Today I’m sharing how my son with Down Syndrome is learning to spell. Surprisingly, there is very little information online on how to teach children with T21 to spell, and particularly how to spell beyond the CVC words. So here’s a post about my favorite methods and materials for teaching spelling to children with Down Syndrome.

As with all subjects, when teaching children with T21, it’s helpful to use the most incremental steps possible.  So, before I started teaching my son spelling, we did a lot of word building as part of our phonics lessons.

Word building (also known as word mapping) is an essential part of any phonics program because it deepens children’s understanding of  how phonics works. Word building also helps children orthographically map newly learned words so as to recognize them at sight. Thus, as children are learning to decode words, they should also practice building those words . 

If you are using First Steps with Phonics (FREE on this blog), you will find that it includes different word building activities designed for children with Down Syndrome that gradually lead to spelling.  

Spelling ultimately means recalling/writing all the letters in a word in the correct sequence. Spelling tends to lag behind children’s ability to decode phonetically.  For many children (with or without Down Syndrome) the three big challenges with beginning spelling are:

• segmenting (breaking up a word into its sounds), 
• remembering the sequence of sounds once the word has been segmented, especially for compound words and two-syllable words (short-term memory challenges make this difficult for some children)
• hand writing. 

As children move to more advanced spelling, additional challenges include:

• remembering the spelling rules and how to apply them
• remembering which phonogram to use when one sound can be created by different phonograms

The good news is that despite the challenges, many children with Down Syndrome become good spellers. 

My favorite spelling curriculum is All About Spelling. I have used it with all of my children. With some adaptations, my son with Down Syndrome is using it with great success so far. The teacher’s manual is very easy to use and the activity book has a variety of fun activities.

To address some of the challenges listed above, I recommend starting with lots of word building activities and gradually working up to spelling. Here are some activities and adaptations that we did:

• Use lots of pictures! This is a great piece of advice from the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation: Because auditory information is temporary unless it is remembered, give your child a picture of the word you want them to spell. This way, they do not have the additional burden of remembering the word as they are trying to spell and can look at the picture for a reminder. The Montessori Language Series Cards is a great resource for phonics and spelling, and provides pictures for every word in the series.

• Fill in the missing letters: you build most of the word and help your student choose and place the missing letters.

• Use  color coded pacing boards, so students see how many sounds they need to make. Use red dots for the consonants and blue dots for the vowels/vowel teams. The pacing board shows how many SOUNDS, not letters, are in a word. Vowel teams and consonant teams are treated as one unit because they make one sound. For example, in the word rain, there are four letters but only three sounds, with AI being a vowel team that makes one sound:

• Demonstrate how to segment words by saying each word very slowly, clearly enunciating each sound. Repeat these demonstrations as often as needed. Then have your student repeat the sequence of sounds for each word several times.
• If you have a student who is really struggling with segmenting (breaking up a word into its sounds), do the segmenting for the student and just have him/her choose the phonogram tiles to build the word. Eventually with enough demonstrations and collaborations (it may take months or more), your student will understand how to break up a word into its sounds.

• Use extra large phonogram tiles. The small phonogram tiles that come with All About Reading can be a fine motor challenge. The wooden Montessori movable alphabet is a good option if your student is working on simple CVC words.   However when your student is spelling words with vowel or consonant teams, phonogram tiles are better because they allow students to see vowel teams and consonant teams as ONE unit making one sound.

• Limit the number of phonogram tiles your child chooses from. You can even limit the number of phonograms tiles to just the phonograms in each word.
• Once your child has built a word with the phonogram tiles and pacing board, help him/her trace or copy the word on a piece of paper.

• Eventually, ask your child to spell the word out loud for you while you write it down. Then he/she can copy it.

• If your child can write letters independently without tracing or copying, encourage him to use  spelling frames. Spelling frames allow students to see how many sounds are in a word and the boxes give clues as to what letters to use and how to write them. Students can point to the boxes as they segment each word.

• To avoid b and d confusion, place starting dots in the b and d boxes of spelling frames.
• After a few days of practice using spelling frames, my son can spell the words independently without them:

CVC Word Spelling Frames can be found at Twinkl.   In future posts, I’ll be sharing spelling frames with pictures that I have made for my son.  For additional spelling practice with CVC words, see this FREE resource: Tracing and Spelling CVC Words.

Montessori spelling puzzles are a favorite activity in our co-op. The children have to put the letters in the correct order to make a picture of the word.

Dictation

One important activity in All About Spelling is dictation. The teacher dictates a short phrase or sentence (in the teacher’s manual), and the student writes it down. For students who have difficulties with handwriting and/or short term memory, this is a very challenging activity.  Nonetheless, I think dictation exercises the short term memory, and it’s worth doing with the following adaptations:

• read the phrase/sentence two or three times and have your student repeat it back to you several times
• invite your student to spell each word for you out loud, while you write the words down, then have your student copy or trace the phrase/sentence

• for variety and heightened interest, invite your student to make up his/her own sentence using one of the spelling words.

So there you have my favorite my favorite materials and methods for teaching spelling!

• All About Spelling Curriculum
• pictures of the words your student will spell
• pacing boards
• extra large phonogram tiles
• Montessori spelling puzzles
• spelling frames
• and lots of patience and practice!

Happy Spelling!

Update:

Spelling Frames are now available: