Many of us grew up memorizing weekly spelling lists. We studied on Thursday night, took the test on Friday, and (by Monday) forgot half the words.
If that sounds familiar, there’s a reason for it.
While memorizing spelling lists can help kids recognize words in the short term, it doesn’t build strong, lasting spelling skills on its own.
What memorizing lists does do
Spelling lists aren’t useless. They can help children:
Practice attention and focus
Recognize specific words
Prepare for spelling tests
But these benefits are temporary unless something deeper is happening alongside them.
The big problem with memorization
It focuses on memory, not understanding
When kids memorize words, they’re often learning that a word is spelled a certain way, but not why.
For example:
running
hopping
These words follow an important spelling pattern called the double consonant rule.
Without understanding spelling rules, children may memorize both but still struggle to spell new words correctly.
It doesn’t transfer to new words
A child might spell because correctly on a test but misspell it in a writing assignment the next week.
That’s because memorization:
Works only for practiced words
Doesn’t help with unfamiliar words
Breaks down during real writing
It encourages short-term learning
Spelling lists often follow this cycle:
Memorize
Test
Forget
This kind of learning rarely sticks because it isn’t connected to patterns or meaning.
How kids actually learn to spell
Strong spellers don’t memorize every word. They learn:
Spelling patterns (like CVC, CVCE, vowel teams)
Word families (play, played, playing)
Prefixes and suffixes (re-, un-, -ing, -ed
Rules and generalizations (when to double a consonant, drop an e, or change y to i)
These tools allow kids to spell thousands of words, not just the ones on a list.
Why writing matters more than tests
Spelling improves most when children:
Write often
Spell words in context
Make mistakes and talk about them
Writing shows whether spelling knowledge is usable, not just memorized.
What to do instead of (or alongside) lists
Spelling lists work best when they are:
Grouped by patterns, not random words
Connected to writing assignments
Paired with word sorting, word building, or sentence writing
For example:
Instead of memorizing hop, stop, drop, and run, kids compare words like hop → hopping, run → running, and jump → jumping to discover when and why the final consonant doubles.
The bottom line
Memorizing spelling lists can help in the short term, but it’s not how children become confident spellers.
Lasting spelling skills come from:
Understanding patterns
Seeing words in real writing
Practicing spelling as part of reading and writing, not as an isolated task.
