Teaching the alphabet and spelling

Questions and answers
Teaching the alphabet and spelling

The question

Teaching the alphabet and spelling
Shirin Bazargan, from the message board
Hi. What is the best way to teach the alphabet & correct spelling of words to students up to 12? thanks.

Your answers

Gabriela Kabelková, The Czech Republic
Hello Shirin,
I teach the alphabet this way. I encourage children to write on blackboard as many abbreviations as possible. They all know the right spelling of following abbreviations [in our language English is used for the spelling of these DJ, UK, USA, NHL, SOS, CNN, FBI, OK, CIA, NBA, VIP, PC, DVD, TV, LP, LA and many others. Going through this list we learn how to spell particular letters. Bye.
(Editor's note. I use abbreviations too, and play a memory game in which the students have to say the abbreviations that are written on the board. As I go round the class I erase one of the abbreviations, but the student reciting must still say the missing ones. And so on, until the last student has to say them all, with perhaps only one still on the board. Finally, I wipe them all off, and in pairs the students have to write them down from memory. A useful and involving way to practice saying the letters of the alphabet)
Mahnaz Najibzadeh, Iran
Dear Shirin,
I am very glad to write to you about something that I have experienced for so many years. When I want to teach the alphabet, I try to teach words that start with the particular letters, i.e to teach "A" you must work on the words such as apple, ant, axe, arrow and, so on. It is a very useful way to teach. I hope you enjoy your teaching of the alphabet. Bye
Geoffrey Payne, UK and USA
I am teaching English to Spanish here in Florida and the first song should
be the "A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-La-Mena-Pee, etc. I learnt my alphabet with the song and every one loves to sing. If any body does not like to learn, they won't. It's that simple.
Sheryl Carvalho, Portugal
I've used this lesson successfully, many times in primary schools. Like Geoffrey Payne, I use the popular alphabet song. I break the song up as below for practice. ABCD EFG HIJK LMNOP QRS TUV WX Y and Zed
First, the whole group repeats each line after me (with rhythm). Then I split the class further so the groups take it in turns. Finally, we sing the whole song together.
I also group the letters by sound (this is based on a lesson from Business Objectives). We end up with 5 circles, labelled with words/pictures that have the same vowel sound as the letter (and that the kids already know). eg. A circle coloured 'red' with letters inside - flmnsxz. 2 letters stay outside the circles - o and r. The students are then able to practice individual circles/sounds.
I also like the idea in 'Little Wizzard' of showing the difference between sound/spelling. This uses words with 2 different sounds, written in stars. The kids then colour the stars red/green according to the sound. You could then get them to list the words in some way as further spelling practice.