Making and Spelling Words {with umbrellas}

*This post contains affiliate links.

If you’re not familiar with Making Words by Pat Cunningham, let me just tell you that it is such a hands-on way to get kids making and spelling words. Just recently, we did a little review and practice spelling words with umbrellas. While you can purchase any of her ready-made making words books for your child, you can also try the do it yourself approach. Here’s how it works.

Making and Spelling Words with umbrellas

1. Pick a long word that would be familiar to your child. You want to pick a word that has common letters so that your child can spell smaller words from that longer word. I chose umbrellas.

2. Display the letters of the word all mixed up on your work space. (I chose our pocket chart.) This the “secret word”. In other words, do not tell your child what the word is, yet.

3. Ask your child to spell smaller words from that larger word. It helps tremendously if ahead of time, you play with the word some and pull out the words you’d like your child to spell. You want to pick words that have phonics features your child CAN spell with your help. (For umbrellas, I chose: am, ram, bam, Sam, same / all, ball, balls, mall, small / bell, bells, sell, smell. Notice that the words only change a little bit from one word to the next. I typed out each individual word I wanted him to spell on cards. The photo below shows you the words we had spelled once our lesson was finished, just so you can get an idea.)

3. One at a time, I called out a word. I started with am, then moved down each column. He pulled the letters he needed from the secret word (umbrellas) to spell each word, putting letters back up at the top when they weren’t needed.

After he spelled the word I called out, I placed the word card in the pocket chart so he could check it. He didn’t need many clues, as this was a review lesson, but if he did, I may have said things like, “Add one letter in mall to spell malls.” or “Change one letter of ball to make mall.”

4. After all the words had been spelled, we placed all the words in our pocket chart, sorting them by their spelling pattern (with -am words in one column, -all words in another column, and -ell words in another column, like you see in the 3rd image above.)

5. Figure out the secret word! Most kids like this challenge. If your child flounders with this, provide clues. The secret word starts with the letter u. The secret word has two l’s side-by-side in it. The secret word is something you use this time of year when it rains a lot.

6. Transfer to reading and writing (note that this step can be done on another day if it takes your child longer to spell the words). This is one of my favorite steps in this process because we all know “it is much easier to teach children phonics than it is to actually get them to use it” in real reading and real writing. (Phonics they Use) This step helps to solidify this process. I chose three more words, one for each spelling pattern, to get him thinking- jam (am), tall (all) and fell (ell). I posed it in problems like this:

Suppose you came across this word (show jam card). Which pattern on our pocket chart would help you read this new word? (am) He pointed to am and we placed jam under all the other -am words.

Suppose you wanted to spell the word tall in your writing. Which pattern could help you spell tall? (all) Now, spell tall.

Extensions for Spelling Words:

Once you and your child have worked on the word together, set your child free to try it again independently at another time (maybe the next day). Buggy and Buddy shows how her daughter did this with the word rainbows. You can totally adapt this activity for any word you’d like your child to spell.