Spelling activities 6 – look, cover etc etc

This is the one that changed my life. It started me thinking and made me see that there may actually be skills and techniques involved in the spelling process and just to tell ‘em to learn the words might be a little uninspired.

What is it?

It is simple enough in essence. You encourage students to actually look at words, really really look at them. We need stare and glare, not glimpse and glance.

The stages I use are:

1. Look – ask them to take a picture of the word in their head. Zoom in on it as if their eyes were one of those mobile phone cameras.
2. Say - ask them to say the word so the spelling is associated with the pron
3. Check - close their eyes. Can they see the word? Can they tell you what the fourth letter is? What about the second last letter? You might be surprised at the results you get. They’ll be able to do something you can’t.
4. Cover  – Take the word away.
5. Write – Get them to write it out. Test them.

Why it works

As I understand it, the thinking is that many learners stumble becasue either they come from an aural learning culture and/or in their languages what is said (pronunciation) and what is written (spelling) is pretty much the same thing.

Where to do it

I’ve had wonderful sessions in front of computers with students doing this. It’s another of those “Can’t I do just one more” type of activities. Two great but slightly different places are:

BBC Skillswise

Lookcover – Ambleside

Footnote – repeat

Spectacular though the results tend to be, repetition is still necessary.