Does teaching spelling by word families create any problems?

[bnwhitaker]

We are looking to switch spelling programs.  I showed my boys a few different ones that teach by word families (we will

also learn spelling rules) and they loved it.  They said it made a lot more sense to them that way. 

 

But my question is does teaching by word family create any problems down the road when spelling more difficult words?

[IsabelC]

The use of word families is a very commonly used technique.

What problems are you thinking it could create?

 

I am finding it useful in combination with spelling rules (and of course spelling learning by incidental language acquisition), especially for my 9yo who has had so much phonics drill that she is now too reliant on phonics. Today her mistakes included considrashon (consideration) and nashanul (national); I think this is telling me we need to practice '-ation' words. I have told her before that tion says 'shn', and that the tion ending lengthens the a sound, but she is a visual-oriented child so a word family is more likely to 'stick' than just a rule. (The only issue we've ever had was with kids brainstorming up other words that sound like they could have the same spelling pattern but in fact do not, but kids will make phonetic errors whatever approach you take.)

 

ETA: another thing you might consider adding to the mix is an etymological approach. Many 'disobedient' words' spellings can easily be explained by their origins. For example, tell your children that combination ch says 'sh' in words of French origin (eg champagne, quiche, chandelier) and 'k' in Greek root words (eg anchor, echo, character). Even my 6yo can understand this, and the more explanations they have the less they feel as though spelling is chaotic and random!

[Tanikit]

Technically word families is the same as teaching the rules and phonics - as long as you do tell them the rule when there is one. 

So grouping beach, peach, teach and then later grouping beech, leech, and screech would not go against other teaching of rules and would give your child a set of words that could be remembered together. Then possibly when reading something they could link the spelling to the list of words you did teach since you cannot teach them all.

 

Mentioning word origins is essentially the same as grouping words by word families - here are some words where ch says c - they are all Greek words and again they have something else to make more pathways in their brain by which to remember the spelling.

[Hunter]

I prefer using word families with students still in the grammar stage. I wait to teach rules until the student is showing evidence of logic stage thinking.

[IsabelC]

And also re 'more difficult words', I would have thought that the early sight words are the more difficult ones, both because the most common words are the most likely to be irregular and because the more words you have the easier it is to add new ones to your lexicon. The words kids learn later are likely to be longer rather than more difficult, and longer words mostly have regular spelling (to take an extreme example, antidisestablishmentarianism is actually easier to spell than who!).

[silver]

I'll be the naysayer. For some children, word families will make things harder. My elementary school used a word family with associated rule approach and I'd quickly see the weekly pattern ("this week we have double letters") and then just blindly apply the pattern (and not the rule) to the words for the week, forgetting them after the test. I didn't learn when to double the letter, I just did it for a week and the stopped after that week. I would have done much better with being taught rules with a mixed list of words that force review of the rules continuously. My son is the same way, and it's why I can't use AAS with him.

[Hunter]

I'll be the naysayer. For some children, word families will make things harder. My elemenentary school used a word family with associated rule approach and I'd quickly see the weekly pattern ("this week we have double letters") and then just blindly apply the pattern (and not the rule) to the words for the week, forgetting them after the test. I didn't learn when to double the letter, I just did it for a week and the stopped after that week. I would have done much better with being taught rules with a mixed list of words that force review of the rules continuously. My son is the same way, and it's why I can't use AAS with him.

 

I think different methods work better at different developmental stages.

 

Word families first to INTRODUCE rules, and then later individual words with rules.

[Tanikit]

I still believe that spelling taught without dictation cannot work because spelling needs to be taught in context - so yes, I believe in word families and even in word lists with those families, but never without dictation as well and dictation that builds on rules and word families already learnt and that also incorporates the most common words - a child who has had sentences dictated over and over with "the" or "who" in them will eventually remember those more difficult spelling simply by repetition (just don't let them repeat the same word incorrectly spelt - it would be better to spell it for them and have them write it down correctly each time you dictate it then to have them write those common words incorrectly.