Newsletter – Too Many Frogs – May 9, 2025

When kids come into Book Bums for an assessment, I often see children who, when asked to spell a word, name the letters aloud and then record those letters onto their papers. If I say, “Please spell the word dip,” for example, many kids say, “D-i-p, dip,” and then they write the word on their papers.

When I see this, I invite those students to consider a different approach.

Scientifically, it’s more advantageous for kids to stretch out the sounds within the words and then to represent those sounds with the corresponding letters and letter combinations—without naming them.

When spelling shout, it’s beneficial to say /sh/ (and write s-h) then /Ow!/ (and write o-u) and /t/ (and write t). If kids, instead, chant s-h-o-u-t as they write the word, they’re likely to forget what they’re writing.
When kids make the sounds, they don’t have any interference with conveying their thoughts. If they are writing, The knife is sharp, they’ll say, “Th-e kn-i-fe i-s sh-ar-p.”

When kids name the letters they would say, “The, t-h-e, knife, k-n-i-f-e, is, i-s, sharp, s-h-a-r-p.”

It’s twice as much work.

Each time they come to the end of a word, kids must remind themselves of what it is they were trying to write in the first place. Due to limited attentional resources, the naming of the letters creates cognitive interference. That’s what happens when competing cognitive processes hinder speed and accuracy when reading or spelling.

To be orthographically mapped in students’ sight word vocabularies, students must observe the letters, make the sounds those letters represent (aloud is best), and glean meaning from the words they’ve decoded.

Occasionally, we’ve all likely used mnemonic devices to recall tricky spellings. I used to get her to remember the word together but since it’s a relatively easily decodable word, I could have just stretched out the sounds and written the corresponding letters.

Recently, a student shared that a parent taught them to say /Pee-Oh-Ple/ when writing the word people. It worked. The student remembered the spelling. But remembering the mnemonic likely takes as much or more memory as simply remembering that the vowel that’s telling the e in people to say its name is o. Say that 1-4 times, and it’s likely mapped into students’ memories.

In an upcoming podcast on teaching kids sight words, red words, and/or heart words, I’ll share how I’d recommend we equip kids with unexpected spellings.

I almost never recommend naming the letters in words to promote accurate spellings.

Rather than teach kids to remember a word, I’d teach the phonics rules that are in play and acknowledge the irregular spellings within the applicable lesson.

For example, I’d teach the words give, some, love, have, and come in the Magic e lesson.

In each of these words, we’d expect those e’s at the ends to do magic. They should tell the vowels to Say your name!”

When decoding, it’s easy. If the Magic e doesn’t work, we just “flip” back to the short vowel sound. No sweat.

We’d play a game where kids are seeing words where the Magic e does and doesn’t work as we’d expect, and then we’d invite them to spell a handful of those words they just decoded.

Within 1-4 experiences with typical kids, those words become known (or orthographically mapped) on sight.

When kids spell the word giv they’d think “That doesn’t look right to me,” and then they’d try adding an e. (Yeah. That’s it.)