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Games to Play to Memorize Spelling Words

Spelling is an important building block to reading and writing. Motivate your students to memorize their spelling words using a variety of entertaining games in the classroom. Playing games that involve practice and repetition are key to helping your students become successful spellers.

Stencils and Stamps
- Give each student a set of letter stencils or stamps. Call out a spelling word and have her stencil or stamp the word on paper. Turn this into a game by having the children raise their hands when they finish. The first player to raise their hand with the correct spelling wins the game. Alternatively, call out all the words and award a small prize, such as stickers or pencils, to each player who spells all the words correctly.
Online Games
- KidsSpell.com offers online spelling games for students first through eighth grade, inputting your own list of spelling words or using the words on the site. The site includes easy games like Spelloons, in which students must click on balloons with the correctly spelled words, and harder games, like Letter Drop, which has students spell words using letters in boxes. Funbrain.com offers an online Spell Check game in which students must find the incorrectly spelled word in a group of words and the level of difficulty can be adjusted.
Index Cards
- Hand each student enough cards for all the spelling words. Education World suggests having the students write each word on a card, placing the cards face down on their desks and mixing them up. When you say ̶0;Go,̶1; they will flip over the cards and put the words in alphabetical order. The first player to finish and have the words in the correct order wins the game. Alternatively, have the children use the cards to write down a spelling word by writing one letter on each card. Mix the cards up and the first player to spell the word correctly using the cards wins the game.
Letter Games
- Place two sets of magnetic letters on a chalkboard or magnetic board. Select two children to stand at the board in front of each set. Call out a word and the first student to spell out the word correctly on the board wins the game. Have the entire class participate by giving them each a bowl of letter cereal; call out a word and have the students spell the word out on their desks. The first player spell out the word correctly wins the game.

Kids Games