In a world of autocorrect and spell check, it’s easy to think that spelling has gone the way of the horse and buggy—a charming but outdated skill. Many schools have pushed it to the side, and parents are often left wondering if the weekly spelling test battle is even worth fighting. But what if I told you that learning to spell is one of the most powerful ways to build a stronger, more confident reader?

It turns out, technology can’t solve everything. Spelling is far more than just getting letters in the right order; it’s a critical workout for the reading brain.

The Surprising Link Between Spelling and Reading

Functional MRIs have given us fascinating insight into what happens in the brain when we read. Interestingly, it’s not a linear process focused in one area of the brain. According to Mark Seidenberg, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the Language & Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, there is an “Eternal Triangle,” in the brain where sound, spelling, and meaning are constantly working together at lightning speed. It’s as if each one is competing to see who can answer the question first. If you would like to read more about what happens in the brain check out the book: Language at the Speed of Sight by Mark Seidenberg.

Yin-Yang relationship

Another way of thinking about reading and spelling is that they are parts of a whole, hence the yin-yang relationship.

• decoding—in reading, you see a word and break it down into sounds.
• encoding—in spelling, you hear a sound and build it up with letters

This “building up” that occurs in spelling forces the brain to pay close attention to every single detail, creating a strong mental blueprint of the word that makes it easier to recognize instantly the next time you see it. That’s why spelling improves reading.

Why Is English Spelling So Hard?

If your child struggles with spelling, you’re not alone. English is one of the least “transparent” languages in the world. A transparent language has a simple one-to-one relationship between sounds and letters. What you hear is what you write. Italian is an example of a transparent language in that the sounds correspond to one way of writing the sound.

English, on the other hand, is a beautiful mess. We have 26 letters to represent 44 sounds, but there are 75 basic ways to spell those 44 sounds. This is why simply “sounding it out” can be so frustrating for a child. Without knowing the rules, it can feel like a guessing game they can never win.

Many of us remember the dreaded weekly spelling list. We were given 20 words on Monday and expected to have them memorized by Friday. For many students, especially those with dyslexia, this method is pure torture. It often leads to a cycle of cramming, passing the test, and forgetting the words by the following week.

This approach fails because it treats words as random strings of letters to be memorized, rather than teaching the underlying logic of the English language. Without the rules, students have no strategy to fall back on when they encounter a new or challenging word.

A Better Way: Rules, Senses, and Structure

Fortunately, there is a better way. Approaches like Orton-Gillingham teach the rules of English directly and systematically. Instead of just memorizing, students learn why a word is spelled the way it is. Two key strategies can make all the difference:

• Make it Multisensory: Don’t just write the words. Engage more of the brain! Have your child move their arm and sky-write the letters, say the sounds out loud while walking around, or trace the words on a textured surface. This creates more pathways for the information to stick in long-term memory.
  
• Learn Morphology: For older students, this is a game-changer. Morphology is the study of word parts. Teach your child to break long, intimidating words into their smaller pieces: the prefix, the root word, and the suffix. When they know that “mis-” means “wrong,” they can instantly decode and spell a whole family of words.

So in the end, learning to spell is like eating an elephant: you have to do it one bite at a time. It takes patience and perseverance, but by teaching the code of our language, you give your child a tool that will last a lifetime.