So how do you practice spellings in your house?

[charliebat]

Need tips. DD has no interest in learning these words. I would like her to learn how to spell things properly.
How do you do it?

Do you read to her / together... encouraging an interest in books will help the spelling. Especially getting her to read outloud.

You could perhaps make a game of the words... find a creative way to learn how to spell.

How old is she?

7 nearly 8...she has managed to know all the ones so far because shes quite bright but words like translucent and transparent and ancient need a bit of effort. Any ideas for fun games?

I put the words on cards, either I read them out or dd reads them then turns them over, waits 3 secs then writes them down. Correct go in one pile, incorrect another. Also paint them on old lining paper or newspaper, she has to write them on my back and I have to guess, write in sand on the beach (or in a small tray). Fold card or paper (not white) into a concertina shape, test her on some on a different section each day and she can see her improvement. Use a cheap mini whiteboard, give her a few secs to write it down then hold it up in the air. Write them on a big piece of paper and blu tack them on the back of the bathroom door... Hangman?

Blimey, they are hard words for a 7 year old! No wonder they need a bit of effort

OK so you're oceans beyond suggestions like look-say-cover-write-check

With your dd, how about you show her how those words come from other languages, and those root words both tell her about the history of the word and help with the spelling? - ie translucent is from Latin lux for light etc. etc.? Dictionaries obviously the source for this. I used to love seeing things that way.

Grammar curmudgeon attack here: if you use "practise" as a verb, as in the title of your post, then it is "practise" not "practice".

Oh gawd dinosaur dont LOL...I have NEVER putan s in practice and im not about to start now LOL...
Keep coming with the suggestions they are gooood

Sorry but couldn't resist in a thread about spelling!

Actually, serious suggestion here - how about you write a letter or something with ten spelling mistakes in it, and see if she can find them?

There probably would be 15-20 knowing me

how about typing them on the computer...
big font... coloured letters
or a white board??

Our eldest is now 10 and for the past 2 years she has come home with spellings each week in her homework book. She gets 5 minutes to look over them every other night and then we do a spelling test at home. Wrong spellings are written out 10 times (I know it's old school but it works!!)

She almost always gets 100% at school on her weekly spelling test

It sounds basic but it really works well for her.

Look, cover, write, check.

DD1 has four spellings to learn each week (she's 5, just started year 1). We write them every night, and have just started trying to put them into little sentences too, just to reduce the boredom. (This week's are 'got' 'not' 'dog' and 'on', so we had 'The dog got on the sofa. No he did not.') So far, though, the words have all been words she already knew (at least, that she knew how to read, so it was just a case of practising the actual writing process). My own feeling about these things (I am a language teacher, though I teach adults, so not quite the same) is that repetition and really frequent exposure is the only way to learn... so, yes, old-school writing out basically. I really like the etymology suggestion, though, too.

Dinosaur, and other grammar curmudgeons... Was in school yesterday (am a parent governor) and noticed that the stationery cupboard was labelled in big letters 'STATIONARY'. Should I have said something? I really wanted to, but then felt that perhaps it showed excessive pedantry.

PS Obviously the cupboard was stationary, but I think they meant that it contained paper and stuff.

Love the spot-the-deliberate-mistake suggestion too. I have used that technique in language teaching too.

My Dd is 7 and has spelling every week, she has to spell them out loud on on and Tues for Wednesday we usea white board for her to pratice the spellings on them Friday am we pratice them out loud over breakfast, She gets 100% every week it works for use

White board in Woolies

DD1 (5 in year 1) has a sheet with 10 words on to learn each week. They are following a scheme that groups words according to vowels (this week at, bat, an, man, as, has, had, sad, and, sand )They are being taught to learn these by the follwoing method:

Look and say
Cover and write
Check
Try again
Check

This seems to be working for DD. Have you tried offering rewards?

Ellbell, I couldn't have kept my mouth shut! They are supposed to educate our children. I did notice the practice but chose to ignore it... Adiboo cdrom makes the same mistake on the back cover, or did at least. Maybe they changed it after my complaint.
Am currently considering withdrawing dd from spelling detention for getting less than 90% in test until school learns how to use apostrophes on the web site!!