let your student roll the dice to see which part(s) of the word to spell
For students who are really struggling with spelling basics, sometimes it helps to scaffold their efforts by sharing the work with them. You can encourage your student to think of their spelling word in terms of beginning, vowel and ending sounds by asking them to only spell selected parts, while you spell (and model) the remaining parts.
To mix it up on who spells what, I tried this game to work with one of my students on her spelling skills:
(I just used dice for this, but you could also create a spinner or board game out of it.)
I took a sheet of paper and numbered 1-6 and assigned a combination of beginning, middle and/or ending sounds to each possible roll. It looked something like this:
- X – – (beginning sound only)
- – X – (vowel sound only)
- – – X (ending sound only)
- X X – (beginning and vowel sounds)
- – X X (vowel and ending sounds)
- X – X (beginning and ending sounds)
I had my student roll a die, and whichever number she rolled, she had to sound out and write ONLY the part(s) of the word marked by the X…I sounded out (and encouraged her to help me) then wrote the remaining parts of the word. I had her pick out one color marker for her and one for me so she could really see the different parts of the word. Having to spell only one or two parts of the word seemed to make it feel more manageable for her.