A person has to develop an interest in words if he or she wants to develop a richer vocabulary.
With it, a love of reading – essential for good academic performance – naturally follows.
Strommen & Mates (2004) acknowledged that children's views of recreational as well as academic reading are tied to reading ability. This is no different from a child developing a strong liking for a certain sport in which he or she excels.
To develop this 'love of reading' in students, they should be guided in their quest to learn to spell better, as spelling is an important basis of reading and writing proficiency.
Parents can offer them excellent spelling software – software that would not merely give the meanings and a few examples of the usage of a word, but also a lot of online resources related to the words one has chosen to master.
One example of an exhaustive spelling program is the popular Ultimate Spelling software, which is perhaps the most effective tool today to expand your vocabulary and improve your spelling.
The way the software is designed, a user can't help but develop a keen sense of interest on the words being studied.
Apart from the usual definition and audio pronunciation, the Ultimate Spelling software also provides a Visual Wordnet that shows concepts, phrases, and other words relevant to the word being studied. When more information is presented about a certain word, something interesting to the user is likely to arise.
A child, for instance, has to develop an interest for whatever it is that he or she is studying. Teach your child to learn a word's etymology, or its country of origin. One only needs to be resourceful enough to learn about certain rules specific to a language to know that there are evident patterns that can be used to learn to spell better.
For instance, when the \sh\ sound occurs at the end of a word of French origin, there's almost always a silent 'e' at the end of that word, as in 'gauche' or 'quiche'.
Now, when a \k\ sound at the end of a word is encountered, it's often spelled with a '-que' such as in 'boutique' or 'physique' (Hargraves, 2009).
Similarly, knowing that words with the \sh\ sound that are of German origin use the spelling combination 'sch', as in 'schottische', gives you the advantage that resourceful spelling experts have.
Aside from researching the etymology and countries of origin of challenging words, you can also learn to spell better by studying eponyms – words based on characters' or persons' names – such as 'braggadocio', 'guillotine', and 'gnathonic'.
Degeneffe & Ward (1998) proposed several constructivist approaches to spelling strategies that they believe would develop individual spelling awareness and metacognition, including coming up with mnemonics to help with spelling, and brainstorming words for particular sound, meaning, or spelling patterns.
The goal of educators when helping kids learn to spell better should be to develop children's resourcefulness so they can eventually work independently.
References:
Degeneffe, L & Ward, L 1998, A constructivist approach to learning strategies. [Online] Chicago, Illinois. Available at: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ [Accessed 11 July 2010].
Hargraves, O K 2009, Spell it! Tricks & Tips for Spelling Bee success, viewed 5 July 2010, .
Strommen, L T & Mates, B F 2004, 'Learning to love reading: Interviews with older children and teens', Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, vol. 48, no. 3, p. 188-200.