Why Learning These 6 Essential Spelling Rules is Important

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I am a horrible speller. I feel that I have been born at the right time with the ability to use spell check and Grammarly when I write. When I was a beginner reader/speller I was instructed to memorize a spelling list for the week and we had a spelling test on Friday. For fun, we would have a spelling bee monthly and I was always the first player out. I remember clearly when Sister Helen tried to see if she gave me easy words would I feel more confident in my spelling. I was even gifted a book ‘ A Hundred Most Misspelled Words’ which was another list to memorize. Needless to say, memorizing spelling words did not work for me. The learning and the understanding of spelling rules or orthographic patterns would have helped me manage how to spell. This is the importance of spelling rules.

What makes more sense than memorizing lists of words is to teach spelling rules or patterns. This will help children be able to use these when they are determining correct spelling. These orthographic patterns help students manage how to spell. These patterns were established centuries ago to aid in consistent spelling among scribes and dictionary writers. They understood the importance of spelling rules to keep things uniform across writers.

6 Spelling Rule Patterns:

Spelling Rule	Description	Examples
“Floss” rule for final f, l, s	If a closed syllable ends with an f, l, or s immediately after the short vowel sound, double the final letter.	will, pill, tell, dull, miss, mess, staff, gruff, sniff
Rule for –ck, -tch, -dge	If a closed syllable ends in the sound /k/, /ch/, or /j/ immediately after the short vowel sound, then use –ck to spell /k/, -tch to spell /ch/, and –dge to spell /j/	stick, duck, block, deck, snack hatch, itch, crutch, match bridge, dodge, grudge, fudge, badge
K rule	Use the letter k, not c, to spell the sound /k/ before the letters e, i, or y.	kit, kept, keep, rake, spoke, spiky,
Doubling rule	When adding an ending to a closed syllable base word, if the closed syllable ends in just one consonant, double it. Otherwise, just add the ending.	sit, sitting, sitter; plan, planned, planning, planner; fun, funny; sun, sunny jump, jumped, jumping, jumper; mist, misted, misty; land, landed, landing
Dropping silent e	When adding an ending to a silent e base word, drop the silent e before adding the ending.	like, liked, liking; spice, spicy; hope, hoped, hoping; fine, finer, finest, fined
Y-to-I rule	When adding an ending to a base word that ends in a y preceded by a consonant, change y to i, then add the ending.	hady, shadiness, shadiest, shadier; happy, happiness, happily; shiny, shininess, shinier; sunny, sunniest; fancy, fanciful

Although I will admit I still love spell check, Grammarly and often ask ‘Siri’ or ‘Alexa’ how to spell a word, learning more about spelling rules has increased my own spelling rules.

REFERENCES:

Brenda Rapp, Kate Lipka; The Literate Brain: The Relationship between Spelling and Reading. J Cogn Neurosci 2011; 23 (5): 1180–1197. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21507,
Louise, et al. “How Spelling Supports Reading.” Reading Rockets, 8 Jan. 2020, https://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-spelling-supports-reading.
Nunes, Terezinha & Bryant, Peter & Olsson, Jenny. (2003). Learning Morphological and Phonological Spelling Rules: An Intervention Study. Scientific Studies of Reading – SCI STUD READ. 7. 289-307. 10.1207/S1532799XSSR0703_6.