Having spelling strategies for middle school students can be beneficial, as many students struggle with spelling.
Students may have difficulties with homophones or silent letters, or they may rely too much on technology, such as autocorrect or spellcheckers, which can steer them wrong because the word context is unclear.
If your students struggle with spelling, this blog post will give you some spelling strategies for middle school students, especially ones to help older students.
Why is spelling important for older students?
Spelling is important for older students because it helps with clarity – clarity of ideas, communication, and understanding. By ensuring clarity, students can be supported in higher-level learning, particularly when reading dense and unfamiliar materials.
Spelling – or, more broadly, word knowledge and comprehension – contributes to effective reading skills, including decoding and comprehension. These two skills contribute to success in all subjects since they help with information retention and breaking down and analyzing text.
For example, science can have a very specific vocabulary, so understanding certain roots or prefixes can help as more new information is presented. This can be one of many spelling strategies for middle school students.
4 Spelling Strategies For Middle School Students
In the past, spelling relied heavily on memorization. This might work for some students, but memorizing will not work for all students. Instead, it’s a matter of having various spelling strategies for middle school students at hand that will support all students. This is when phonics and word work act as foundational supports in spelling, vocabulary, and reading.
Morphology
Morphology is one of the most effective ways to help students with spelling. It breaks down words for students, helping them understand the “why” behind words. This means spending time on root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
This can also be subject-specific. Many words in science share prefixes and roots. When students understand the building blocks of language, it can be easier to learn and spell new words they’ll encounter in their studies.
This Middle School Greek Roots Morphology Unit is designed to provide the lessons and worksheets you need to teach Greek roots effectively, ensuring that your students become confident readers with a strong grasp of word etymology.
You can also use this comprehensive Middle School Greek Prefixes Morphology Unit. Perfect for middle school teachers, this resource equips students with essential skills for decoding and understanding complex words by exploring Greek prefixes.
Word Lists
Word lists are another spelling strategy for middle school students. These can easily be differentiated because students may have a long word list for a specific science unit, but they don’t need practice with all the words. As a result, get students to tailor their word lists for themselves. This is easier to do when a word list is first digital, so it can be edited by or for students.
You can do that with this Grade 6 Science Bundle for the Ontario curriculum. Each unit includes specific vocabulary, and the resource is available in digital and print formats, so it can easily be adapted to suit your students’ needs.
If you teach grade 7, check out this Grade 7 Science Bundle. Or, if you teach a split grade, there’s also the Grade 6/7 Science Unit Bundle and the Grade 7/8 Science Unit Bundle. For Grade 8 teachers, there is a Grade 8 Science Bundle.
These science bundles will save you hours of lesson prep by having the resources necessary to help students understand the terminology for each concept.
Mnemonic Devices
A mnemonic device includes any and all learning techniques that help students with retention and recall.
Here’s an example from geography class: Never, Eat, Shredded, Wheat. People probably still use this one to this day to help with directions: North, East, South, West.
Beyond subject-specific uses, mnemonic devices, or memory aids, exist for all kinds of words and spelling rules.
- RAVEN (Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun) can help students know when the word affect or effect needs to be used in a sentence.
- BECAUSE (Big Elephants Can’t Always Use Small Exits OR Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants) can help students with the proper spelling of because.
These can also be turned into posters for classroom decor that help with recall. Have your students come up with their own mnemonic devices and then team up with your school’s art teacher to make it a class assignment to create posters using design elements.
Word Sorts
Hands-on activities are suitable for learning and assessing too.
In science, this could involve sorting a variety of terms into specific branches of science, such as biology, chemistry, ecology, etc. Another option is to have students sort words into piles based on ones they know, ones they think they know, and ones they don’t know yet. This scaffolds learning for individual students, who can check their understanding and develop their knowledge based on their needs.
Combining this approach with grammar work is a natural fit in English. This Parts of Speech Grammar Unit will teach (or review) nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections. It includes eight detailed lessons in print and digital formats, each with hands-on practice to reinforce student understanding.
A final word on spelling in middle school
Spelling is not a dealbreaker because tools are available for student support. However, teaching spelling in ways other than memorization can encourage students to learn more than just the letters in a word. Spelling is a building block to deeper understanding, and this is integral as students continue through their schooling and encounter more challenging material.
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