Can using online chat to teach spelling appeal to kids? How do you do it?
I've spent quite a bit of time on Skype lately, and my 7-year-old has gotten a bit jealous. She really wanted to 'chat' too. So I decided to let her do a little bit of chatting herself.
I started up Gmail chat on the schoolroom computer and logged in on my computer in the other room. Although I was only a few feet away in the living room, Joely had a blast sending chats to me, telling me what she was doing.
But her chats weren't just for fun. When she'd spell a word incorrectly, I'd chat back with the correct spelling, and she'd take note of it. It was fun for her, a novelty, and she thought of it as a game — but she still learned to spell the words correctly. And my homeschooling-mommy self rejoiced!
All told, she only spent about ten or fifteen minutes on chat today, but in that time she learned how to spell the word accident, how to use the word too properly, and how to punctuate a noun of direct address. It was definitely time well spent.
You can see that more than just spelling can be learned by online chatting with your kids.