The National Reading Panel found that teaching children to work with the sounds in spoken words helped them learn to spell, and that doing this with letters helped spelling much more than doing it without. A U.S. practice guide ties spelling teaching to the words a child actually writes.
The writing guide says spelling can limit the words a child chooses to write, because children may avoid words they cannot spell.
In the source’s own words“Spelling skills can affect the words students choose because they may be less likely to use words they cannot spell”
The guide says about 850 words make up 80 percent of the words children use in their writing.
In the source’s own words“A relatively small number of words (850) account for 80 percent of the words elementary-grade students use in their writing”
The guide says spelling teaching should be tied to the child's own writing, including words the child often gets wrong and words the child wants to use.
In the source’s own words“Students should be encouraged to learn words they frequently misspell, as well as words they wish to include in their writing.”
The guide says children should be taught skills for working out a likely spelling and then checking it.
In the source’s own words“Teachers also should help students acquire the skills they need to generate and check plausible spellings for words”
The foundational reading panel advises letting young children try to spell words by themselves, even if they get them wrong, as practice in using letter sounds.
In the source’s own words“encourage them to try to spell words on their own, even if they might spell the word incorrectly. This provides them with an important opportunity to practice applying their letter–sound knowledge.”
The National Reading Panel found that teaching children to work with the sounds in spoken words helped them learn to spell, and the effect lasted past the end of the teaching.
In the source’s own words“Teaching PA was found to help children learn to spell, and its effect lasted well beyond the end of training.”
The panel found that sound work done with letters helped spelling much more than sound work done without letters.
In the source’s own words“Teaching children to manipulate phonemes with letters exerted a much larger impact on spelling than teaching children without letters.”
The panel wrote that breaking a word into its sounds helps children spell words they do not know and remember spellings.
In the source’s own words“Segmenting words into phonemes helps children to spell unfamiliar words and also to retain spellings in memory.”
We read each of these ourselves on October 9, 2026. Follow the links to read them too.
“Can read simple words but cannot spell them”
Hear It, Write It is a full 10-day plan, with a short video that shows you every step. The goal: on day 10 your child writes short words they have never practiced, every sound in the right order, and reads each one back to check it. It is the goal, not a promise.
