlight igh, their attention should be drawn to the spelling pattern.

If they move tokens, those tokens can represent the sounds they're segmenting.

If they build a word, they can connect each sound with its written representation.

If they draw an illustration, the picture can connect the words they've written with meaning.

The sensory component has a purpose.

That's what makes it instruction rather than simply activity.

From Spelling Words to Stronger Readers and Writers

Ultimately, the goal isn't to produce children who are excellent at taking spelling tests.

It's to develop children who can use spelling knowledge independently.

We want a child who learns igh in night to recognize it in bright.

We want them to hear /ī/ while spelling fight and consider the spelling patterns they've learned.

We want them to notice familiar patterns when reading.

And we want increasingly automatic spelling to free their attention for the ideas they're expressing in writing.

That's why we teach the sounds, spellings, patterns, and meaning behind the words rather than asking children to rely on memorization alone.

When children understand how words work, spelling becomes less like memorizing an endless collection of unrelated letter sequences and more like learning a system they can use.

Child1st Phonics & Spelling Resources

This same approach is built into Child1st's Right-Brained Phonics & Spelling resources.

The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns organizes instruction around sounds and the different ways those sounds can be spelled. Lessons include multiple levels so instruction can be adapted for learners at different stages. Child1st's Sound Spelling Cards provide visual anchors for sound-spelling relationships, and the resources are designed to incorporate visual, tactile, and kinesthetic supports into explicit instruction.

The Illustrated Book of Sounds & Their Spelling Patterns
Sound Spelling Teaching Cards
Right-Brained Phonics & Spelling Kit

For children who need support with high-frequency words, SnapWords® can also be used alongside explicit phonics instruction to reinforce sound-spelling relationships while supporting word recognition.

SnapWords®

The goal is the same throughout:

Help children understand what they're learning, give them effective ways to practice it, and build toward independent reading, spelling, and writing.