Spelling and Reading are interconnected
I like to think of reading and spelling as a Yin-Yang relationship. Perhaps another analogy is that reading and spelling are two sides of the same coin.
- Reading is decoding. It’s about seeing a written word and pulling it apart to change it into sounds.
- Spelling is encoding. It’s the opposite. It’s about hearing a word, breaking it down into individual sounds, and finding the letters that make those sounds.
For example, when a child reads the word “tray,” they look at the letters and translate them into sounds
- t = (t)
- r = (r)
- Digraph ay = (ā)
Blend and the word is tray.
But to spell “tray,” they need to reverse the process. They start by saying the word, breaking it apart into sounds, analyzing the position of each sound and determining which letter or letters make that sound. The thought process might go like this:
- What’s the initial sound? (t). Okay, that’s the letter t.
- What’s the middle sound? (r). Oh, that’s r.
- What’s the final sound? (ā). That could be a in an open syllable, or a-e, but since it’s in the final position, it’s probably digraph ay.
This intense, sound-by-sound analysis is what builds a strong mental blueprint of the word. This process is called orthographic mapping, and it’s the foundation for becoming a fluent reader. Orthographic mapping makes a word automatic. So basically, every time your child successfully spells a word, they are taking a mental picture of it, storing it in their brain for instant recognition later. There are more precise explanations that involve the words phonemes, graphemes letter-box areas of the brain, but I won’t get into them.
Suffice to remember:
Reading is decoding (you break it down) and Spelling is encoding (you build it up). So, when your child learns to spell, they are secretly becoming a better, faster, and more accurate reader.
My child hates spelling
It’s really a shame that many schools have abandoned spelling and no longer teach the subject. The few that have kept the subject generally send home word lists to memorize. That sounds like “Balanced Literacy” for spelling, and we know how effective that has been, with 2/3 of our students unable to read at grade level. The weekly list from school is a nightmare. I hear so many parents saying: “My kids try to memorize it for the test, and forget the words by the next day.”
This is where the multisensory magic comes in. For struggling spellers, especially those with signs of dyslexia, the traditional “memorize this list” approach doesn’t work. We need to explain the spelling rules using a multisensory approach, and yes, there really are spelling rules.
Orton Gillingham is way of teaching that is systematic, explicit, and multisensory. Let’s break down what that means for spelling. First, OG is structured and sequential. We don’t just throw random words at a child. We start with the simplest, most predictable building blocks of our language and build up from there. It’s like building a house—you pour the foundation before you put up the walls. This builds confidence because the child is never asked to spell something a word they haven’t been taught the rules for.
Second, it’s multisensory. That means we engage more than just the eyes. We use hearing, touch, and motion to make learning stick in the brain. Instead of just writing a word on paper, a child might:
- See it: Look at the letters on a card.
- Hear it: Say the sounds out loud as they write it.
- Feel it: “sky write” the word, using their whole arm to feel the motion of the letters.
By engaging multiple senses, you’re creating more pathways in the brain for that information to be stored in long-term memory and retrieved when needed. Best of all, children learn that English isn’t a random, crazy language. It’s a code that has rules and patterns. And once you give them the key, they learn to unlock spelling.
Let’s tackle the biggest myth of all: “We live in the 21st century, so spell check makes learning to spell obsolete.”
It’s a tempting thought, but it’s fundamentally flawed. First of all, spell check doesn’t help with homophones (those words that sound the same but are spelled differently). Your child needs to learn when to use “their,” “there,” or “they’re” or “to, too, or two.” Using these words correctly requires a true understanding of language, not just an algorithm.
Secondly, spell check requires a “close enough” attempt to make a suggestion. If your child wants to write the word “phone” but spells it “fon,” spell check might not have a clue what to suggest. The technology can only help if the underlying phonological attempt is reasonably accurate.
When my daughter was in high school, she came home one day and declared that spell check can only take you so far. That day, she had been working with an IB teacher (who is also dyslexic) trying to spell the word paradigm using spell check. After multiple attempts, each one worse than the last, they had to finally ask someone for help. To this day, my daughter laughs at how comical their efforts were.
Let’s Recap
- Spelling and reading are two sides of the same coin that work together.
- A structured, multisensory approach can make learning effective for struggling spellers.
- Don’t let spell check become a crutch.
Spell check doesn’t allow the orthographic mapping to occur. It’s like using a calculator for every single math problem—you might get the right answer, but you never actually learn how numbers work. IAs parents, it’s not about perfectly spelled emails. It’s about ensuring our children develop the mental architecture they need to read fluently and write their thoughts clearly for the rest of their lives.
