What's the best, not too much effort thing, I can do to help improve my children's spelling over the summer holidays?

[coodawoodashooda]

Just that. Any book/game/app or anything else recommdations?

Reading, spelling games (hangman, make as many words as you can from the letters in a long word), chalking on the patio/exterior brick walls, water painting words, spelling shed, write shopping lists, scrabble… make your own version of countdown, kids crossword/puzzle/activity books (my kids used to love these and didn’t realise they were even practising their spellings!), read together. They read a paragraph, you read a paragraph or page, however you want to do it.
Make it fun, but keep it short.

@Kanaloa

How much longer do you think handwritten exams will last?

It really doesn’t matter. It’s incredibly stupid to tell your kids not to bother learning a basic skill of correctly written English that they need at this time to gain important qualifications because you feel that in the future they may not need that skill.

In the future cars will likely be self driving. That would not excuse me from being able to indicate while turning on my driving test!

I employ people who need to write notes with pens on paper. It's the most efficient way for my low tech business. People who can't spell, or worse, can even write without a keyboard, are useless to me. You say you're future proofing but I think you're doing the exact opposite.

Your children will have to sit exams which require them to write in a legible, logical and correctly spelt way. There are no keyboards allowed in exams (unless there is a rare special dispensation) so your children will be screwed.

There is also the problem for your children that their vocabulary, thought processes and understanding of written tracts will be limited by their inability to spell correctly.

But the saddest thing about your post is that you, the one person who is meant to widen their access to opportunity, is actively limiting it.

@CalistoNoSolo

1.Why haven't you found a better solution for your employees? Waiters/waitresses have iPads now!

1. Nowhere have I said my children cannot spell or express themselves via handwriting I simply said I don't prioritise it. Which means when the teacher tries to take up valuable parent's evening airtime talking about spelling targets I ask her to comment on DC's maths, critical thinking or problem solving.

I widen my kids opportunities in ways you cannot imagine. Don't be so rude.

I print out the following years spellings over the summer and get them to practice them. If they weren't solid on the previous years spellings I would get them to practice those too. I also made mine do 10-20 minutes work on spag, number bonds, times tables, etc, a day when they were in primary.

Subtitles on tv

All great ideas. Reading, games, etc etc.

The key, though, is repetition and actually doing it little and often. It will take some regular effort unfortunately. It's not something you can just throw money at and tick a box. 5-10 minutes a day spent with your child can make a huge difference.

I'm a tutor and have a few students who come to work on spelling. Those who bother doing the homework and practising a little every day make massive progress. Those who don't put the effort in make very little progress.

Bananagrams did wonders for my dd's spelling. Adults get 21 letters but you can level the playing field by letting smaller ones have fewer letters. Start with 12 and they can graduate up a level if they win 3 games in one session.

Also Wordscapes etc on the phone. She got addicted at one point even though it seems so boring to me!

@Kanaloa of course AI would correct "belief me". It can do far more than that. I've experimented with giving chatGPT text written by a non native speaker where spelling, grammar, word order and punctuation all needed correcting - it does it perfectly. So the PP has a point that spelling ability will become less important in the future.

That said it is still important right now and no game, app or website will ever develop it as much as reading will.

CGP spelling, punctuation and grammar books are amazing. I highly recommend.

https://www.cgpbooks.co.uk/primary-books/spelling-punctuation-grammar

If it helps, my daughter seriously struggles with spelling which we've since discovered is because of her dyslexia and memory issues.

We've worked out with her, read/cover/write doesn't work. It goes in one ear, out the other.

But we have discovered that creating acronyms works for her. So for example, she always remembers WHO as Whales Hate Octopus (!). Bit random, but the randomness of it is what helps her.

She then drew a picture of a whale with a cross face next to an octopus, so she remembers drawing the picture.

spelling.com - you can customise it, use lists in accordance with national curriculum, automatically retests mistakes. Marvellous tool

I was pointing out a mistake in that poster’s writing. She was busy being snotty about how spelling doesn’t matter in this modern age, yet she herself had urged us to ‘belief’ her. Perhaps if she prioritised SPAG a little more she wouldn’t have made that mistake. But no, she instead decides to interrupt her child’s teacher and rudely ask about maths while the teacher is trying to explain her child’s spelling progress.

And maybe in the future it will be less important. But my point was that in the here and now it doesn’t help the poster who doesn’t know when to use belief and when to use believe.

@Kanaloa

You've perfectly illustrated my point, my autocorrect of 'belief' didn't matter at all as you all understood perfectly what meant. Thanks!

And stop being so rude. I understand perfectly well when to use 'belief' and 'believe' - picking on an autocorrect error is rather childish.

Gaming that involves chats. Roblox has been the best thing with mine and my friends kids, they read books every night too.

Take them to a secondhand book shop with £10 or £20 each and let them choose as many books as they like.

It does matter though. It matters at GCSE. Maybe I understood what you meant, but I’d also probably understand if you spelled most of the words incorrectly. This does not mean that a GCSE English exam will pass with high marks because the marker ‘got the gist of it.’

And it isn’t childish either. It’s pointing out the major issue with your insistence that proper SPAG is unimportant in the modern age. It’s still important because technology isn’t infallible. And most exams are still handwritten.