125. Words nearly alike

The lesson, step by step

1. Look at the pattern

   Pairs of words that sound almost the same. The book's note says they are not exactly alike and should be told apart carefully: assistance and assistants, ingenuous and ingenious.

   The book puts it this way:

   NOTE.—These words are not exactly alike in sound, and should be carefully distinguished.

2. Read the pairs and their meanings

   Open the book. Read each word with its meaning aloud together. Some of the pairs:

   assistance, assistants

   deviser, divisor

   deference, difference

   ingenuous, ingenious

   lineament, liniment

   For each pair, ask: which one means this? Your child points to it.

3. Spell each pair aloud

   Your child spells both words of a pair, one after the other, and says how they differ (a silent letter, a different vowel spelling).

4. Write the word that fits

   Close the book. Read a meaning from the book, or use the word in a short sentence of your own. Your child writes the word that fits that meaning.

   Do eight or ten. Mix up the order so both words of a pair come up.

5. Check and correct

   Open the book and check each word together, letter by letter. For each mistake, your child looks at the right spelling, says it, spells it aloud, and writes it correctly three times.

   Add any word that was missed to a hard-words list.

6. Quick review

   Ask three or four words from the hard-words list, or from the last lesson if the list is empty. Words spelled right twice in a row can come off the list.