Week 29: Practice Spelling with a Crossword Puzzle

Although adults usually think crossword puzzles are about solving clues and knowing obscure words, it turns out that crossword puzzles with picture clues can be great for helping kids practice spelling!

There are a number of ways crossword puzzle can help teach spelling:

• The number of boxes for each word tells the kids how many letters it is supposed to be. This is helpful for getting them to think about things like double consonants and silent E’s.
• Places where the words overlap can help give clues about the tricky parts of some words. In the puzzle above, a child may initially try to spell pencil P-E-N-S-I-L, but when they fill in the word ‘computer’, they will figure out that the s sound in pencil is actually a ‘C’.
• You can choose puzzles that contain words that are tricky for your child.
• Kids will have the chance to figure out for themselves when a word is spelled incorrectly, which is often much better than having a parent or teacher hovering over them correcting every mistake
• They’ll have fun solving a puzzle without even realizing that they’re learning!