Have you ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle?

The last time I worked on one was with my grandmother, who is a serious puzzle builder. She can pop in pieces quicker than anyone else I know. She’s got a method: she props up the box lid photo and uses it as a point of reference. Then she works on one area of the puzzle at a time.

It sure helps to have the box lid in front of you, doesn’t it? Pretty soon you “recognize” pieces when you see them laying loose on the table: “Hey, there’s a piece of the sky.” You can build the puzzle faster and with less frustration when you have the big picture in mind.

And that’s equally true when teaching spelling.

When you know what the big picture looks like and where all the little pieces fit in, your students benefit. Sounds complex, but it’s deceptively simple when the picture is drawn for you. Few teachers have been given this perspective on spelling.

In the last post I talked about the big picture of phonograms. Long vowel sounds are another area where you need to know about the big picture. You already know that the long vowel sounds are /A/, /E/, /I/, /O/, and /U/. But did you know that there are four different ways to make a long vowel sound? Check out this article for details on long vowels.

Keeping in mind how children learn best, introduce one spelling concept at a time.

You won’t teach all four ways of spelling long vowel sounds at once. Make sure that your student understands each concept and can apply it before moving on. Give the student a good number of spelling words that use the pattern you are teaching. For example, when you teach how to spell long e using the vowel team ee, give the student words such as deep, tree, week, queen, three, feet, green, and need. After he can easily spell these words, continue to review them by dictating phrases and sentences, and then move on to the next spelling concept. That’s the key: always move forward, yet always review past concepts.

And tell your students the truth.

I’ve seen spelling books that state, “This is how to make a long vowel sound” when they introduce the vowel-consonant-e pattern. This does the student a disservice because it only tells him part of the truth (one-quarter of the truth, actually!). By teaching your students all four ways to spell long vowel sounds, in a clear and systematic way, you will be giving them the whole truth–the big picture.

That’s what I LOVE.

That’s my favorite part about this method of teaching spelling–the big picture. It gives students the truth about English spelling. In Level One, students are introduced to short vowels in closed syllables and long vowels in open syllables. By the end of Level Two, students have been introduced to ideas such as the jobs of silent e, syllable types, and the topic of this article, four ways to make a long vowel sound–all in a practical, hands-on manner. This program goes way beyond the list-on-Monday, test-on-Friday school of thought.

And so, how about you?

What big picture plans can you set in motion to help your child learn how to spell? Once you get the big picture, the pieces all fall into place.