Spelling Cake

A personal story: Part of my career has been spent working with juvenile offenders in residential treatment facilities. I will never forget the response of one of them to the Spelling Cake process. This was a big, angry, 16-year-old boy whose most recent arrest had been for carjacking-at-gunpoint. All of his schooling had been in special day classes for kids who, in the view of "the system" anyway, had limited intelligence and even less potential. When, in a single session, he was able to learn to spell "California," this toughest-of-the-tough-type kid started to cry. He looked at me and said, "I need to go call my dad. I need to tell him I'm not retarded."

Spelling English by "sounding it out" is truly impossible. Even if you can hear a particular sound, you won't be able to spell it unless you have a mental image of the word because: the "long a" sound can be spelled 8 different ways; the "long e" sound can also be spelled 8 different ways; the "long i" sound can be spelled 5 different ways . . . and on and on and on it goes. SO - people who are good spellers, automatically "make pictures in their heads" of words - and then, literally, simply copy them onto a page from their mental chalkboards. Almost anyone who doesn't spell so well can be taught how to do that too. Just follow the recipe.

To use the Spelling Cake, print the procedure, and glue it to card stock or construction paper for durability.

SPELLING CAKE

To the Basic Learning Cake recipe add the following ingredients:

• Brightly-colored 3" x 5" cards
• 2 colored markers: 1 for vowels and 1 for consonants
  (Let your child choose the 2 colors. If she knows the terms "consonant" and "vowel" have her decide which color to use for each type of letter. Colors should be the same from session to session: black will always be for consonants; red will always be used for vowels, for example.)

Choose a word from your child's weekly spelling list or a word she wants to learn how to spell. (Do no more than 3 words in a single study session. Some kids may need just 1 or 2.)

Break the word into 3- or 4-letter chunks. If you can divide it into syllables, do that. If you can find "little words" within it, do that:

If it doesn't have little words in it, or if the syllables are longer than 3 or 4 letters, divide it into 3- or 4-letter pieces anyway. Remember, we're creating mental pictures, not mental audiotapes.

Using your colored markers (1 for consonants & 1 for vowels), print each chunk of the word on its own colored card. Use a different color for each chunk. (Your child could do this part if she wants to.)

Put the pieces of the word on the table in front of your child and say the word. (Let's use "breaking" as our example, using a black marker for consonants and a red one for vowels.)

Then ask: "So - What's the word we're spelling?"
(Your child will say, "breaking.")
"OK. How many pieces of 'breaking' do we have?"
("3")
"Right. Now - let's just look at the first piece."

Leave "br" on the table. Remove the other 2.

Say: "Look at the first piece of 'breaking.'"
(Let your child look at the card for several seconds.)

"Now close your eyes. Can you see the letters?"
(Most children will be able to "see" the letters with their eyes closed. If yours can't, ask her to open her eyes, look at the card again and "take a picture of it." Make a clicking sound like a camera after a few seconds. Have her close her eyes once more and ask if she can see the letters. If she still can't imagine the letters, try some of the "Variations" to the Spelling Cake.)

Once your child can imagine the letters on the card, go through the following process:

Ask:	What color card is the first piece of "breaking" on? How many letters are on that card? How many black letters (or "consonants")? How many red letters (or "vowels")? What's the second letter on the card? What's the first letter on the card?

Say: OK. Now spell the first piece of "breaking" for me.

If your child is able to spell the first piece of the word, put that card away. (If she can't, go through the process one more time; if she still can't recall it, try a Variation.)

Get out the second card for the second chunk and follow the same process for that card.

When you have completed the process for the second card
Say: "Great. Now, go back and find the first piece of "breaking.' What is it?"
("b-r")
"Good. What's the second piece?"
("e-a-k")
"Beautiful. Now put the 2 pieces together."
("b-r-e-a-k")
Continue this process until mental images of all pieces of a word have been completed and joined together. Then have her write the word. If she gets stuck, remind her to "Go back and find the picture." If she has trouble recalling it, ask what color card it was on. She may need to review all or some of the cards in order to write the word.

Review all previously learned words at the beginning of each study session by asking your child to write them. She may need to "re-process" some or all of them - or she may not!

Variations to Spelling Cake:

The best "anchor" for memory is the sense of smell. Try using scented markers: 1 scent for consonants; 1 for vowels. Remember to let your child choose which scent to use for which type of letter. If she has trouble recalling a letter during the process, have her keep her eyes closed and give her a "whiff" of what the letter smells like. For a more sophisticated variation, assign a separate scent to each of the vowels! Practice just recognizing each scent-letter before beginning the spelling process: have your child close her eyes, pass a marker under her nose and have her tell you the letter the scent represents. Remember: scent/colors need to remain the same from session to session.

If your child can't create mental pictures, try teaching her the sign language alphabet. Have her fingerspell the parts of words instead of imagining them visually. Have her use the hand she doesn't write with, so her memory of the word won't interfere with her ability to put it on paper.

You may want to use fingerspelling with visual imaging - or fingerspelling, visual imaging and scent-anchoring. The more senses involved in making a memory, the stronger the memory will be.

Have your child form letters out of clay or pipe cleaners using the same process for dividing words into pieces.

Some children will need to have a way to "sound out" words because they learn with their ears and aren't able to use feeling or visual imaging to help them remember. This is rare. (I've had 1 client like this in over 20 years.) If this is your child, let me give you an example of what to do using the word "breaking."

Divide the word into chunks: bre ak ing
Have her "sound out" each piece using short vowel sounds, so the first piece would say "bre" ("e" as in "neck"); the second would say "ak" ("a" as in "back"), and the third would be "ing" (and if she doesn't already know it, you can simply tell her that "i - n - g" always says "ing.") It will still be tougher for her to spell easily using only listening without creating mental images, but she'll at least have a way to approach the task and should gain confidence in her spelling abilities - as well as being able to improve her grades on spelling tests.

Let older students (those who no longer have weekly spelling tests) choose words they want to learn to spell and then take them through the Spelling Cake process. They will probably be able to do it independently before long. If they simply want to get better grades on reports they write, have them use a Talking Speller (franklin.com or 800-266-5626) or the spell check feature on a computer.