The Elementary Spelling Book, being an Improvement on the American Spelling Book · Nos. 41–42 · Part 4: Accent, blends and new sounds
24. Double letters at the end: tell, kill, hill, kiss, cross
Goal: Your child reads and spells short words ending in ll, ss and other doubled letters.
You'll need
- The book, open to this table
- A slate, small whiteboard, or paper and pencil
What's in the book
No. 41 has tell, ebb, gill, kill, still, roll, dull, inn, skill, scroll, hill, shrill. No. 42 has push, guess, kiss, moss, brass, less, bliss, cross, lass.
The lesson, step by step
Review
Spell aloud: ball, staff, puff.
The pattern
More doubled endings: ll, ss, and a few others (ebb, inn). Notice that roll and scroll have a long o. Most of the others are short.
Read the table aloud
Read the table aloud together, a column at a time. You say a word, your child says it back while pointing to it. Then your child reads a column alone. Some of the words:
tell, ebb, kill, still, roll
dull, inn, skill, hill, shrill
push, guess, kiss, moss
brass, less, bliss, cross
Spell aloud
Now the old way: your child looks at a word, then spells it aloud and says it.
Sayc, r, o, s, s, cross.
Go down a column like this. Then cover the column, say a word, and have your child spell it aloud without looking.
Odd ones out
Point to "push": the u has a dot under it in the book, because it sounds like the u in "pull". Point to "guess": the u is silent. Let your child find these marks.
Dictation
Say each word, use it in a short sentence of your own, and say it again. Your child writes it. Try these: tell, kill, hill, roll, kiss, moss, less, cross.
Check together against the book. Any word that came out wrong goes on a card for tomorrow.
Wrap up
Your child writes three words with ll and three with ss from memory.