How I Teach Homeschool Spelling Without a Curriculum

Do you struggle to find a spelling curriculum that fits? Allow me to share with you the three tools I have used in our fifteen years of homeschooling to teach spelling effectively without a formal curriculum.

Years ago, in my search for the best spelling curriculum, I began to question if a formal curriculum is necessary for a child to be a good speller.

I wanted our kids to be good spellers, but individual workbook-style spelling lessons seemed like a lot of busy work to me. I didn’t want to waste my time (or my kids’ time) on something that may or may not work well.

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Spelling Is Easy?!

When I think back to learning spelling in grade school, it was the one subject that I liked because it was easy! We were assigned a new list of words on Monday, but the homework was the same every week.

Monday- Write the words 2x.
Tuesday, Write the words in a sentence.
Wednesday- Complete a spelling worksheet, crossword puzzle, word search, etc.
Thursday-Spelling Bee (Fun!)
Friday- Spelling test!

Although as a student I liked Spelling class because it was easy, I see it with different eyes as a parent.

This is a great way to teach spelling if you’re looking for ways to keep kids busy, but in my opinion, it’s not very effective at making kids good spellers. It’s busy work.

Writing isolated word lists seems to be a lot of busy work and wasted time. I would rather my kids learn to spell in the context of meaningful literature passages while also studying typical spelling patterns and rules.

What makes a child a good speller?

If you want your kids to be good spellers, have them write. Practice copywork, write stories, and let them play through writing.

Our kids will often make up plays, write letters to friends, or write imaginary stories. This is the kind of ‘play” writing that makes them stop and think… how do I spell this word?
Some may say, “My kids don’t play at writing.”

Remember, children can’t be good writers unless they are first immersed in literature. You can’t express what you don’t possess.

If you want your children to try their hand at writing, give them a wealth of rich stories from which to draw. If you read quality books to your kids throughout the day, their imaginations will come alive with ideas of their own.

Three Effective Spelling Tools

These are the three tools I have been using in our homeschool for fifteen years to help our kids learn to spell.

#1 Copywork

The regular practice of copywork produces so many great results, one of which is spelling.

The kind of copywork I’m referring to here is daily copywork as a long-term habit. I’m not talking about trying copywork for a few months or even a year. Copywork is an underrated, underutilized supertool.

When practiced as a daily habit, copywork is very effective in helping children learn to write well.

What skills are covered in copywork?

• Handwriting
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Vocabulary
• Good sentence structure
• Writing style and form

If you’re not familiar with copywork, it is simply the habit of hand copying selections of text from great authors.

Think about it. How do we learn to do anything? We observe someone who is doing it! Copywork challenges kids to copy the written work of excellent communicators.

Handwriting passages of excellent literature slows down the brain. I like to think of the example of riding somewhere in a car versus walking. When you are on a drive, you remember a certain number of landmarks along the way, but when you walk somewhere, you notice so many more details.

The physical act of hand copying has the same effect. It solidifies the details in your brain. And when you’re writing words in context, it adds further relevance.

How much should a child copy?

As a general rule, I have a child copy one sentence a day for first grade, two for second, and so on. If they want to do more, sure! This is a reasonable developmental goal for most kids.

Additional benefit of copywork

Does your child struggle to write common words? One frustrating comment I’ve heard from some homeschool parents is that their kids will sometimes easily spell words from the spelling lesson, but struggle to write common words.

The most common conversational words in the English language are not always included in formal spelling curricula. In copywork, however, common words and challenging words are both part of the lesson every day!

Perhaps the best benefit of all is that copywork is free and it takes little time! Homeschool families are often teaching multiple children, so if there is an easier AND more effective way to teach spelling, why not take advantage of it?!

Looking for copywork to use in your homeschool?

I have collected several copywork selections by season using passages from the Bible, excellent literature, poetry, and more! These FREE resources are what we use for copywork in our homeschool!

#2 Teach Spelling Patterns and Rules

In addition to daily copywork, I spend some time each week introducing our kids to common patterns and rules of the English language. We do this together during our Morning Time.

After a child has developed a regular practice of copywork, it helps to observe typical patterns in the English language.

Here are some examples.

1. When two vowels appear together in a word, the first vowel often makes its long sound, while the second vowel is silent. (boat, pain, peach, beat)
2. When followed by e, i, or y, c says /s/ and g may say /j/. Examples: cent, fancy, gem, giraffe, gym

Typical patterns like these help kids categorize words as they see them in a text.

25 Patterns and Rules We Use in Our Homeschool (FREE Printable)

If you would like to try the patterns and rules that I use with our kids, I’m happy to share them with you.

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3. You will get a success message with the PDF digital download link. Click on the link and print. Enjoy! Please note that these are for personal use only.

How I Teach This In Our Home

During Morning Time, I typically get out a whiteboard. I write the rule on the board (sometimes I have the kids copy the rule) and then I have them give examples. This generally takes about 5 minutes of our Morning Time.

You can read more about our Morning Time in these posts.

How to Simplify Your Homeschool With MorningTime
2025-2026 Simple Morning Time Notebook

#3 Dictation & Narration

The third and final tool I use is dictation and narration. Yes, I know that these are separate skills, but they are similar in that they can be used as checkpoints for spelling (and other writing skills as well).

After daily copywork and instruction in patterns/rules, have a child practice dictation and narration. In this order the child observes first and then writes.

Dictation

When I practice dictation with my kids, I randomly pick a piece of copywork that they have recently written and dictate it to them. They write it just as they hear me read it, spelling each word to the best of their ability. This is a good test of a child’s general spelling knowledge.

How I would NOT do dictation:

I have heard of some parents giving the same copywork for a child to write for a few days in a row, and then on the final day, dictating it to them to check how well they can spell.

Personally, I would not do it this way. Why? It’s boring! Who wants to write the same passage over and over again? Not me! It may be an accurate test of the words in that passage, but not a test of general spelling knowledge.

Narration

The art of narration is another hidden gem. It’s such a simple tool that I think people tend to either overlook it or overthink it, yet it is so effective that it’s worth making a regular part of your daily work.

Narrating is the practice of arranging events or ideas to explain yourself to another person so that you both can understand and have a shared experience.

I have our kids write a narration after they have read a text (or I have read it to them). Depending on their ages, I have our kids do one to two quality narrations per week.

Narrating is the highest level of critical thinking. They have to order and explain in writing what they have just read.

Among other writing skills, this is also a great way to measure general spelling knowledge! I ask our kids to read their narrations back to me. Together, we review and correct spelling as well as other writing skills.

If you’d like to know more details about how we cover narration in our homeschool, this blog post explains our step-by-step method.

How to Do a Charlotte Mason Narration In Your Homeschool

Teach Homeschool Spelling Without a Formal Curriculum With These Three Tools

As a recap, these are the three tools I use to teach our kids to spell effectively.

1. Copywork as a daily habit.
2. Spelling Patterns and Rules
3. Dictation and Narration

We’ve been practicing these for 15 years in our homeschool, and I’m happy with the results! What tips and tricks have helped you teach spelling to your kids? Comment below and share the helpful information!