With the start of the school year, your children will most likely have new spelling words to learn. This can be a difficult task for some students. Although it may be effective for many to repeatedly write or spell a word, these strategies are not always sufficient for students with learning difficulties. 'learning. Other elements, such as understanding the word, are essential to promote long-term retention and the generalization of learning vocabulary words. So here are a some hints to help you equip yourself during the home lesson period.

For adults, the meaning of words is often clear. Thus, it is easy to forget that our understanding is not the same in our children. However, if children do not understand the meaning of words well, they will have more difficulty memorizing the spelling, as learning is meaningless. Moreover, they will not be able to reuse this learning in various contexts, not knowing how to use it properly. Here are some exercises to understand the meaning of words.

Have your child create a sentence with the word to learn, or even makeup sentences together. It is also relevant to create more than one sentence in various contexts so that the student can reuse the learned word.

Take the opportunity to name words from the same family or find words that begin or end in the same way (same prefix or suffix, if applicable). For example, for the word "florist," it would be possible to find words of the same family as "flower" or "to flower." In this same word, the suffix would be "-ist," which refers to people, such as Buddhists, speech therapists, stylists.

When learning new words, it is relevant to situate them well in our known lexicon. Thus, it is interesting to find the category and even name other elements of this same category. For example, the word "plane" is a means of transport, just like "helicopter," "bicycle," "boat".

To properly situate the word in several contexts, the semantic network is effective. It is a matter of starting from the word to be learned and linking it to other words associated by the meaning, the sounds, the attributes (color, shape, texture), or even about events/memories. For example, the word "apple" can refer to "apple tree," to the colors "red, green, yellow", to the word "gum," because they are similar in sound or even to the word "vacation" because he student associates it with apple picking during school holidays. Make up a story with the word.

Another interesting and effective way to learn vocabulary is to break down the structure of a word to better memorize it.

Identify the salient visual features:

Look at the length of the word (short vs. long). Observe the letters and their organization (short, high, low, with a tail). You can even track the summary of the word. Finally, break down the word to see the number of consonants and vowels.

Check if there are any silent letters in the word as well as double consonants. If so, have your child find a visual way to memorize the difficulty. For example, you can make a semantically related drawing in the word. This approach favors the retention of orthographic peculiarities since the image is semantically linked to the word to be learned. The Illustrated Orthography material, available free on the Web ( shows us several examples of possible illustrations. On the other hand, your child can find his own tips for memorizing the spelling of an irregular word. you also learn vocabulary words that start with a.

Spelling backward requires having a good visual image of the word. Working memory then helps spell the word from the end. To refine the learning, it is even possible to spell every other letter.

It is interesting to be able to reconstruct the words using manipulatives. For example, it is possible to paste syllables written on cardboard. It is also possible to reconstruct the word with magnetic letters or even with plasticine.

Break down words into syllables:

This exercise can be combined with a motor gesture, such as clapping your hands. For example, for the word "boat", you type twice:

To work on word composition, the MOV game available for free on the Internet is interesting.

For some students, feeling the word helps them better assimilate its spelling. So, here are some tips related to this kinesthetic aspect.

View:

When studying words, it is relevant to visualize the moments when they will be used (dictation, examination, writing of text). This creates an anchor point for memorization.

Write the words behind his friend's back:

The person who writes and the person who guesses the word must have a good knowledge of the spelling of the word to play this game effectively.

Spell the word by changing position:

For example, we say the first syllable is sitting, the second is kneeling, and the third is standing. It is also possible to move in space at each syllable, like jumping in hoops or taking big steps.

Writing is a movement in itself that must be memorized. This widely used technique is, therefore, very useful for increasing the orthographic lexicon.

In addition, although several tips exist, sleep can also directly help our children to learn. In addition, it is better to do several short repetitions than one longer to increase the effectiveness of long-term memorization.

Finally, the more your child will be involved in his learning and will be able to associate the elements with being learned in his daily life, and the more effective the learning will be. Nevertheless, it should not be misplaced that all children benefit from using more than one technique to learn their spelling words,. Believe me, the more diversified and enjoyable you make learning, the more pleasant the lesson period will be for your child learn vocabulary words that start with b.