The Advanced Guide on High School Spelling

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People often wonder if spelling practice is necessary for high school students. Isn’t spelling lessons only needed for primary school students? Aren’t high school students familiar with all the spelling rules and patterns? Then what is the use of high school spelling lessons?

Spelling practices are necessary throughout our lives, even after graduating from school. University students and people in the professional fields also practice spelling for several reasons.

For those who have looking for a link to Grade Spelling Words and Spelling Bee Words in grade 10-12, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will discuss the necessity of spelling lessons and practices for students of grades 10 to 12 and provide tips and suggestions for students and teachers.

Why Is Spelling Important at The High School Level?

First thing first- why is high school spelling practice required? It is a common misconception that only beginner level students should be taught spelling. Obviously, students also think so which is why as a teacher, you need to teach your students first about the necessity of these lessons; otherwise, they will never actually be serious about this.

For Better Writing

Almost 85% of English words can be mastered with phonetic spelling, but the remaining 15% of words need other methods. It is a major concern for high school students to clearly express their thoughts, ideas, and arguments in their writing which often involve having a wide vocabulary range.

But just knowing words isn’t enough; one needs to be able to correctly spell those words and use them properly in their essays. That is why spelling lessons should still be included in the high school curriculum.

Spelling Mistakes Can Cost You a Job

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? But it’s true. Resume and cover letters are your first impression on the employer and spelling mistakes in them, no matter how small, can greatly damage that impression.

Many recruiting officers have stated that spelling mistakes in an official document mean that the person is not serious about responsibilities. If they are unable to write a simple letter without mistakes, how can they be trusted with complex situations?

Building an impressive resume is a must for high school students to get admitted into a prestigious university, receive a scholarship, land an internship or apprenticeship, etc.

They also need to write their letter of motivation to clearly state their future and explain why the authority should consider them as a worthy candidate. Spelling mistakes in such a crucial state will not be tolerated; therefore, the high school spelling curriculum should be taken seriously.

Spelling variations can be quite confusing at times too. Check these spelling variations examples to sharpen your spelling skills.

It Affects Our Ability to Communicate

Exactly how much of our communication is verbal nowadays?

Due to the text messaging services, emails and social media posts, a great portion of our communication is non-verbal. Though the ‘SMS language’ is trendy and easier to use, they are only appropriate in informal situations.

When you are communicating with an organization or someone in a different country, proper language must be used. Spelling mistakes in these situations can often lead to great danger.

For example, if you sent a foreigner some instructions about a machine or medicine, or gave the university the wrong address, the consequences can affect both parties.

Also, the issue with spelling mistakes in the job sector also applies here. Brochures, articles or a post published on social media won’t be trusted by the clients if they have spelling mistakes in them.

Spell Checkers Aren’t Always Trustworthy

There is a common joke about misspelling- “Have you ever misspelled a word so badly that even spell checkers couldn’t fix it?”

Spell checkers might find out misspelled words but not the use of inappropriate words. Those who do, often suggest removing “unnecessary words” such as ‘actually’, ‘pretty’ etc. which are in fact needed to better express the statement.

There are also issues with American English and British English that create unnecessary confusion. I have been corrected several times for writing ‘colour’, ‘behaviour’ or ‘neighbours’ by spell checkers available on the internet. It was not possible to select English (United Kingdom) in most of them.

Spelling lessons often include the usage of correct words and grammar rules which enable students to understand which word to use on their own. The biggest advantage of it, in my opinion, is that it saves time and effort.

It is easier to be able to detect the mistakes or know enough to not make the mistakes than writing whatever I want and running the whole essay in spell-checking software which is evidently not very reliable.

How To Design Effective High School Spelling Lessons?

Giving Age-Appropriate Curriculum

Spelling words, rules or patterns taught in high school will obviously be more complex than lower grades but, as there are 4 grades in high school, the curriculum should also divide the complexity level accordingly.

High school spelling lessons should involve words that don’t follow traditional spelling rules or are commonly misspelled.

It is also time to incorporate words from science, commerce, humanities, and arts fields. While teaching a new word, the teacher should consider its applications in the students’ future.

Here’s a fun way to learn spelling — Spelling Zappers. Check out our review on Spelling Zappers before trying the Spelling Zappers template.

Here are some words that high school students should know:

Absolve	Altruistic	Ambient	Antipathy	Archetype
Baccalaureate	Balsamic	Baroque	Brachial	Blasphemy
Camouflage	Canoeing	Carbohydrate	Cathartic	Conscientious
Decentralization	Delirious	Dichotomy	Dissemblance	Dromedary
Eloquence	Entourage	Equilibrium	Euthanasia	Evidentiary
Fatigue	Feasible	Flamboyant	Fluorescent	Frivolous
Genial	Geographical	Globalization	Gregariously	Grievance
Hallucination	Hierarchy	Homogeneous	Humiliate	Hypothetical
Illumination	Incandescence	Indigenous	Inheritance	Isotopes
Jaundiced	Jurisdiction	Juvenile	Kaleidoscope	Knowledgeable
Lethargic	Leviticus	Logarithm	Longitude	Luminous
Massacre	Meningitis	Metaphorical	Miniscule	Mythologies
Nautical	Nepotism	Neurology	Notoriety	Numerical
Obdurate	Obstetrician	Opaque	Outrageous	Ozonosphere
Palatable	Pasteurization	Patronizing	Phenomena	Philanthropist
Quarantine	Quarrelsome	Quasi	Questionable	Questionnaire
Referendum	Regime	Reservoir	Rhododendron	Rigorous
Sanguine	Scrumptious	Scrutinize	Shenanigans	Shrewd
Temperamental	Theological	Thesaurus	Threatening	Tyranny
Ultraviolet	Unanimously	Unconscious	Undermine	Utility
Vacillate	Vendetta	Ventriloquists	Vigorous	Volatile
Wharf	Whimsical	Whirlpool	Wholeheartedly	Whortleberry
Xenophobia	Xerophilous	Yearningly	Yielding	Yodeler
Zestfully	Zillion	Zirconia	Zucchini	Zygosis

You can find more words from SpellQuiz Printable Sight Word Lists where the word lists are divided into grades so that you won’t have to worry about complexity level. Check out the links below for spelling words lists:

There are multiple lists for each grade so that you run out of words to include in the spelling lessons. There are two types of word lists available on SpellQuiz-

This Spelling bee words lists are specially designed for spelling bee competitions so they will be of great help to the students that are preparing for such competitions. You can also use them in your spelling lessons.

Incorporating Spelling Words

As lots of words taught at this level are used as official terms in physics, chemistry, biology, music, geography, history, and many other fields, it is easy to incorporate spelling lessons into other subjects.

This way, students won’t need to put extra effort into learning spelling as the words will often come up in their everyday studies.

If you are a high-school student trying to master the spelling words, here are a few tips for you:

Always learn the definition and root of the words.
Highlight the words in your books.
Keep a separate notebook for unfamiliar words. Write down the definition of the word in the notebook for better understanding.

It won’t be appropriate to ask a high school student to spell a word loudly in each class. If you are a teacher, you should include these activities in your lesson plan instead:

Give them topics to write about and encourage them to use the words in their writing.
Arrange debates and tell them to use the words in their arguments.
Spelling games are mostly associated with younger students, but games like spelling bee competitions, scrabbles can be played with students of all ages. You can divide the students into groups and arrange a competition within the class.

Involving Traditional Ways

High-school students spend a good amount of time building their vocabulary as they sit for important exams such as SAT, ACT, GCSE etc. So, using traditional methods of teaching spelling is more fruitful for students at this stage than younger ones.

You can give them a word list, ask them to look up words in the dictionary and get a good output without hampering their interest which was not possible at previous stages. You should emphasize more on writing and reading spelling words to prepare them for the exams.

Regular Evaluations

At any grade, regular class tests or evaluating one’s spelling skill hardly has any other alternatives.

Traditional exams are indeed a good strategy to evaluate the spelling skills of the students, but you can try other methods too such as giving them assignments or taking online tests. SpellQuiz Spelling Tests can be of great help in this case.

Just like the words lists mentioned above, spelling tests are also divided into grades from 1 to 12 and available for adults. You can also check the vocabulary range of your students using the SpellQuiz Vocabulary Test. The test determines the level of one’s skill and suggests ways to improve it further.

Now that you can realize the importance of high school spelling lessons, try to design them with care as the focus of the course should not only be preparing the students for the exams but also helping them in their future ventures.

Happy Spelling!